Retro model doesn't fit modern game
An interesting trend was crystallized during last weekend's draft. Teams are trying to go retro, reaching back to pattern themselves after championship teams of the 1970s or the 2000 Baltimore Ravens. They are emphasizing the running game.
As it turned out, the 2008 draft enabled those thoughts to grow. It was a draft that featured offensive tackles and running backs, not wide receivers capable of taking an offense to the next level. Ten receivers went in the second round; none were selected in the first.
What concerns me, though, is the increasing belief that it's better to win on the ground than it is through the air. Obviously, if a team has a bad starting quarterback, the simple solution is to use more handoffs, eat up the clock and hope the defense can keep things close heading into the fourth quarter.
Let's not be fooled, though. The trend, despite the pass-prohibiting 2008 draft, is for passing offenses to thrive. Officials aren't calling as many ticky-tacky holding penalties, so quarterbacks aren't facing as many second-and-20 situations. Passing yards per game have been rising the past three years. Scoring is up for the past three years.
And, remember, to win a Super Bowl, you have to find a way to beat Indianapolis' Peyton Manning or New England's Tom Brady, the gold standard for quarterbacks in this league. Their teams score at least 24 to 27 points a game.
The Falcons, Lions, Panthers and Dolphins lead the charge of teams going retro. Panthers coach John Fox clearly is going back to the philosophical roots that took Carolina to the Super Bowl after the 2003 season. He drafted RB Jonathan Stewart and used next year's first-round pick to trade up for 322-pound tackle Jeff Otah, one of five 300-pound offensive linemen added to the team this offseason.
Of the four teams, the Panthers are clearly the closest to winning. They were 7-9 last season despite the loss of quarterback Jake Delhomme, who underwent Tommy John surgery. Delhomme should be back, and he needs to be, because the Panthers' only other option is undrafted second-year quarterback Matt Moore. Armed with an easy schedule, Fox hopes to pound Stewart and DeAngelo Williams behind his bigger offensive line and get to nine or 10 wins.
Where the theory breaks down is with the other three teams. Bill Parcells is rebuilding the Dolphins around physical left tackle Jake Long and whoever emerges among quarterbacks Josh McCown, John Beck and Chad Henne. And until one of these three emerges as a legitimate franchise quarterback, it's going to be a tough road for Miami.
Give the Falcons some credit, though. Even though free agency gave them the retro model with running back (Michael Turner) and reliable place-kicker (Jason Elam), they resisted the temptation to take highly regarded DT Glenn Dorsey and grabbed the best quarterback in the draft, Matt Ryan.
Then there are the Lions. They fired offensive coordinator Mike Martz, whose two-year legacy of passing brought Detroit's offense from 15.9 to 21.6 points a game, a number that could get many teams into the playoffs. Head coach Rod Marinelli, who has turned the offense over to offensive line coach Jim Colletto and added physical right tackle Gosder Cherilus, plans to pound the ball with Tatum Bell and third-round running back Kevin Smith.
Teams tend to forget this isn't 2000 or 1975. The 1970s was a running era because the game was too physical for passing offenses to thrive. Cornerbacks could knock down receivers. The only way to survive on offense was to match violence with violence and wear out the defense with running plays.
The Ravens won a Super Bowl in 2000 with Trent Dilfer at quarterback, but that came at the end of a horrible cycle of quarterbacks coming out of college. In the mid-to-late 1990s, teams sent undrafted quarterbacks to NFL Europe, and many of them came back as NFL starters. That's how bad things were until Manning, Brady, Donovan McNabb and others finally came to the rescue and created more pass-friendly offenses.
There are limitations to being just a top-10 rushing offense. Unless the top-10 rushing offense is equipped with a top performing quarterback, the system fails. The Raiders, under Lane Kiffin, finished sixth in rushing last year. They won only four games because of the poor play at quarterback. Over the past five years, the 49ers have had three top-10 running seasons. They went 7-9 in two of those seasons and 2-14 in another.
Normally, a top-10 rushing season pushes a team to anywhere between seven and 10 wins. What a team can do with that, though, depends on the play of the quarterback. The outside world tends to look at the Giants as a team that played good defense and won with a strong ground game. Let's not mince any words. They won a Super Bowl because Eli Manning stepped up at the right times and won games.
The NFL is still about the quarterback. That's not going to change. The 2008 season should be a study in figuring out the right way to win until that quarterback develops.
Based on the 2008 offseason, it makes sense to shift some focus to the ground game. It was a draft that produced 27 running backs. But the key is not to go overboard. It's like travel: Ground transportation gets you anywhere, but it's faster to go through the air.
John Clayton, a member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame writers' wing, is a senior writer for ESPN.com.
