Hogs Haven
Statistical clues about what needs to improve
With the Super Bowl out of the way, and the 2025 offseason officially underway, thoughts now turn to what areas need to be the focus of GM Adam Peters’ efforts to consolidate and build on the tremendous gains that were made in the Commanders’ historic first year of the roster “recalibration”.
The focus on offense will be building around superstar QB Jayden Daniels to support his continued growth and maximize his already impressive talents. It is said that a potent running game is quarterback’s best friend. On first glance, it would appear that the Commanders have that one covered, as the team ranked 3rd in the league in total rushing yards, 4th in rushing TDs, and 4th in rushing average. They ranked 4th in the league in regular season rush EPA, and tied for 2nd in rushing Success Rate.
However, rather than the running game helping to ease the QB’s load, it could be argued that it was more the other way around. Jayden Daniels was the team’s leading rusher, accounting for 891 (34%) of the team’s 2,619 rushing yards in the regular season. Taking QB rushing stats out of the equation, this is how the Commanders’ other runners compared to the rest of the league in terms of rushing average (Y/A):
Removing Jayden’s and Marcus Mariota’s rushing stats drops the Commanders from 4th to 10th place compared to the rest of the league’s non-QB rushing attacks. While that is a fair drop, Washington remains in the top third of the league. So you might think that fixing the rushing attack wouldn’t rank highly in the list of offseason priorities.
Of course, that is just based on season average figures. A slightly deeper look into how the season unfolded reveals some weaknesses in the Commanders’ rushing attack, outside of the QB position.
The Commanders’ running backs got off to a good start to the season, averaging over 4.5 Y/A in 5 of the first 8 games, with very strong games against the Giants (Week 2, 6.84 Y/A), Cardinals (5.65 Y/A), Browns (6.24 Y/A) and Panthers (5.65 Y/A). Things started to fall off for the running backs around midseason. From the Week 9 Giants game, the RBs only averaged more than 4.5 Y/A twice, in the Week 13 Titans game (6.47 Y/A) and the Divisional playoff game against the Lions (5.28 Y/A). In the final 12 games of the season, the RBs averaged below 4 Y/A 9 times, with sub-3 Y/A games against the Steelers (2.89 Y/A), Saints (2.96 Y/A), Eagles (Week 16, 2.13 Y/A; NFC Championship 2.68 Y/A), and Buccaneers (Wild Card playoff, 2.32 Y/A).
So, the RBs’ season average of 4.54 Y/A is buoyed by 6 games in which the Commanders ran up big rushing totals against mostly weak defenses, and obscures the fact that they had several weak performances, not all of which came at the hands of strong offenses (e.g. 3.33 Y/A v 30th ranked Cowboys Wk 18, 2.96 Y/A...
