By the numbers: How good can the Raider rushing game be?

By Os Davis  |   Wednesday, August 20, 2008  |  Comments( 18 )

Oakland Raiders
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You don’t have to be a fan to admire the heck out of what the Oakland Raiders have cooking in the running game for 2008. Seeming rookie of the year shoo-in Darren McFadden (that sound, incidentally, is No. 20 steadily moving up fantasy draft boards across the country) and No. 3 option Michael Bush ran at will last weekend in the Titans game, putting in performances equaling over 5.0 yards per carry. That chased a preseason-opening show which had McFadden totaling an even 4.0 yards per attempt and Justin Fargas (five carries, 25 yards) looking like he hadn’t missed a step from his breakout year of 2007.

Though the verdict is still (still!) out on future leader JaMarcus Russell, the truth is the Russell-McFadden combo already looks as slick as though these guys have been playing together since high school. And while it’s still (way) premature to even get fuzzy reception in the crystal ball on the fortunes of this year’s Raiders, the early running-at-will success of the silver and black bodes great things for ground-first Oakland.

How good can the team's running game get? The following represents a few statistical yardsticks by which we’ll certainly be measuring the NFL’s potential top threesome at halfback in 2008 come the final whistle.

• 2,086. This represents the total yardage amassed by the Raiders in rushing last season; with Fargas leading the way with 1,009 (an ultra-convenient measuring stick in itself, eh?), Oakland chose to run an eyebrow-raising 53 percent of the time. Moving the ball on the ground on 508 of 959 plays from scrimmage (not including punts) despite usually trailing is a trend that figures to stay in what Anthony Carroll recently dubbed “ Kiffin’s not-so-exciting ‘O’"][Lane] Kiffin’s not-so-exciting ‘O’” in 2008. Last year’s numbers gave the Raiders the fourth-most rushing attempts and sixth-most yardage in the NFL; with McFadden looking as good as advertised, reckon the league’s best 1-2-3 combo to give Oakland a top-three running game this season.

• 1,759. Back in 1985, Marcus Allen set the gold standard for Raider running backs in garnering just under 4.63 (!) yards per carry while toting the rock 380 times. While today’s en vogue rotation system pretty much guarantees no one except LaDainian Tomlinson and Adrian Peterson will approach this number of attempts in 2008, the McFadden/Fargas combo pumping up last season’s 4.1 yards per carry to resemble something more akin to Marcus’ mark hardly seems impossible. (Incidentally, such an average would fatten the Oakland rushing game to just over 2,350 yards on the season, or 147 per week, based on last year’s game plan: This would have been good enough for No. 3 in the league in 2007, chasing the similarly run-obsessed Minnesota Vikings and Jacksonville Jaguars.)

• 14 and 31.5. More important than Allen’s yardage mark in 1985, however, was his scoring; on 441 total touches that year, Allen notched 14 TDs, good for one six-pointer every 31.5 plays. Oakland’s three-headed monster of Fargas, LaMont Jordan and Dominic Rhodes put the ball in the end zone just eight times (and not once through the air) on over 500 carries plus receptions for a woeful ratio of one TD per 62.5 touches. Can doubling the team’s scoring efficiency turn a 4-12 club into a 12-4 Super Bowl contender? You bet.

• 1,025 (in 14 games). Forget Allen and his franchise records for just a moment. Truth is, Raider management would probably be thrilled if McFadden could just top this number, the most yards totaled by an Oakland back in this decade, believe it or not. Said standard was established in 2005 by Jordan, a guy who based on the preseason could be looking at a comeback player of the year nomination with the New England Patriots. Could McFadden average a measly 3.8 yards per carry while not even playing out the string in 2008? Reckon it’s more than possible from a rookie who sported an insane 5.63 yards per carry with the Arkansas Razorbacks and playing behind blocking that’s got to be better than that of the 2005 Raiders.

• 1,014. Speaking again of Allen, this is the yardage the man ran up in his sophomore year, his first as a starter. This was back in the Super Bowl-winning season of 1983. Just saying ...

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About Os Davis

Os Davis has taken a twisted route to get to RealFootball365.com in his nearly 17 years in professional writing, working in any number of capacities in the sportswriting, news reporting and film criticism worlds. In print media, Os has served as editor at a few publications, including Albuquerque's ...
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