Quote Originally Posted by SidSmythe View Post
How about looking at our awful Running Game over those years. So far this year Tom Brady has NO ONE to throw to but the Patriots top 3 RBs are averaging 4.5/carry. It certainly helps to be able to run the ball in order to pass the ball and overall score points.
Interesting as well. If you look only at avg yds/att for each season over that time it was nearly flat up to 2012 at ~4 yds/att. (2012 dropped to 3.7 yds/att).
But, a little closer look revealed an interesting downward trend that tracks with the original decline:

Rushing yds/att 2nd half only:
2004: 4.0
2005: 4.4
2006: 4.3
2007: 4.2
2008: 3.8
2009: 4.2
2010: 3.9
2011: 3.6
2012: 3.7
2013: 3.5

Rushing 1st downs show the same decline over this period. Maybe this is what the FO saw and has been pushing to build back, running game... seems to correlate well with points scored.