Upon hearing that Marshall Faulk officially retired, I was curious to see his place in history. Whenever I want historical information, I start at the excellent website Pro Football Reference. What I found on Faulk was what you would expect, namely he was an amazing player. More interesting was a finding on this page dealing with various leaders in yards from scrimmage. Much to my surprise, Faulk's replacement in St. Louis, Steven Jackson, gained the fifth most yards from scrimmage in history during a single season.

I watch a fair number of Rams games and was well aware that Jackson had a Pro Bowl-caliber season, but I did not realize he was doing anything historic. His total ranked only behind Faulk himself in 1999, Tiki Barber in 2005, LaDainian Tomlinson in 2003, and Barry Sanders in 1997. Not bad company at all.

Looking at those five dates, however, gives immediate pause as to the historical significance of Jackson's efforts. Quite simply, today's NFL places increased pressure on a single running back. Furthermore, the running back is featured in the passing offense at a much higher rate. Of the top 21 yards from scrimmage seasons of all time, 16 have taken place in the last 10 years. Even more amazing, four of the top 21 took place last season. Tomlinson ranks sixth all time, Larry Johnson 19th, and Frank Gore 21st.

What struck me about that total is that this was the year that the NFL was supposedly buying into multiple running backs. The presence of four split-carry situations in the Conference Championship Games led to numerous articles praising this phenomenon. Many at Football Outsiders have been calling for this sort of arrangement for years, in large part to avoid wearing down the primary back. I wanted to believe it was true, but a deeper look shows that radical change is not likely coming.

The copycat NFL was supposed to follow this trend, but two months into the off-season, it appears that the teams in the Conference Championship game themselves are not even following the trend themselves. The Super Bowl Champion Colts let Dominic Rhodes leave in free agency without much of an effort to retain him and with no obvious in-house solution to replace him. The Bears traded Thomas Jones to the Jets for draft picks and have no established back-up to Cedric Benson. The Patriots cut Corey Dillon leaving only Laurence Maroney and third-down back Kevin Faulk. Only New Orleans kept both of their running backs, and there, Reggie Bush's versatility makes it easier to play them both at the same time.

Of course, we could have seen this coming. As recently as 2005, the Colts gave 360 carries to Edgerrin James while the Bears gave Jones 314 in 15 games. The Patriots in 2004 gave Dillon 345 in 15 games. Clearly those coaching staffs were not afraid to ride a workhorse back. All three will have at their disposal young legs to lean on next year and will likely push those backs hard.

Overall last season, 10 running backs had 300 carries compared with 10 in 2005 and nine in 2004. Of the 9 in 2004, five have since missed at least six games in a season due to injury. Admittedly, these numbers are down from the peak of 13 in 2003, but that year was the exception. Nine backs had over 300 carries in both 2001 and 2002.

The failure of teams to adapt appears to be a mistake. The success of the playoff teams can easily be explained by other factors; the teams had three of the game's five best quarterbacks for one. More persuasive is the fact that of the top 10 teams in rushing offense DVOA, only two had a running back with 300 carries, San Diego with Tomlinson and New York with Barber. Of note, their back-ups, Michael Turner and Brandon Jacobs, ranked first and eighth in DVOA (value on a per play basis) indicating that the offensive lines played a large role in each team's overall ranking.

Still, despite the success of these teams who split carries, the workhorse back appears here to stay. As long as that workhorse is also factored in the passing game, the single-season leaderboard for all-purpose yards will remain in constant flux. Jackson may yet suffer the same fate as William Andrews. The former Atlanta Falcon ranked sixth on this list from 1985 to 1997 and now finds himself 22nd.

Hopefully, Jackson does not mimic Andrews in another way. Coming off a 331 carry, 56 catch season in 1983, Jackson blew his knee out in training camp the next season. He gained only 249 yards from scrimmage the rest of his career.

Post by Ned Macey

Michael Perez: Looking through the DVOA rankings for wide receivers, Torry Holt seems awfully far down on the list, including a negative DVOA!  Though Rams games are not ones I watch consistently, I was under the anecdotal impression he was a top tier receiver.  Is he overrated?

Aaron Schatz: Interesting question. We've always thought of Torry Holt as a top tier receiver -- in fact, as perhaps the most consistent top tier receiver. From 1999-2005, Torry Holt had more combined DPAR than any other wide receiver in the NFL, and he led the league in DPAR as recently as 2003.

However, there's no question that his numbers have slipped in the last two years. Before 2005, Holt had never averaged less than 14 yards per catch, but he averaged 13.0 in 2005 and 12.8 n 2006. The other thing to drop was his catch rate. He caught more than 60% of intended passes every year until 2006. Last year, he caught 52% of intended passes, the lowest of anyone on the Rams.

There's a reasonable argument to be made that Holt isn't playing any worse. What we are seeing here may be the focus of defenses moving over the past two seasons from treating Holt and Isaac Bruce as equals to acknowledging that Holt is now the superior player.

But it's also interesting to look at the game charting for last year. We have 9 drops listed for Holt, and only 2 for Bruce. We also have three incompletes listed as "Miscommunication," with none for Bruce.

The strangest result is in the category of "Overthrown." 26 of the 78 charted incomplete passes to Holt are marked as Overthrown. Only 6 of the charted 44 incomplete passes to Bruce are marked as Overthrown. Only 3 of the combined 22 incomplete passes charted to Shaun McDonald or Kevin Curtis are marked as Overthrown. I have no idea why Holt would be easier to overthrow than the other receivers. Some of these are deep routes, but not all of them.

Anyway, put it all together and I think we get a combination of tighter coverage, a slight slowdown as Holt passes the age of 30, and a somewhat fluky one-year case of the dropsies.

Thanks for the question.

Post by Aaron Schatz 

Every Sunday, the writers at Football Outsiders e-mail updates and analysis to one another on all the NFL action as it happens. Here's what we were talking about this week:

"McNair got the snot knocked out of him, almost literally. You can see that he was holding his hand up to his face as he woozily walked off the field. Sometimes, guys will get hit hard enough to make things in the sinuses move around. Lesson to players? Blow your nose good before the game."

"Somewhere along the way, the Eagles removed all 10-25 yard passes from their playbook. They have the screen, the short cross, and the 'McNabb hold the ball a long time and throw a bomb'.play."

"Give the Saints credit. Their offensive line is better than anyone expected, and their linebacking corps is not as bad as it looked like it would be at the start of camp."

"The Lions actually looked like a competent NFL team today."

"Is there any sort of fake LaVar Arrington won't fall for? Do his teammates laugh each week when Arrington comes to practice and shows off the watches he bought on Canal Street, or do they just accept it at this point? How much money has he sent to Nigeria?"

"The Texans are no better than they were last year. Andre Johnson is a stud, and the rest of the team is a mess."

"Sports Illustrated had a player pool of who was the top wide receiver in football, and Torry Holt was in the equivalent of "others receiving votes." What a joke. He's a great receiver. Great hands, great routes. He abused the Seahawks throughout the game. He's on his way to his 7th straight 1300 yard season."

"Seattle takes the lead for the first time in the game in the fourth quarter after Kevin Curtis fumbles a kickoff return and Matt Hasselbeck throws to Deion Branch in the end zone two plays later. I need a beer."

"Jeff Fisher was celebrating this win like it was the Music City Miracle. Small victories..."

"In six of the eight early games, the underdog won outright."

"Remember: Just as Kansas City is not as good as they looked against San Francisco, they are also not as bad as they looked today."

"I usually don't root for the Steelers. But I'm enjoying this beat-down."

"The refs called unsportsmanlike conduct on Larry Johnson for flipping Troy Polamalu's hair after the hair-pull tackle. Ridiculous. Like I told my wife: either put it in a bun or cut it if you don't want people doing that to you."

"The Jets managed to keep Ronnie Brown under 6 yards a carry today. Pretty good day for them."

"All I feel for Raiders fans now is pity. Were the NFL ever to take a team into receivership, this might be the one."

For more, read Audibles at the Line at Football Outsiders.

Post by Mike Tanier

The NFL has added a few things to the official play-by-play this season, and one of the new stats is quarterback hits. These are now counted by looking for the defender's name in brackets after a pass. For example:

2-15-BLT 20(15:00) 9-S.McNair pass short middle to 85-D.Mason to BLT 25 for 5 yards (59-D.Edwards) [56-S.Merriman].

...means that Edwards made the tackle on the complete pass, but Merriman knocked McNair to the ground after he threw it.

Now that four weeks are in the books, I decided to go back and look at which teams and players were leading the league in this category, now that the data is finally available to the public. Here are your 2006 HIT leaders so far:

NE 28
CLE 23
BAL 21
DEN 17
TB 15
NO 14
STL 13
JAC 12

At the bottom is Detroit, with 3.

That list makes some sense, but it's a little odd. Cleveland doesn't exactly scare anyone on defense this year, and could the Patriots be that far ahead of the rest of the league? Anyway, I went to look at how many HITS had been recorded in each stadium so far this year, and here are your leaders:

NE 43
CLE 33
TB 22

Every other team in the NFL is between 2 and 16. Methinks that the official scorers in New England and Cleveland may not have the same definition of HIT as everyone else. This isn't an issue of those defenses, specifically -- the Pats have 23 HITS, their opponents 20, so the HITS are being divied up equally. There are just a few too many of them.

Anyway, these numbers can still be interesting, as long as we except that they are going to be a little off for New England, Cleveland, and (to a smaller extent) Buffalo, Denver, Baltimore, and New Orleans (the four opponents in Foxboro and Cleveland this season). Here's your list of which players lead the league in HITS so far:

L.Little, STL 7
K.Lang, DEN 6
R.Colvin, NE 6
K.Wimbley, CLE 6
R.Seymour, NE 5
C.Kelsay, BUF 5
K.Vanden Bosch, TEN 5
D.Ware, DAL 5

Of course, a quarterback is not hit only when making a pass. Sometimes, he'#### before a pass. If we're truly going to count quarterback hits, we should be counting sacks as well. (We could count scrambles, but I'll save that for another day.) Counting HITS + sacks, with 1/2 sack counting as a whole hit -- it isn't like you only knock down half a quarterback -- here are your QB HITS leaders:

L.Little, STL 10
B.Scott, BAL 10
K.Wimbley, CLE 9
R.Seymour, NE 8
C.Kelsay, BUF 8
B.Young, NO 8
A.Kampman, GB 8
T.Harris, CHI 8

I should note that I'm counting here both plays that counted and plays that were cancelled by penalties -- the quarterback feels that hit whether the offense gets a free five yards for illegal contact or not.

Finally, here's a list of quarterbacks who lead the league in HITS and SACKS. Again, no scrambles here, although I can make a list including those later in the season.

S.McNair, BAL 37
C.Frye, CLE 36
K.Warner, ARI 32
D.Culpepper, MIA 28
T.Brady, NE 28
J.P.Losman, BUF 28
C.Palmer, CIN 24

And down at the bottom, for QBs who have started every game:

D.Bledsoe, DAL 11
R.Grossman, CHI 11
P.Rivers, SD 3

Yes, the San Diego offense is the only offense in single digits for HITS plus SACKS. Impressive.

Bonus points if you know who sings the song that provides the title for this post! 

Post by Aaron Schatz

With the signing of Morten Andersen, the Michael Koenen experiment in Atlanta is now over. Koenen will punt, kick off, and handle any 50-yard field goal attempts. Andersen will take care of the short stuff. And Frank Corral remains the last player to serve as both a punter and a kicker for a full season.

Corral kicked and punted for the Rams in 1980 and 1981 after kicking for the team in his first two seasons. He finished seventh in the NFL in punting average and converted 17-of-26 field goal attempts 1981. But one awful game took away his job security. Corral missed three field goals and had a fourth kick blocked in a 20-17 loss to the Niners. The Rams entered that game 4-3. They would finish the season 6-10.

The next off-season, the Rams brought in youngsters John Misko and Mike Lansford to punt and kick, respectively. The Rams had signed young "camp kickers" in the past; Corral would rest his leg during training camp and coast through preseason games. But in 1982, the Rams started tracking the progress of their three kickers carefully. Corral didn't ramp up his effort in response to the new competition. "I wasn't going blow-to-blow with those guys," he told The Sporting News. "They were kicking the thunder out of it. If I tried to do that, I could have blown my leg and ruined my career. Besides, I've never been a pretty practice kicker." Misko said that he easily outpaced Corral on punts. "Let's face it, he's not Ray Guy," Misko said.

The Rams didn't mince words when they released Corral in favor of Misko and Lansford before the 1982 season. "Frank never came down to practice once during the off-season," Rams coach Ray Malavasi said. "Then when he comes to training camp he simply goes through the motions. Maybe he'll learn from this."

Corral (who was born in Chihuahua, Mexico) fired back at his former coach. "Ray can say that I'm a dumb, dirty, bean-eating Mexican, but don't fool the public and tell them I can't kick anymore," he said in The Sporting News. But Corral, whose $125,000 was high for a kicker of the era, would never kick or punt in the NFL again. Misko punted for three years in Los Angeles but wasn't very good. Lansford kicked for the Rams throughout the 1980s. Their 1982 salaries combined were less than Corral's. Ironically, the Rams ditched their kicker-punter for the same reason the Falcons created theirs: to save money.

(For more on Koenen and other two-way kicker-punters, read this week's Too Deep Zone, running Friday on FoxSports.com and Football Outsiders.)

Post by Mike Tanier