More Valuable- An Explosive Running Back or a Big Play Receiver?

To those of us raised on the maxim that running and defense win championships, it may seem obvious that an elite running back is vital to a Super Bowl run. It may also seem obvious that a great running back can be the core of a team, whereas an elite receiver cannot.

Based upon what I've seen, it appears to me that elite, big play receivers will generally add more to an offense than will elite running backs. This post is not meant to denigrate the value of players like LaDainian Tomlinson or Adrian Peterson. Those guys undoubtedly add a ton to their teams. However, consider some quick facts:

1. Running backs' performance are reliant on more outside variables than are wide receivers' performances. As will be demonstrated in coming weeks, the performance of running backs are tied extremely closely to the quality of their offensive lines, especially the center and guards. Wide receivers tend to produce based more upon their own ability to get open quickly and make catches. One indicator of this is that a wide receivers' statistics stay more consistent when he moves teams, whereas when a running back moves to a new team, his numbers generally correlate more closely with those of the running back who preceded him on his new team than his own previous stats. This finding indicates that running backs are at least in large part a product of their surrounding cast (see James, Edgerrin). Be sure that Steve Hutchinson, Matt Birk, and co. got nice Christmas gifts from Adrian Peterson.

2. The amount of receiving yards per catch that a team averages is almost 4 times better a predictor of whether a team will win than a team's rushing yards per attempt.

3. Having a receiver that can stretch the field helps teams win, period. The four teams that had the most big completions, worth 25 yards or more last year? New England, Indianapolis, Dallas, and Green Bay, which just happened to be the four teams who had playoff byes. Cleveland and Arizona were also high on that list, and those two teams saw very encouraging progress last year. Something to think about for this year, perhaps...

4. The vast majority of NFL rushing attempts end up gaining between three and five yards. One of the traits that makes elite running backs stand out is how often they can break for a gain of more than five yards. Upon examination of the data, however, there is no correlation between the number of 10+ yard rushes a team has and the amount of points it scores, or the amount of wins that it gets. Yes, those big bursts are the ones that you will see on the highlight reels, but don't be fooled- the teams that get those big runs more often are actually no more likely to win games.

There is a mountain of additional data that I will get to, but when contemplating whether a team's offseason pickup of a receiver or runner will help a team more, let these facts be some food for thought.