Clarification: Play-Calling, Balance, and 2006 Red Zone Production

I noticed in several comments regarding my most recent article on red zone production that some people have concluded from my analysis that play-calling was not a problem. At bottom, that's wrong.

We were "balanced," by most definitions of the term, offensively inside the red zone in 2006. However, never think that being statistically balanced in terms of a run-pass ratio means that play-calling is therefore, by extension, good.

You have to realize that effective play-calling and offensive balance are two very different, and often unrelated, concepts. Effective play-calling involves calling the correct plays based on what the opposing defense does, and whatever objective you are trying to accomplish at the time (whether it be scoring points, controlling the ball, or running out the clock). You can be balanced offensively and still have horrible play-calling.

For us in 2006, it means that when people say that play-calling wasn't bad based on my previous red zone analysis, they are wrong and mis-interpreting what the analysis really says.

What I did find in the analysis was that the "conservative" argument for our red zone struggles was not true. The argument goes something like this: The offense did fine until we got in the red zone, and for whatever reason, Shula and co. ran the ball entirely too much, opposing defenses knew what was coming, and they easily stopped it, hence our red zone troubles. And that is demonstrably false. The truth is, we were very balanced in the red zone, it's just that neither the run or the pass worked particularly well. And actually, believe it or not, we had more success running the football in the red zone than we did throwing the football. Running the football netted, on average, 1.98 yards per carry, while passing the football we only netted, on average, 1.56 yards per carry. Moreover, passing players much more often than running plays resulted in very bad plays, such as fumbles, turnovers, and large amounts of lost yardage.

But does that balance mean play-calling was good? Again, no. Play-calling, despite being balanced, may well have been terrible in 2006. In fact, given the overall incompetence of the Shula regime, I very much expect that it was terrible, but we can't prove that one way or the other with the data I have compiled at the moment.

Though we were balanced, I imagine that play-calling was indeed a major problem with the lack of production of our 2006 red zone offense.