We rank 10th in the league in rushing attempts. We rank 3rd in the league after last night in pass attempts, but many of the teams around us in that ranking have played one less game so that rank will probably drop after Sunday and Monday.
Rushing attempts have gone down since the bye week, but the NYG game is also the last time that we had any REAL success running the ball. In all the games since, we've either had very limited success (or none at all) or been behind a lot.
Tyron Smith missing 3 or 4 games definitely hurt us, but even since his return the running game has been bad. McGovern doesn't have the penalty problem Williams had, but he also appears to be nowhere near as good in the run or pass game as a blocker. Biadasz has struggled and Lael Collins has been horrible. Martin and Smith both rank high at their positions in terms of grade, but I'm not sure either is quite as good as they were previously, or even as good as they were earlier in THIS season.
I also don't think the lack of success rushing is solely because of how teams are playing us. I know teams loaded the box on some plays, but I didn't see a ton of 8 and 9 man fronts these past few weeks and we still couldnt get any push or open any creases. Maybe Denver did a little more but Atlanta, KC, Oakland and then New Orleans last night seemed to be stuffing us with just 6 or 7 guys up front.
