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When Gary Kubiak told reporters that he valued the pass rush over the explosiveness of the running back before selecting DE Mario Williams with the first pick of the ‘06 draft, there was a common negative reaction among fans and football analysts across the country. How could Kubiak even think about passing up on one of the top-five college backs of all-time, a future hall-of-famer and, perhaps, the next Barry Sanders?

But Kubiak was smarter than his critics. He didn’t give in to the seductive appeal of a flashy skill player. He knew that running backs in the NFL are heavily dependent on their offensive lines and that a team’s success usually lies in its ability to pressure the quarterback, stop the run, and open up holes for its running back. If Kubiak wanted a marketable face for his franchise, he would’ve drafted Reggie Bush. But he decided that he wanted to win football games instead.

Football Outsiders provides, by far, the best statistical analysis of the NFL offered anywhere. Instead of using raw stats such as yards and touchdowns they use self-developed stats such as DVOA (Defense-Adjusted Value over Average) and DPAR (Defense-Adjusted Points above Replacement) to evaluate the productivity of skill players and specific areas of a team. To determine DVOA and DPAR, Football Outsiders uses every play of the regular season to analyze how often a team or player satisfies the optimal outcome for each specific play and situation. For instance, it’s easier for a team to gain yardage on 3rd and 15 than it is on 3rd and 2, therefore FO argues that a three-yard run for a first-down conversion on third and 1 is of much more value than an eight-yard run on 3rd and 15. For a better, more thorough explanation go to Football Outsiders and read for yourself.

FO also uses a stat they call “Adjusted Line Yards” (ALY) to rank how efficient a team’s offensive line is at run blocking. If you compare these rankings to the DPAR rankings for running backs, you can find out a lot about how productive a certain running back actually is. In studying these statistics, it’s apparent that a running back is far less important than his offensive line. For instance, when Edgerrin James ran behind the Colts’ #1 ranked O-line during the ‘04 and ‘05 seasons, he was a top-five back according to DPAR. However, when he moved to Arizona to run behind their 23rd-ranked O-line, he fell to 39th in the DPAR rankings. In fact, Edge has basically been a product of his O-line for much of his career. The following are James’s DPAR rankings during each season compared with the ranking of his offensive line. With the exception of the ‘01 and ‘02 seasons, the rankings were nearly identical:

2000: Edge – 2/43 (98th percentile) O-Line – 2/32 (94th percentile)

2001: Edge – 25/47 (47th percentile) O-Line – 9/32 (72nd percentile)

2002: Edge – 28/51(55th percentile) O-Line – 28/32 (12th percentile)

2003: Edge – 8/53 (85th percentile) O-Line – 7/32 (78th percentile)

2004: Edge – 3/51(94th percentile) O-Line – 1/32 (100th percentile)

2005: Edge – 4/53(92nd percentile) O-Line – 1/32 (100th percentile)

2006: Edge – 39/53(26th percentile) O-Line – 23/32 (28th percentile)

2007: Edge – 21/56 (62nd percentile) O-Line – 8/32 (75th percentile)

The point is that running backs are not near as important as their offensive lines. Average backs, like Edgerrin James, usually play to the level of their offensive lines. Above average backs consistently rank higher, and below average backs still rank poorly despite who they’re running behind. The same can be said for receivers as they are just as heavily dependent on their quarterbacks. So, according to this data, if a team wants to improve their offense for the long run they should go after two areas: the offensive line and the quarterback. Everything else should fall into place thereafter.

The fact that offensive lines usually dictate the success of their running backs is the reason why Kubiak’s draft pick was so great. He knew that the addition of a running back wouldn’t win the Texans any extra games and that if he really wanted to make their running attack more explosive, he should acquire better linemen, not an undersized rookie back.

In addition, Reggie Bush’s poor performance in the NFL hasn’t drawn enough attention. In 2007, he ran behind the 8th ranked offensive line in the league and still finished ……………… wait for it ………………. 56th out of 56 backs acoording to DPAR. His DPAR figure was -8.9, which means his performance was 8.9 “points” worse than the NFL’s average backup. It’s difficult to express how terrible that actually is.

Don’t be surprised if Reggie Bush’s NFL duties are reduced from starting Running Back to full-time Kick Returner over the next few seasons. I’d say Gary Kubiak knew exactly what he was doing.