NFL Exhibition Running Game… 6 Questions for Sports Bettors

The NFL exhibition season is an opportunity for oddsmakers and bettors, alike, to look closely at teams to determine what they might be capable of at the start of the regular season. What an NFL team does in the preseason isn’t necessarily a good indicator of what will happen in the regular season, but careful observation can uncover some important clues to get a picture of what is likely. Following are six questions to help NFL bettors evaluate a running game during training camp and throughout the exhibition season:

1. How good was the running game last season? – This is an obvious yet often overlooked question. You cannot objectively evaluate how a squad is doing until you have a sense of where they were – a starting point for your analysis. If you don’t know what the football team was capable of last year with its ground attack, then you cannot effectively compare how they have improved and where they are worse off.

2. Is last season’s starter still the starter? – The life span of a running back in the NFL can be short, and the patience of a coaching staff can be even shorter. Hence, changes in the backfield can be frequent. If the starter from last season will still be starting at running back this season, you need to get a sense of whether they are still in their prime, or if they could be starting to decline. This kind of evaluation can be a difficult thing to do accurately. Yet you can get a sense from factors like how strong they were at the end of last season, if they lost any time to injury, and whether their yards per carry have been stable or improving from season to season or have declined in recent seasons. If the starter has changed then NFL handicappers need to look at why the change happened and whether the new back is an upgrade.

3. How is their depth in the backfield? – It’s very rare these days that football teams will rely on just one running back to carry most of the load. The team might have a couple of backs they spell off, or one player who they use in short yardage situations and another in open field situations. The preference of the coaching staff also matters – the schemes they ran in past seasons – and whether they have the personnel to fit those schemes this season. If they don’t, then either the players will have to change and adapt to new schemes or the coaches will have to change by adopting schemes better fit to the talent on hand this season. These types of adjustments can be very difficult to achieve by the start of the new season.

4. How is the offensive line? – A running back cannot run through gaps that don’t exist, so they are very reliant on the protection they have up front. The single biggest factor in considering how good the running game is, then, is how good the offensive line is. Was the line effective last year? Have they made changes or is it basically the same squad? Have the changes that have been made actually improved the line or possibly made it worse? Is the line healthy? How is the depth? Who is coming back from injury and who might still be banged up?

5. Can the passing game set up the run? – People often think of the football running game and passing game as being isolated from each other. Yet, when done well, both rely heavily on each other for success. If an NFL team has a weak passing game, then the opposing defense can key in on the running game and make their opponent one-dimensional. If the passing game is strong, then the running game will have more room to maneuver. As you would evaluate the changes to the running game, you must also consider how the passing game performed last year, how personnel may have changed, and what impact that will likely have on overall performance.

6. Has the coaching changed? – It goes without saying that some NFL coaches are better at planning and executing a strong running game than other coaches. Hence, some football teams are more likely to succeed than others at having a running game regardless of the personnel they have. A coach who is strong at the run could be more effective with a journeyman running back than a weak run coach could be with a star running back. Coaching matters and you need to consider the coaching staff in place and what they are likely capable of achieving. If coaching staff has changed in the offseason, then sports bettors need to consider what changes the new staff will be looking to make to the ground game, whether they have the personnel to suit their preferences, and if they have had the time to effectively make those changes.

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