Saturday night in at the Los Angeles Coliseum it was a showdown

between the Los Angeles Rams and the Dallas Cowboys George Fant Color Rush Jersey , with the victor getting the opportunity to advance to the NFC Championship Game against the victor of Sunday’s game between the Philadelphia Eagles and New Orleans Saints. The Rams brought their high powered offense to the game to take on the Cowboys stout defense, a defense that just a week before had stymied the running game of the Seattle Seahawks by consistently beating the Hawks up front. While the Hawks could never get their ground game going, finishing their Wild Card appearance with just 73 rushing yards, the Rams ran wild on the Dallas defense. L.A. put up nearly four times as many rushing yards as the Hawks had in the previous week, tallying up 273 rushing yards against what had been a top five defense against the run. In any case, that brings up the question about what was so different between the two games that led to the stark contrast in performances? Obviously, as in any such explanation, there are a myriad of variables that come into play for analysis, but the simple version is that the Cowboys stacked the box to stop the run more against Seattle than they did against the Rams. I won’t waste too much time explaining the data, as it seems easier to simply lay the data out to be looked at. So, here are the rushing attempts by the Seahawks running backs against Dallas in the Wild Card game with the yards gained and the number of defenders in the box. Seattle rushing attempts against Dallas in Wild Card with box countsDrive and PlayWild CardOffensive BlockersBox DefendersDrive and PlayWild CardOffensive BlockersBox DefendersAnd then let’s look at the data for the Rams in their triumph over the Cowboys. Rams rushing attempts against Dallas with box countsRush Attempt NumberRunnerBox CountYards GainedRush Attempt NumberRunnerBox CountYards GainedIn short, let me break it down very quickly and look at how each of the teams performed against different boxes. Rushing stats against box counts for Seahawks and Rams versus CowboysBox CountSeattle Percentage of Rushing AttemptsSeattle YPCLA Percentage of Rushing AttemptsLA YPCBox CountSeattle Percentage of Rushing AttemptsSeattle YPCLA Percentage of Rushing AttemptsLA YPCBasically, as others have shown elsewhere Rashaad Penny Color Rush Jersey , the best way to generate a consistently good running game is to run into lighter boxes, and that is what the Rams offense does. Sean McVay and company spent the regular season fostering an offense that gets receivers open and creates the threat of scoring from anywhere on the field on any play. That means that defenses have to respect that, because while only barely ten percent of all running plays result in a gain of ten or more yards, when it comes to the passing game, 27.43% (5,199 of 18,953 plays) of all passing plays in the NFL in 2018 went for ten or more yards. In short, the Rams spent the 2018 season establishing the pass, and the Dallas defense was more concerned about stopping the pass than it was about stopping the run. Chris Carson closed out what was an excellent sophomore season on Sunday, rushing for a career high 122 yards on 19 carries and a touchdown. The touchdown, a grinding seven yards, also sealed an interesting note in Carson’s 2018: Every single one of Carson’s nine rushing scores came from inside the opponent’s 10-yard line. The seven-yard score Carson had on Sunday tied his fourth quarter touchdown in the win over the Lions as his longest on the season. The others came from five, one (x4) Doug Baldwin Color Rush Jersey , two and four yards out. Though Carson was entirely consistent in closing out drives, he finishes the year tied for fourth (with James Connor) in the league in rushing touchdowns inside the 10, behind Todd Gurley, Alvin Kamara and Derrick Henry. Carson’s nine red zone scores in 2018 were a part of a greater resurgence from the Seattle Seahawks, who are tied for eighth in the NFL in touchdown percentage inside the 20. Their scoring percentage of 65.38* is almost 10% higher than last year, when they finished at 55.56%. That was a season in which Seattle’s RBs failed to score a single rushing touchdown, with Jimmy Graham and his 10 touchdowns essentially playing the part of goal line back in 2017. *Red zone numbers are as of Week 16. In Week 17, the Seahawks scored a touchdown on 1-of-2 trips. The one they didn’t finish with a touchdown was to set up the game-winning field goal.Keeping in mind Carson’s skill set as a runner, his success at the goal line shouldn’t be much of a surprise to anyone. He’s an incredibly hard runner who possesses great balance and a superhuman like ability to stay up. All nine of Carson’s rushing touchdowns in 2018 came after first contact. At least two-thirds of those had no business being scores, yet Carson willed himself into the end zone. Carson’s combination of abilities as a runner leads him to score whether he’s essentially parallel to the ground at one point...Or taking contact from members of both teams... During Week 16’s victory over the Chiefs, Carson became Seattle’s first 1000-yard rusher since Marshawn Lynch departed. In pacing the Seahawks with nine rushing touchdowns in 2018, Carson showed the kind of tough running style Lynch made synonymous with Seattle over the course of six seasons.