Rushing yards per carry continues to rise: a month ago, I noted that the league-wide yards per carry average was 4.34. If that held, it would set a new record, breaking the 4.29 mark set in 2011.

Since then, rushing efficiency has soared: since week 9, the Panthers are averaging over 6 yards per carry, 9 more teams are averaging over 5 yards per carry, and a total of 23 teams are averaging 4.29 YPC or better. The great rushing performance of the last month (4.61 YPC) has raised the 2018 league average mark to an incredible 4.44 yards per carry.

And yet, rushing quantity has never been lower. For the season, teams are rushing just 25.7 times per game, and even since week 9, that level is just 26.0 rushing attempts per game. This will go down as the season with the fewest rushing attempts in history, and also the season with the highest yards per carry average in history. The common theme here is passing: teams are passing more than ever, and defenses don’t seem very concerned about stopping the run. Offenses want to pass, and defenses are more than happy to allow teams to run (including via non-running back runs). That’s how you get crazy results like this.

And how crazy are these results? Well, take a look at the graph below, which shows every NFL season since 1932.  Each year is on the X-Axis, and there are two Y-Axes: the left Y-Axis shows yards per carry, and the right Y-Axis shows rushing attempts per game.  The NFL average yards per carry is shown in blue dots against that left Y-Axis, and the NFL rushing attempts per game is shown in red diamonds against the right Y-Axis.