The 1978 Patriots, Part I

by Chase Stuart on June 25, 2016

Here’s what I wrote in my first post at Football Perspective:

I’ll be blogging about everything football-related, from Jerry Rice to Bobby Douglass, and from the 1978 Patriots to who is the greatest quarterback of all time.

The New England Patriots rushed for 3,165 yards, an NFL record that still stands. Take a look at the individual players on that team:

				Games		Rushing
No.		Age	Pos	G	GS	Att	Yds ▾	TD	Lng	Y/A	Y/G	A/G	Fmb
39	Sam Cunningham*	28	FB	16	14	199	768	8	52	3.9	48.0	12.4	4
23	Horace Ivory	24	rb	15	3	141	693	11	28	4.9	46.2	9.4	5
32	Andy Johnson	26	RB	15	13	147	675	3	52	4.6	45.0	9.8	4
14	Steve Grogan	25	QB	16	16	81	539	5	31	6.7	33.7	5.1	9
44	Don Calhoun	26	rb	14	2	76	391	1	73	5.1	27.9	5.4	1
37	James McAlister	27		16	0	19	77	2	16	4.1	4.8	1.2	3
86	Stanley Morgan	23	PR/WR	16	16	2	11	0	6	5.5	0.7	0.1	6
29	Harold Jackson	32	WR	16	13	1	7	0	7	7.0	0.4	0.1	0
30	Mosi Tatupu	23		16	0	3	6	0	3	2.0	0.4	0.2	0
4	Jerrel Wilson	37	P	14	0	1	0	0	0	0.0	0.0	0.1	1
83	Don Westbrook	25		16	0	1	-2	0	-2	-2.0	-0.1	0.1	0
	Team Total	26.2		16		671	3165	30	73	4.7	197.8	41.9	35

Provided by Pro-Football-Reference.com: View Original Table

That Patriots team is clearly one of the greatest rushing teams in football history. Not only did that squad set the NFL record for rushing yards, but New England also led the league in rushing touchdowns (30; the other 27 teams averaged 15.7), rushing first downs (181; no other team had more than 160), and yards per carry (4.7; no other team was over 4.5).

Cunningham and Johnson powered the Patriots ground game

How do the ’78 Patriots compare historically? Let’s calculate the number of adjusted rushing yards over average produced by that team. The formula is straightforward: for each team, take their rushing yards, and add 11 yards for every rushing touchdown and 9 yards for every first down. For the Patriots, that means we start with 3,165, add 330 yards for the team’s 30 rushing scores, and 1,629 yards for the 181 rushing first downs; that produces a total of 5,124 adjusted rushing yards.

That’s the most adjusted rushing yards in NFL history, too. But to calculate Adjusted Rushing Yards over average, the next step is to calculate league average — in 1978, it was 6.20. The Patriots averaged 7.64 Adjusted Rushing Yards per Carry, so that’s 1.44 ARYPC over average. And since New England had 671 carries, that means the Patriots produced 962 Adjusted Rushing Yards over average. Finally, the final step is to pro-rate non-16 game seasons as if they were 16-game seasons.

This methodology — which is a bit weighted more towards using per-carry numbers than I generally prefer — still has the Patriots as the 13th best rushing team ever. Perhaps more relevant, it has New England as the 3rd best rushing team of the last 50 years, and only one team — the 2011 Panthers — has scored better since that ’78 squad.

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Search:

Rk	Tm	Year	Lg	G	Rush	Yds	TD	FD	Adj RY	AYPC	LgAvg	VALUE
1	SFO	1954	NFL	12	442	2498	28	125	3931	8.89	6.31	1525
2	DET	1936	NFL	12	591	2885	22	170	4657	7.88	6.00	1483
3	CHI	1941	NFL	11	495	2156	30	112	3494	7.06	5.00	1480
4	SFO	1948	AAFC	14	603	3663	35	152	5416	8.98	7.03	1345
5	CHI	1939	NFL	11	439	2043	21	148	3606	8.21	6.22	1271
6	SFO	1949	AAFC	12	506	2798	26	117	4137	8.18	6.35	1230
7	CLE	1963	NFL	14	460	2639	15	135	4019	8.74	6.45	1204
8	BUF	1975	NFL	14	588	2974	26	162	4718	8.02	6.39	1100
9	SFO	1953	NFL	12	443	2230	26	128	3668	8.28	6.42	1100
10	CAR	2011	NFL	16	445	2408	26	139	3945	8.87	6.60	1007
11	CLE	1958	NFL	12	475	2526	24	127	3933	8.28	6.74	976
12	BOS	1933	NFL	12	467	2260	11	0	2381	5.10	3.53	974
13	NWE	1978	NFL	16	671	3165	30	181	5124	7.64	6.20	962
14	DET	1997	NFL	16	447	2464	19	120	3753	8.40	6.25	959
15	CLE	1966	NFL	14	415	2166	18	117	3417	8.23	6.21	957

Showing 1 to 15 of 150 entries

I noted a few times that the Patriots set several NFL records: that qualifier is necessary because the AAFC’s 1948 49ers were just ridiculous, and stand out as the greatest professional football rushing team of all time.

Anyway, that’s it for Part I. What stands out to you about the ’78 Patriots? What else would you like to know/learn?

References[+]

References
↑1	Note that since rushing touchdowns are first downs, we actually give 20 yards per rushing touchdown. Longtime readers may recall greatest adjusted rushing teams of all time.” target=”_blank”>this post of mine using this methodology, but I was a hack back then and forgot to make this adjustment.

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