The 2001 Rams had Kurt Warner, Marshall Faulk, Isaac Bruce, and Torry Holt.

The ’92 and ’93 49ers have prime Steve Young and prime Jerry Rice, along with the first two years of Ricky Watters’ great career.

The ’88 Bengals had MVP Boomer Esiason, Pro Bowler Eddie Brown, HOFer Anthony Munoz and Pro Bowler Max Montoya on the offensive line, and a running back tandem of James Brooks and Ickey Woods. Two years earlier, the ’86 Bengals had those players save Woods, but also had Cris Collinsworth in the prime of his career.

The ’51 Rams had Norm Van Brocklin and Bob Waterfield — two HOFers — at quarterback, along with Elroy Hirsch, Dan Towler, Dick Hoerner, and Tom Fears.

Those are 6 of the 7 teams since 1950 to lead the NFL in both average yards per rush and average yards per pass. Can you guess the 7th team? You have three guesses, but the first two don’t count.

Take a look at the graph below, which shows all the leaders in Net Yards per Pass Attempt since 1970, and where they ranked in Yards per Carry.  In recent years, we’ve seen some teams with Philip Rivers and Peyton Manning struggle to run the ball, but you do see a few teams that excelled in both:

Here’s the same chart, but for Yards per Carry leaders, and where their teams ranked in NY/A.  Those Michael Vick teams stand out as three of the worst passing teams to lead the league in rushing efficiency but the ’06 version has since been supplanted by Adrian Peterson’s 2012 Vikings:

But, as you can see, the 1978 Patriots also pulled off the 1-1 feat.   And while we looked at the team’s rushing efficiency yesterday, New England happened to roster two excellent receivers in the late ’70s.  You probably know that Stanley Morgan is one of them, but Harold Jackson joined the Patriots in 1978.  That was a game-changer for New England’s offense.  Jackson and Morgan both finished with over 10,000 career receiving yards, and while Jackson was 9 years older, both were still excellent in ’78 and ’79. In fact, in ’79, the duo both hit the 1,000-yard mark. ^[1]These sorts of things can only be noted in retrospect, but there have been 27 pairs of teammates that had 1,000 receiving yards in a season and *ended* their careers with 10,000 receiving yards. … Continue reading Jackson is a HOF snub and was arguably the best receiver of the ’70s, while Morgan is one of the best receivers not yet in the Hall, too. Oh, and the Patriots offense also had Russ Francis, the tight end who made his third consecutive Pro Bowl in 1978. This was a stacked offense.

The quarterback was Steve Grogan, who you may remember as the Yards per Completion king. Among the top 20 players in NFL history in yards per completion, 19 of them were retired before 1980; Grogan, however, played from ’75 to ’90, but still ranks 17th all-time in this metric. After adjusting for era, he’s arguably the most deep-ball oriented passer ever.

In ’78, he ranked 2nd in yards per completion; in ’79, he ranked 1st, and in ’80, he ranked 2nd. That deep ball mentality — especially when teamed up with someone like Morgan, one of the best deep threats ever — was the perfect complement to a dominant ground game. The Patriots led the NFL in yards per completion while also leading the league in rushing attempts (in addition, you know, to leading in yards per pass attempt and yards per rush attempt). That deep ball/run-heavy philosophy was a trademark of that era, but no team pulled it off better than New England.

No game better exemplifies this than a 56-21 blowout over the Jets in late October. Grogan completed 15 of 19 passes for 281 yards with 4 TDs and no interceptions: Jackson had 5/118/2, Morgan had 3/66/1, and Francis had 4/33/1. On the ground, the Patriots rushed for 240 yards and four more touchdowns on 43 carries. It’s one of just two games in history where a team had 240/4 both through the air and on the ground. ^[2]The other? It came during Johnny Unitas’ rookie season with the Colts.

Of course, a downfield passing game often brings about interceptions, and New England threw interceptions at a rate of 6.4 per 100 passes, a bit worse than the 5.4 per 100 league average. The Patriots also lost 21 fumbles, 3 more than the average team. These turnovers, along with a mediocre kicking game, prevented the Patriots from leading the league in scoring. But this was still an exceptional — and highly complementary — offense.

What do you think?