The Wildcat formation has been a hot topic in the Browns’ anemic offense all season. It’s easy to understand why: two quarterbacks with well-documented struggles, a keg of big play dynamite in ex-college QB Josh Cribbs, and a template for success from last year’s Miami Dolphins.
However, the Browns’ wildcat experience has been rocky. The formation is in the spotlight again this week after Cribbs threw a particularly awful pick to Troy Polamalu in the red zone early in Sunday’s loss. That horrific play brought back recent memories of game 1 against the Vikings, when the Browns ran the same wildcat play on consecutive downs from Minnesota’s three yard line. Result: +2 yards net and a chip shot field goal. Not exactly the type of payoff that would endear the wildcat to people like me.
Granted, I’m disinclined to like the wildcat as is, because:
A) I’m sick of being bombarded by the word “wildcat” every time I want to watch a football game
B) Terry “Who Needs Evidence?” Pluto recently wrote a column “pleading” with the Browns to give the wildcat a fair shake, partially because Cribbs threw 55 TD passes while under center for Kent State
C) I associate the formation with the city of Miami, which, for totally non-sports reasons, I hope to see break off from the continental US and float into the Gulf of Mexico before I die
D) listening to Jon Gruden, the wildcat’s biggest advocate, makes me want to pulverize my own hand with a tack hammer
With all of that in mind, I looked at some numbers to try to determine — rationally rather than emotionally — whether or not the wildcat merits continued use in the Browns’ offense.
Here’s what the wildcat got the Brownies in their game against Pittsburgh:
Cribbs passing: 0 for 2, 0 yards, 1 INT
Cribbs rushing: 6 carries for 45 yards (7.5 yd avg), 0 TD
Non-Cribbs rushing from wildcat: 5 carries for 12 yards (2.4 yd avg), 0 TD
Total rushing from wildcat: 11 carries for 57 yards (5.2 yd avg), 0 TD
Total CLE wildcat production: 57 yards on 13 snaps (4.4 yd avg), 1 TO, 0 TD
By comparison, the Dolphins used the wildcat to tear through the Jets on Monday Night Football a couple weeks back. Their wildcat production that night looked like this:
Wildcat passing (Ronnie Brown): 1 for 2, 21 yd, 0 TD, 0 INT
Wildcat rushing: 14 carries for 89 yards (6.4 yd avg), 2 TD
Total MIA wildcat production: 110 yards on 16 snaps (6.9 yd avg), 0 TO, 2 TD
A couple of different things pop out here. The first big difference is that Miami got into the endzone twice via wildcat rushes, whereas every Browns wildcat attempt in the red zone has been either stuffed or picked off. Advantage: Miami.
Second, in this single game comparison, the Browns averaged 1.1 yards more per wildcat rush than the Dolphins when Cribbs kept the ball himself. (If you count the 2 snaps where Cribbs handed off to either Lewis or Harrison, the per-rush average drops to 5.2 yards). This is somewhat surprising to me, since Cribbs isn’t a running back by trade, whereas Ronnie Brown and Ricky Williams have both been very effective runners over the course of the past 2 seasons. That said, Cribbs is also somewhat of a power runner, and operating with 10 blockers rather than 9 (since the quarterback isn’t much of a factor on a traditional run play) suits his style.
Third, the Dolphins were infinitely more effective with their wildcat passing than the Browns. Literally. As in, it’s mathematically impossible to define how many times better 1 completion is than zero. I’ve heard from multiple sports pundits — Pluto being exhibit A — that the threat of the pass needs to exist in order for the wildcat to function effectively. So this point seems particularly relevant.
However, the caveat with both of the last two points is that we’re dealing with a really small sample size. What happens if we expand the lens?
Let’s look at Cribbs’ career NFL passing production versus Miami’s wildcat passing production from all of 2008.
Cribbs passing (career): 1 for 7, 0 TD, 1 INT.
Ronnie Brown passing (2008-9): 2 for 3, 41 yds, 1 TD, 0 INT
This still isn’t going to be significant enough for a statistican to co-sign. But if we combine the numbers with what we know about the actual game, we can draw out some insights.
While I can’t find data on how many total wildcat plays the Dolphins ran in 2008, we know that they were using that formation a significant amount of the time last season. So much so, in fact, that analysts were crediting the wildcat as the key to their 9-7 record and their berth in the playoffs.
For the sake of argument, let’s say that they were going wildcat, on average, 10 times a game. (If their wildcat usage in last Monday night’s game qualified as an average performance, then we’re actually selling them short. But it’s usually best to undershoot on something like this.)
Over the course of the 2008 regular season, that would be 160 wildcat snaps. Of these 160 theoretical plays, only 3 of them were passes.
This means that Miami was rushing from the wildcat better than 98% of the time…which would in turn suggest that the idea that you need to be able to pass effectively in order to run the wildcat effectively is a myth.
This conclusion is backed up by Cribbs’ 2009 wildcat rushing numbers.
Cribbs rushing (2009): 12 rush for 101 yards (8.4 yd avg), 0 TD, 1 lost fumble
Remember, we already saw in the single game comparison that Cribbs’s wildcat rushing average bested the Dolphins’ by 1.1 yards. When expanded over the course of the entire season, Cribbs’s rushing average is even better.
What do all these numbers ultimately indicate? First, that the Browns should continue to use the wildcat, but only to run the ball. Anyone who will get you 8.4 yards per rush attempt demands attention in your offensive scheme. (As a point of comparison, Adrian Petersen averaged 4.8 yards per rush last season and was named 1st team All-Pro.) I don’t expect that average to keep up over the course of the long haul, but even if it drops to 5.0 yards per rush, that still warrants use.
Second, they suggest that any time someone (especially a Plain Dealer sports columnist) argues that Cribbs’s 55 TD passes at Kent State are good evidence that he can throw the ball in the NFL, you should remind them that his NFL passing numbers are good evidence that he can’t.
However, to my own personal dismay, that also doesn’t mean the wildcat should be put to sleep — just spayed so it doesn’t get itself into trouble.
-T.
