It is not necessarily the case in either direction. I just think that is the way it was. Martin was on a team where this activity occurred. Barry Sanders or Emmitt Smith on the 1998 Jets instead? Sanders was better than Martin, so his average would likely have been better. Smith would've probably been below 4 just like Martin.Bryan wrote:I assume this is directed at me. First, I share your phone-access frustration...I have about a 25% success rate of accessing the forum via my phone. Second, I agree with your analysis of Martin. Parcells used Martin to eat up clock, which affected his YPC. Is "eating up clock" indicative of a HOF RB?King Kong wrote:Well, because I have a moment... (This new forum is very problematic. I usually cannot access it via my phone. I do not have this problem with any other site. I may not post often until this issue gets fixed.)
Look at Martin's statistics. Do you find it interesting that his Parcells' years, particularly 1996 and 1998, brought his career average per carry figure down? Those were arguably the best two teams for which he played. Hmmm. Hmmm.
(His injury-ruined season of 2005 also brought his career average down but most backs have a season like that at the end of their career.)
I must have seen at least 75% of all games where Bill Parcells coached. His teams, particularly when winning, would have numerous conservative run plays that were basically guaranteed to gain three or four yards insomuch that any play could be designed to guarantee yardage. Ottis Anderson was effective with paltry ypc numbers.
It begs looking into certainly. Putting aside 2005, why did Martin have his worst year with the Jets (according to ypc) on what was the best Jets team he played for? I don't remember him playing hurt in 1998 (2002 and 2005 were his difficult years in that department). The Jets did play with a lead a lot. Somebody would have to go into gamebooks to see if Martin had a lot of clock-killing conservative runs in 4th quarters of Jets victories. I do think there is something to it.
I have recently seen football numbers geeks (Chase Stuart and/or other people on Twitter) indicate that yardage per carry is overrated.