NFL Defenses of 1977

[Throwin_Samoan]

Most sports seem to find that, left to their own devices, their teams will discover it is easier to destroy than to create. Defense will eventually gain the upper hand, and people don't pay to see that. So the leagues re-calibrate.

As someone said upthread, it didn't just happen randomly in 1977 - it had been coming for a while. The 1973 and 1977 seasons were the ones where offenses ran the ball more than 50 percent of the time (for the first time since 1942).

From 1970-77, NFL games averaged 38.3 points per game, with the 1977 average of 34.4 the lowest in decades. A lot of things went into that, as mentioned above. Running backs were plentiful and stars. Turf probably helped. But the shift toward more sophisticated defenses meant there needed to be a reset to help offenses, particularly the passing game. The no contact after five yards rule that eliminated the bump and run was a boon to offense.

[SeahawkFever]

Most sports seem to find that, left to their own devices, their teams will discover it is easier to destroy than to create. Defense will eventually gain the upper hand, and people don't pay to see that. So the leagues re-calibrate.

As someone said upthread, it didn't just happen randomly in 1977 - it had been coming for a while. The 1973 and 1977 seasons were the ones where offenses ran the ball more than 50 percent of the time (for the first time since 1942).

From 1970-77, NFL games averaged 38.3 points per game, with the 1977 average of 34.4 the lowest in decades. A lot of things went into that, as mentioned above. Running backs were plentiful and stars. Turf probably helped. But the shift toward more sophisticated defenses meant there needed to be a reset to help offenses, particularly the passing game. The no contact after five yards rule that eliminated the bump and run was a boon to offense.

That's an interesting point. Hadn't thought of it in terms of creation vs destruction, but this definitely would be peak "destruction" if you look at it as a sliding scale and if you look at defense as that destruction. I would agree that it would get rather boring for it to be that low scoring as well.

You mentioned running backs, well I took another look at the pass percentages I posted last week, and in 1977, only Buffalo threw the ball more than they ran it, only five other teams (Seahawks, Jets, Chiefs, Lions, and Bengals) threw the ball 44% of the time or more, and there were 12 teams out of 28 that threw the ball less than 40% of the time. So teams definitely ran a lot; even for that time (1973 has three teams that passed more often than they ran for instance).

The Mel Blount rule is implemented in 1978 of course, and by 1980, 11 of the 28 teams passed the ball the majority of the time and the 1980 Saints who threw the ball 61.93% of the time did so the most of any team in 15 years (the 1965 Oilers did so 62.93% of the time).

1977 was not random, and was definitely the culmination of defense dominating to the point where adjustments to the rules were needed to lead to more scoring and help offenses.

What does feel kind of random is that the Steelers ranked only 17th on defense in 1977. Did they have major injuries or something? They were first the prior year, and year after, and still top five in both 1974 and 1979.