We stomp on another gridiron cliché

Admit it: You've stood around the water cooler at your depressing job talking football and have, at least several dozen times in your life, told somebody that (insert your favorite football team here) "must stop the run to win."

 

We've all done it. No less an authority than the Cold, Hard Football Facts, which stomp on gridiron clichés like cockroaches in our cardboard box, have been guilty. We, too, in other words, have long held that teams will be successful if they stop the run.

 

There's only one problem with this theory:

 

It's not true.

 

Exhibit A is the 2006 Vikings. Minnesota cut the legs off the Jets ground game yesterday, holding New York to 68 yards on 29 attempts – an average of 2.3 yards per rush.

 

The Vikings got smoked, 26-13.

 

The Jets are just the most recent in a long line of teams incapable of running the ball on the New Purple People Eaters. In fact, with Sunday's performance, Minnesota jumped past the 2000 Ravens and 1998 Chargers and is on pace to become the single greatest run defense of the Super Bowl Era: The Vikings have allowed just 2.68 yards per rush attempt this season.

 

It's a remarkable figure. As we mentioned last week, you have to go all the way back to the NFL Stone Age, to the 1951 Giants, to find a team that was tougher against the run. (The Giants that year surrendered just 2.3 yards per rush attempt.)

 

It has meant little: The Vikings are 6-8. They remain alive in the playoff hunt, if only because of the utter overall ineptitude of the NFC. But they're not a very good team – no matter how effective they've been against the run.

 

The truth, it turns out, is that they're not that unusual. Take a look, for example, at the 12 toughest run defenses of the Super Bowl Era.