Chris Russell wants to get something off his chest about the defeat to the Baltimore Ravens on Sunday: "YOU HAVE TO LOOK BEYOND THE BOX SCORE! You have to look beyond NextGen Stats. You have to watch the game to realize that the Washington Commanders were pretty much punch for punch ... just as we talked about all of last week... if you live in mommy's basement you only know CPOE and datatronics and you know analytics because a computer tells you what a computer wants to tell you, a science formula tells you what you want it to tell you. If you watch that game, and I was there, ... that the Commanders were right there, the Ravens an explosive offense with not one but two weapons, not one but two, still only up a touchdown... context speaks more than stats.
"But, again, if you live in mommy's basement, or if you just watch highlights or you didn't watch the game, you didn't bother to dig a little bit deeper, you're gonna go 'oh my god, the Commanders stunk yesterday. Oh, man did Derrick Henry just run all over their asses.' But if you watched the game, you'd say, 'Hey man, Derrick Henry is the best running back... in the National Football League, he is loaded he is a truck... and when you combine him with Lamar Jackson and his ability to run and break contain... and when you do, by and large a decent job stopping the run, not the entire game. We understand what the final yards tell us [174] yards combined between the two rushing ... we said all week if they can keep it under 150... it's not good enough, we know that, we all understand that.
"To say that they were ambushed, to say that they were absolutely hog molly'd, to say that they were absolutely torn a part is not true, not correct, not in any way shape or form. Not true."
So, here are the stats that were compiled and presented to Russell that set him off on this tangent: On the day, Henry rushed for 132 yards on 24 carries (5.5 yards per attempt) with two touchdowns. He did that while facing eight or more Washington defenders in the box on 62.5 percent of his attempts. He finished with 34 rushing yards over expected (1.43 yards over expected per attempt) and he gained more yards than expected on 62.5 percent of his rushes.
In the second half, Henry had carries of 7 yards, 1, 2, 12, 4, 5, 7 (TD), 8, 5, 1, 4, 2, 27, 4, 5. That would be 15 rushes for 94 yards (6.3 per carry0 and 11 of those carries would be classified as successful runs (meaning he gained at least 40 percent of the yardage needed on 1st down, 60 percent of the yardage needed on 2nd and 100 percent of the yardage needed on 3rd down).
Combine that number with Baltimore's quarterback going for 42 yards on nine carries (after taking away a pair of kneeldowns), and the duo combined for 174 yards on 33 carries (5.3 yards per attempt).
Russell's argument is the run defense did "pretty decent" in containing the rush attack, and was beaten because the pass defense allowed Jackson to throw for 323 yards on 20-for-26 attempts (12.4 yards per attempt) for a 114.7 passer rating (out of 158.3) and 72.5 QBR (out of 100). And the pass defense was bad because "they had to commit as many resources as they possibly could much of the day to try and limit, to try and contain, to try and stop, some of the 1-2 punch that every team would love to have."
"But you wouldn't know that if you just threw CPOE at me," he said. "Because that tells me you didn't watch the game. That tells me that you saw a couple highlights, and you saw the box score, and you saw the NextGen stats charting map and that's how you analyze the game."
Of course, Russell demonstrates that he doesn't know what he is talking about when he said CPOE, which is completion percentage over expected, not a metric used to determine rushing success whatsoever.
Russell does make a good point here, but one that doesn't support his argument: The Commanders sold out to stop the run and they still couldn't stop the Ravens from running it down their throat when they needed a stop on the game's final drive. And they did that when they had eight men or more in the box.
"For those of us that were there, I think it is very fair to say that the Commanders did not do a good enough job stopping the run, but the notion, again that they were horrible that they were ripped apart on the ground is simply not true," Russell added. "Again, I say that with the context that they gave up 176 rushing yards."
'Well, other than that, how was the play?' as the old saying goes.
Russell – who believes firmly in 'establishing the run' – doesn't understand that Baltimore knowing that Washington selling out to stop the run couldn't stop it opens up the Ravens' passing game. That is an indictment of the run defense's performance and why it wasn't "pretty decent." If Baltimore is never behind the sticks – because of continually having unsuccessful runs – it would be harder for them to pass.
Instead, the Ravens exploited the Commanders' poor run defense to run play action on 14 of 30 dropbacks and throw for 289 yards on play action (that stat via Spencer Schultz, who watches the games.)
So, overall, the pass defense was terrible, but that's in part because the Commanders' game plan was so titled to not getting crushed by the run game. A game plan that resulted in allowing 178 yards rushing and 323 yards passing.
"Were they good enough? No. Did they do a great job? No. Did they do a very good job? No," Russell said. "Did they do a decent job, a pretty decent job for much of the game? Yes. Watch the game."
Well, that's certainly one way to look at things.
"No, they did exactly everything that we thought they would do: Run the ball, try to run the ball on the edge with the quarterback and things like that," said Commanders linebacker Dante Fowler, who definitely watched the game.
"I mean, it's tough," linebacker Bobby Wagner, who also definitely watched the game, said about the Ravens' run success despite the Commanders trying to take that away from them.
"When you get the run game going, it kind of opens up everything for them," Wagner continued. "We need to do a better job in taking away the run and finally getting some pressure."
"I know he had the two touchdowns," Russell said of Henry, "I know nobody wanted to tackle him on one, and you could make an argument that nobody wanted to or could on the other, I got it. I understand that. Nobody is saying Derrick Henry wasn't a factor."
No argument there.
Russell then drops this final point: "If you want to criticize anyone or anything you don't criticize the run defense, you criticize the pass defense. If you wanna say, 'Hey, man, this is why you lost the game, it's because Lamar did what I have been critical of Lamar about throughout his career and that is if you make him be a pocket passer he usually doesn't kill you."
Well, on that point, if Russell had watched the Ravens QB play more often – and not just highlights or look at box scores – he would know that the two-time MVP is very good from the pocket (the stats quantify that statement: He was eighth in the NFL in passer rating when throwing from the pocket during the 2023 season and for his career from 2018-22 he had a pocket passer rating of 97.9.)
Overall, what Russell fails to understand is that the run defense's inability to get stops begets the pass defense's bad day. The Ravens didn't run more and put up 200+ yards because they had Washington in base defense with heavy packages and the passing game became more efficient.
It is all connected, perhaps if he watched the game and looked at the stats – things that are connected – he would understand.