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The much maligned offensive coordinator of the Arizona Cardinals Mike McCoy has been beat up pretty good not only on this website, but throughout the web.
The national NFL media got into a bit on Tuesday as NFL.com released their next gen stats on Johnson’s carries and how bad the chart looks.
— calvin grisly (lakers 0-0) (@FourVerts) October 8, 2018
For those that are not familiar with NFL plays, that is 13 carries with roughly one that was outside of the tackles, a loss of yardage. Only three of Johnson’s carries went for more than five yards on the day.
It is a gross misutilization of Johnson and his talents, especially when you look at some of Todd Gurley’s charts from his career:
Gurley from week 15 of the 2017 NFL season:
.@TG3II's Week 15 #NextGenStats Carry Chart! (by @MBUSA) pic.twitter.com/eNCRUnlr9H
— NFL (@NFL) December 22, 2017
These #NextGenStats carry charts illustrate a super interesting contrast in the run game philosophies between Bates and Haley. Haley called most of his runs to stay in between the tackles, whereas Bates designed most of his rushes to attack the edge and the sidelines. pic.twitter.com/fzpx25cLRC
— Keegan Abdoo (@KeeganAbdoo) September 21, 2018
The differences are pretty stark when you compare to Mike “Up the Middle” McCoy.
Then, in 2016, with the Chargers, you look at Melvin Gordon’s usage and you start to see a pattern, in fact, an interesting and somewhat scary pattern:
From our #NextGenStats team, Melvin Gordon's yards per carry chart by week with 8+ defenders in box pic.twitter.com/IOaOtGz3GS
— Matt Franciscovich (@MattFranchise) November 7, 2016
Carry On Melvin: Melvin Gordon 2016 rushing plays #FantasyFootball #Chargers pic.twitter.com/yoO7scZor6
— Bobby Back (@Buchettoperpopo) June 17, 2017
Melvin Gordon's role as a receiver over the last three seasons (2016 to 2018):
— Graham Barfield (@GrahamBarfield) October 6, 2018
Target share: 12% > 14% > 24%
Targets per game: 4.4 > 5.2 > 8.5
Target rate per route run: 16% > 27% > 38%
Now, McCoy was the head coach, not the OC in this time, so maybe it isn’t all on him, but there is a pattern.
Something we are seeing now with David Johnson is something that Chargers fans saw with their own young and talented running back in MGIII.
Can McCoy right the ship or is this his system and the Cardinals need to figure out a way to execute?