Jaguars at Steelers

When the Jacksonville Jaguars rushing offense faces the Pittsburgh Steelers Saturday night, it will be road kill. Just two weeks ago the Steelers' list of walking wounded gave up 224 rushing yards to the Jags who powered through the Steelers' D line like a bullet train.

The stat graphic below pictures this bloody event. The league average of 117.6 rushing yards per game (light blue line) shows the Steelers weaker in only three games. They lost all three.

Opp Yds Rushing Net Pittsburgh Steelers 2007 through Week 21

Clock Control goes hand-in-hand with rushing yards. And in week 15 the Jags owned almost 40 minutes of clock control leaving Steeler QB Roethlisberger no time to play catch up.

The Jags' running game has been nitro packed all season. The stat graphic below pictures their performance:

Yards Rushing (Net) Jacksonville Jaguars 2007 through Week 21

The graphic pictures their moving average (dark blue line) stronger than league average all year.

What will happen in Saturday's game? If the game were to play to the entire season's statistical form, the Steelers would have the home field advantage -- 3 points.

But with their defensive team looking like chopped meat we will have to wait and see how Coach Tomlin prepares his D. If a Steeler fan wants to make a "guesstimate" on the game's outcome using one stat (rushing yards) it would be easy to compute a winning margin. Simply use Bud Goode Killer Stat equation: Ten yards rushing contributes 1 point to the scoring differential.

So if the Jags dupe their fab 224 rushing yards and the Steelers run for league average (117) the end result produces a difference of 106 yards. Now divide this number by 10 (yards) = 10.6 points contributed.

Let's round the number and project the Jags winning by 11.

And remember the Goode rushing equation -- ten yards rushing more than the opposition contributes 1 point to the win.

Bud Goode

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