Sooo….it’s been a while, eh?

When I started this website, I knew that I would be getting married in a few months. What I didn’t know was that I was going to be changing jobs at the same time. I have been in that honeymoon phase for a little to long and I have been meaning to come back to my #RyanSleeperChallenge. After having some former co-workers playfully call me out for not posting in a while, I found my way back and it feels good.

The next visualization that I am doing is small multiples. Small multiples is about finding the “compared to what”. With the impending 2019 football season approaching (along with Fantasy Football), I wanted to look at the Chicago Bears and their rushing attack last year. During 2018, it seemed like the rushing attack was somewhat lacking. Jordan Howard was considered the lead back but Tarik Cohen was the flashier player. I wanted to look at them just as rushers (so no passing data) and see if there was anything that stood out. I created a dashboard that shows the Bears rushing yards per game (the what) and then I broke that down by Jordan Howard & Tarik Cohen by game and quarter. I kept it the main two backs for sizing considerations.

I was amazed when looking at last year to find the in 6 games, the main 2 backs combined for about 50 yards. In 7 of their games the combined for about 100 yards. In only 1 game did they have over 150 combined rushing yards. It is also clear that Jordan Howard was the 4th quarter back. There were games where Tarik had no rushes (evident by the lack of a bar). What is going to be interesting is how the team is going to work in 2019. Can David Montgomery step into Jordan Howard’s role? Will he able to be more productive? Will Tarik keep the same role or be used more as a passing down back? Where does Mike Davis fit into all of this? Taquan Mizzell and Benny Cunningham where not used very often so how are three backs going to work in Matt Nagy’s offense? Can’t wait to find out! Only 33 more days till Bears vs. Packers to start the 2019 season!

Check out the interactive dashboard on Tableau Public: Bears Rushing Attack

All data was from Pro Football Reference