As many fantasy players have seen their playoff hopes go down the toilet, we can start to shift our focus towards next year. This offseason will involve countless hours of scrutiny by the Footballguys.com staff, to help you find the Tiki Barbers and Curtis Martins of 2005. As the entire fantasy community evolves as football evaluators, we continue to unearth new statistics in our never-ending quest to gain an edge on the competition. In this article I'm going to unearth a new one, one that I plan to study in greater detail this offseason In this article, you'll find out just how:

• The Atlanta Falcons are on the verge of making history, and have already broken a ten year record…set by themselves?
• The New York Jets are on pace for the fourth best season in the past decade.
• The Broncos have finished in the top two in this statistic five times, Pittsburgh in the top three four times, and Kansas City in the top five six times.
• The Steelers will almost certainly break the ten year record this season, in both my modified category and the regular NFL statistic.

Nearly everyone that reads this article is going to be a bit more obsessed with statistics than the average football fan. When you start reciting Manning's fantasy points per game for the past four years, the casual football fan will tell you that statistics lie and that Manning doesn't win the big game. While statistics themselves don't fib, people often use them to mislead-intentionally or not. One of the more overlooked examples of this lies in team rushing totals. For example, let's compare two current teams and you tell me which one is the better rushing team:

Team A: 462 carries, 2,375 yards, 5.14 ypc, 19 TDs, first in rushing.
Team B: 470 carries, 2,162 yards, 4.60 ypc, 15 TDs, second in rushing.

Based on these stats, it wouldn't be hard for a TV loudmouth to say "Team A is the best rushing team in the league. Come playoff time, they're going to be able to control the tempo of the game and be a very difficult team to beat." While that may or may not be true, here's a look at the same two teams:

Team A: 335 carries, 1,438 yards, 4.29 ypc
Team B: 422 carries, 2,012 yards, 4.77 ypc

All the sudden, team A doesn't look like such a dominant running team anymore. What's the difference? The first set of stats show team rushing totals on the year. The second pair of numbers you see are modified to reflect only the statistics compiled by running backs. Team A, as you might now be able to guess, is the Atlanta Falcons. When you remove Michael Vick from the picture, it's clear that the Falcons aren't a great running team. Team B is the Jets, who get very little help from other positions when it comes to running the football.

RB Rushing Yards may not be trendy nor an official stat, but I think it's an important one. When you try and identify which teams have a strong commitment to the running game, an exercise like this will really help. This also helps you evaluate for next year. Being aware that Chiefs runners are averaging a total of 138 yards per game, is a lot more important than the fact that they won't have a 1,000 yard rusher. This is particularly useful when teams split carries, as it gives you an idea of the team as a whole, regardless of their philosophy on splitting carries. Let's look at some historical examples:

The 2002 New York Giants were ranked just fourteenth in the league in rushing, but fifth in RB rushing yards. That Giants teams was underrated by their statistics, but anyone watching their games knew that they had developed a great, well balanced offense. (In their playoff game, they scored 38 points and Barber ran for 115 yards).

The 2000 Colts-fourth in the NFL in points, third in yards, but SIXTEENTH in rushing yards? Edgerrin James led the league in rushing that year, with a career high 1,709 yards. The 2000 Steelers ranked FOURTH in the NFL, but Jerome Bettis was just ninth with 1,341 yards. Well 53 yards from Hines Ward and 436 from Kordell Stewart inflated their ranking a good deal. In RB rushing yards, the Steelers beat the Colts by a paltry twenty-five yards.

Which team's rushing ability was inflated the most by non-RBs? Well the 1998 Titans ranked ninth in the league in rushing, but Eddie George and the rest of the backs only totaled 1,418 yards - twenty-fourth best in the league.

Which brings us to trivia question one. While the Falcons clearly lead the NFL in rushing, they were eighteenth in rushing yards by RBs heading into this past weekend. That seventeen rank difference would be the greatest in the ten year sample set. Everyone that predicted Atlanta running all over Philly because of their great rushing offense is sorely mistaken in my opinion. There's a big difference between having a RB rush for 150 yards and having a RB rush for 100 and a quarterback for fifty. QB rushes come mostly out of pass plays, and don't take advantage of bad run defenses nearly as well as running backs.

Which teams has accumulated the most non-RB rushing yards the past decade? Well that's easy too-it's your 2004 Atlanta Falcons. They already have 937 rushing yards from non RBs. Vick of course has 889 yards, and is on pace for a 2500/1000 season. Peerless Price (34), Dez White (14), Mike Jenkins (2) and Matt Schaub (-2) have the other forty-eight yards. They're going to obliterate the record of 793, held by the…2002 Atlanta Falcons. The 2001 and 2002 Vikings (Culpepper), 1997 Titans (McNair), 2001 Steelers (Stewart) and 2000 Eagles (McNabb) all had well over 600 rushing yards by non-RBs.

Back to team B in our exercise from before…it's the current New York Jets. They lead the NFL in rushing yards by RBs, with 2,012. The Chiefs (1,936), Steelers (1,911), Patriots (1,826) and Seahawks (1,735) round out the top five. Something to watch out for from the broadcasters come playoff time: Don't overestimate the Chargers running game. They've got the name (LT) and the stats (currently fifth in the NFL in rushing). However, they also have 238 non-RB rushing yards (mostly on WR reverses). If we see SD-Pit in the playoffs, I don't expect to see the Chargers and Tomlinson's sub 4.0 ypc running rampant on Pittsburgh. Of course, that won't prevent the broadcasters from hyping "a top five rushing attack against a top five D against the run." Don't throw bricks at me yet Chargers fans-I happen to think they are one of the most underrated teams in the league. But they're underrated because of that defense, not the offense.

The Jets are on pace to have their backs rush for 2,299 yards. Where does that rank historically? That would be the fourth highest total of the past ten years, behind the 2003 Packers, 2003 Ravens and 1997 Lions. As you probably know, those last two teams had 2,000 yard rushers. The 2003 Broncos currently rank fourth on the list. It's certainly interesting that three of the top four teams all came last season.

The Falcons are on pace to have their team rush for 2,714 yards. That would put them second in the past decade, behind only the 2001 Steelers. The current top five includes the 2003 Ravens, Packers and Broncos, as well as the 1998 49ers.

Then there's Pittsburgh-the most run happy team in modern history They are on pace for a whopping 609 carries, which would break the ten year mark set by-the 2001 Steelers (580). The 1997 Steelers are currently second all time, followed by the 1996 Bills, 2003 Ravens and 2000 Titans. That Bills team had Darick Holmes rush 189 times and Thurman Thomas rush 281 times, but Buffalo was 27th in the league in yards per carry.

How about the rush attempts by RBs record? The 1999 Kansas City Chiefs hold that mark, with 497 carries. That '96 Bills team is second, followed by the '95 Chiefs, '97 Giants and 2003 Ravens. This edition of the Pittsburgh Steelers already has 460 RB rushes, and is on pace for 526 carries.

Is there any correlation between Super Bowl success and "RB Rushing yards?" Well, only one team has led the NFL in the category and won a Super Bowl, the 1998 Broncos. Three teams that ranked second (The 2000 Ravens, 1995 Cowboys and 1997 Broncos) won as well. On the other hand, the regular old rushing yards leaders haven't fared much better. In fact, no team in the past ten years has led the league in rushing and even made the Super Bowl. Two teams that ranked second, the '98 Broncos and '95 Cowboys won Super Bowls.

So where does this all leave us? Are RB rushing stats more important than either individual RB rushing stats or team rushing stats in general? There's no doubt that all have their drawbacks. On teams that split carries or face an injury, they are never going to have someone among the league leaders in yards. However, teams that don't utilize their WRs and QBs to run will always be "underrepresented" in the official team rushing statistics. Fortunately for us, we don't need to make a choice. We have all three options readily available to assess, and that can only help us as fantasy players.

Final note: All stats go back to the 1995 season. Once again, thanks to Doug Drinen and his tremendous database for the information provided.