(Note: This week's edition of Goose Chase will be a two-part piece with the second installment appearing on Thursday)

Jamal Lewis rushed for 134 yards on thirty-two carries Sunday, his sixth straight 100 yard game. Through seven games, Lewis has 977 yards rushing, leading the league by a wide margin. His 2,233 yard pace would smash the current record, set nineteen years ago by Los Angeles Rams great Eric Dickerson (2,105 yards). However, apparently lauding Lewis with the accolades he deserves doesn't satisfy some analysts. This past weekend, I heard how Lewis' feats were even more special than they appeared (quite an achievement!).

As you may or may not know, the Ravens passing game has been grounded. This isn't particularly surprising-Baltimore has finished in the bottom third of the league three of the first four seasons under Head Coach Brian Billick. That's not particularly surprising when you consider that: a) Tony Banks (72.0 career QB Rating), Trent Dilfer (71.2), and Jeff Blake (70.1) were behind center those three years; and b) Qadry Ismail, Shannon Sharpe and Travis Taylor have been the receiving leaders over that same span. Well, with rookie QB Kyle Boller and the same top targets from a year ago, not much was expected to change. As the calendar turns to November, Baltimore ranks dead last in the league with just 140.3 yards passing per game. For reference, last year the expansion Texans averaged over 160 yards passing per game, and the Panthers averaged over 180 yards through the air.

So yes, this year's Ravens have one of the worst passing offenses that we've seen in a few years. This has led some experts to proclaim that Lewis is on his record pace in spite of a poor supporting cast. The theory being that teams can stack the run, and place eight or nine men in the box. Since they have little fear of being beaten through the air, they can totally commit to the run. And, the logical conclusion being that if a defense is committed to stopping the run; it's harder to run against them. Fortunately, ideas like this can be tested if we use history as our guide.

For starters, we must identify the positives Lewis has in his favor-and yes, there are at least a couple. The most obvious of these would be an increase in carries-Baltimore is forced to rely on feeding him the rock. With more carries, it's certainly easier to set yardage records-Eric Dickerson's 379 carries in 1983 stands as the fourteenth highest in league history. This doesn't diminish from his historic feat, but it stands rather as a mere explanation for greatness. Ironically enough, Lewis (who is second in the league in carries), is on pace for 379 rushes himself. There are also men who believe that the more you run the ball, the better you get at it-which Lewis will certainly find out this year. If Lewis had better offensive teammates, it's quite likely that he'd have a harder time amassing great rushing totals.

So what's the best way to decide if life's more difficult for rushers on poor passing offenses? I think the most relevant comparison here would be on a case-by-case basis of the top rushing seasons of all time. Here are the top ten single-season rushing records:

Let's go look to see if those nine running backs (Sanders twice) had strong passing offenses, to help "keep the opposing defenses honest."

*Last in a 28 team league
**Last in a 26 team league
***Fourteen-team NFL-numbers not computed in average

Results?

Of the top ten rushing seasons of all time, half were performed by very one-dimensional teams. In fact, three played on teams that finished dead last in the league in pass attempts, while the other two had teams that ranked in the thirties. The average is in the bottom quarter of the league, which means these teams were very committed to running the ball. Certainly, this helps an upper-echelon back produce record setting seasons. As a testament to his greatness, only one RB in the top ten played on a team that passed the ball more often than half the teams in the league-Barry Sanders. Sanders "only" carried the ball 335 times, which explains why the Lions passed so much. Considering he averaged 6.1 yards per carry that year, one could make the case that it was the greatest rushing season of all time. (Lewis isn't close to topping one Sanders record: in 1997 he rushed for over 100 yards each of the last fourteen weeks of the season).

How about passing yards? This is the statistic the NFL uses to rank passing offenses-and the data doesn't change a whole lot. Half of the running backs played on passing offenses that ranked in the bottom five of the league. Two teams in 1998 had superstar running games AND finished in the top ten of the league in passing yards-not surprisingly, both met in the Super Bowl that season. Terrell Davis was helped by a great system and a strong passing attack, and Jamal Anderson had similar advantages in his favor.

Now if you have a great running back, it makes sense that you won't throw the ball all the time. That could lead to a reduced passing yardage total, which might not be totally indicative of how good or bad the team is through the air. (The Ravens right now rank last in the AFC, and 29th in the NFL with just 5.46 yards per attempt. That number would have ranked last in 2002.) So do our RBs play on strong passing teams that are just focusing on the ground game? The evidence doesn't show much consistency, and little correlation, between passing yards per attempt and rushing yards. One team finished first, one finished last-the average was right in the middle. There's certainly no evidence that it's significantly helpful to have a good, efficient passing attack. Especially when you considering two of the four 2,000 yard rushers (and perhaps soon to be three of five?) played on just awful passing teams.

Some might say "Hey, this isn't a big surprise-if someone runs for 1,800 yards, it's doubtful that their team passed for a whole lot of yards." While that certainly sounds logical, we have to remember two things: One, I'm not sure what is a better way of evaluating a passing offense; and two, some teams will have multiple RBs combine for over 2,000 yards. Does the fact that it's all by one man make a big difference?

If you compare the passing and rushing yards of all thirty two teams last year, you'll find that there was no relation between the two. The correlation coefficient of passing yards and rushing yards was 0.00 for all the teams in 2002. What does this mean? There seems to be little effect on what increasing one does to the other. Here are some examples of teams that excelled at both:

• The Denver Broncos were sixth in passing yards, but their RBs rushed for 2,052 yards. The Chiefs were twelfth in passing yards, but Priest Holmes himself ran for 1,615 yards.
• How about the 1998 San Francisco 49ers? Led by Steve Young, they passed for over 4,500 yards-and led the league in rushing! With Garrison Hearst being their workhorse, 'Niner RBs rushed for over 2,000 yards.

I would think an efficient passing attack that doesn't throw much would probably be the best case scenario for a RB. Jamal Anderson's situation was perfect, which is likely why someone of lesser ability was able to join such an elite group. Anderson had over 400 carries, on the team that passed the ball better than anyone else in the league per attempt. Still, Lewis has a lot of things going for him, and I'd be hard pressed to say he's in an unfavorable situation.
There's little proof for me to believe that Jamal Lewis' 977 yards this year are "extra" special. Averaging 140 rushing yards per game is special enough. I've studied the correlation between rushing performance and defenses as well, and there was little correlation there as well. Rushing records aren't set by great defenses or a strong, complementary passing game-they're set by the best running backs of our time.