LenDale White Struggles With The Difference Between Correlation and Causation

↵↵LenDale White has been given a fresh start with the Seahawks. His arrival in Seattle reunites him with his college coach, who will likely be sympathetic to his plight after White was deposed from the role of feature back with the Tennessee Titans over the course of two seasons by the demonstrably superior Chris Johnson. That and, unlike with his former team, there isn’t an established starter who is going to dominate the distribution of carries. LenDale has a slightly different interpretation of events. He would like to believe that the Titans shortchanged themselves by favoring Johnson last season, who posted one of the best single season statistical years ever by a running back.↵

↵↵Speaking with Fox Sports Radio, LenDale tried to pin the Titans diminished record on the disparity in carries.↵

↵↵⇥“I think what happened was in Tennessee they probably got a little too carried away with the Chris Johnson thing. The year before that we were 13-3 when I had two hundred carries and we split the rock. Chris went to the Pro Bowl and we had the first round bye, they did things different the next year and we struggled to make the playoffs. It is what it is.”↵↵↵Technically speaking, LenDale is right. His carries fell from 200 in 2008 to 64 in 2009 while the Titans record dipped from 13-3 to 8-8. Of course that link fails to factor that the Titans gained nearly more 400 yards on the ground in the latter season (in addition to almost an extra yard per attempt), which suggests the running game hardly suffered for LenDale’s decreased role. As for the team’s overall struggles, they may have had more to do with Tennessee’s defense falling from 7th in yardage allowed and 2nd in points allowed in 2008 to 28th in the NFL in both categories last season. ↵

↵↵So, yeah, nice try LenDale. If Pete Carroll subscribes to his reasoning, his second stint as NFL head coach may be even shorter than his first.↵

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