https://www.footballoutsiders.com/st...-and-rest-time

Why is the myth that a running game can help a defense so prevalent? I suspect that a contributing factor is the conflation of pace effects (in which defenses allow fewer points if they take the field on fewer drives) with actual changes in defensive efficiency. If two teams possess the ball an equal number of times, there is nothing inherently valuable about making the other team possess the ball fewer times, because your own team will also possess the ball fewer times (unless, perhaps, an underdog is pursuing a high-variance strategy). In the end, barring defensive or special teams scores, the team with more points per drive will win, whether there are a lot of drives or few drives. But there is no evidence that time of possession helps a defense perform better when it is on the field.