It doesn’t matter if a running back is good and I’m tired of pretending otherwise.
For years I have joined my fellow analytically-minded nerds in seeking out shiny backfield objects in the hazy distance -- running backs who have proven highly efficient and who -- the thinking goes -- must be on the verge of commanding touches over their inferior backfield mates. Coaches will simply have no choice but to give our shiny running back more snaps and carries and targets. He’s done so much with so little; how could a professional football coach not see as much and feel compelled to make our shiny back the main guy in his backfield?
Like everything else in life, football is meritocratic, right? The better you are, the more playing time you get. That’s the way it goes. Right? Right?
Well.
As football fans and analysts and fantasy managers, we are (almost) unfailingly disappointed when our shiny running back does not, in fact, take over his backfield, but is surgically deployed while his slower, less elusive backfield partner gets the bulk of the touches, even where it counts the most -- inside the 10-yard line. Zeke over Pollard. Montgomery over Herbert. Jamaal Williams over Swift. Najee over Jaylen Warren. And for the olds, Thomas Jones over Jamaal Charles.
Us analytics nerds are Charlie Brown charging headlong toward the football and NFL coaches are the smirking Lucy, always ready to yank the ball away and watch us fall on our collective butt. Next time, we mutter, rubbing our derrieres. Next time.
Every summer we pore over metrics that would make you sound utterly unhinged if you brought them up at a party: Rush yards over expected, yards after contact per attempt, breakaway rate, elusiveness rating, EPA per rush, efficiency rating. We cite these stats exhaustively for months and months, and even when the NFL season begins and it’s clear our shiny running back is not going to get the run we expected, we keep citing these numbers as if they mean anything. My shiny guy is good! Look at these numbers! To which an NFL coach would say: So what. You sound insane.
The years of combing through spreadsheets in search of the running back skeleton key has exhausted me. I see no point in searching for running backs who are actually good; I’m ready to go in on ordinary backs who have the trust of their coaches and locked-down valuable roles in their offenses. I’m too tired to go on with this quixotic fantasy football mission. I’m ready, at long last, to give in to reality, to accept NFL backfields for what they are. In 2023, I will embrace the boring running back and stop pretending that fancy peripheral stats mean anything to NFL teams. It’s something of a return to my fantasy football roots. Somewhere on the internet exists my 2012 loving ode to plodding running backs who could get there for fantasy purposes based on pure, uncut snap and touch volume.
2023 is the year I stop chasing the shiny running back and embrace the Leonard Fournette prototype: A trusted runner favored by coaches and players who is maddeningly inefficient.
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Our Stupid Little Stats
A chart created by Sumer Sports’ Tej Seth recently circulated through football Twitter and prompted a lot of questions about what the hell we’re doing with all these advanced rushing measurements. The chart, based on rush yards over expected and EPA per rush, had some of the game’s most high-profile backs looking not just ordinary, but below replacement level, while non-household names popped.
That guys like Jeff Wilson and Raheem Mostert -- the main backs in a Miami offense that finished 25th in rushing yards last season -- came out looking better than Jonathan Taylor and Josh Jacobs and Derrick Henry raised more than a few questions about what, exactly, we were measuring in our never-ending mission to find the shiny RB.
Sure, Nick Chubb -- the Best Pure Rusher in Football, in case you haven’t heard -- looked quite good in this chart. And yes, the fading, late-career Dalvin Cook looked downright miserable in this RYOE/EPA charting. But the rest didn’t seem right, didn’t feel right.
I asked Eric Eager, vice president of Sumer Sports, a football analytics firm, about the online pushback against the RYOE/EPA chart and the myriad questions it raised about how fantasy nerds evaluate the running back position.
Ideally, Eager said, we want a metric to measure player output minus his situation. Rush yards over expected, for example, uses down, distance, yard line, defensive alignment, and offensive line grades to determine the number of yards an average running back would gain in a given situation, according to a 2021 Pro Football Focus study. RYOE is inarguably a multifaceted and highly complex way to show which running backs are outperforming the median rusher. How much of that is pure running skill -- elusiveness, toughness, and patience, among other attributes -- and how much is driven by scheme or mauling offensive linemen is up for debate.
“If the player himself influences the situation, then there is an issue [with a metric]. This, in my opinion, is affected more heavily in things like competition percentage over expected than rush yards over expected, but it’s a reasonable charge,” Eager said, referring to the criticism that rush yards over expected is a team stat, is noisy, and is far too related to game situation and the back’s offensive line to be useful. “The issue is, though, that right now there is generally more stability in RYOE than there is in other metrics like yards per carry, especially if a player is switching teams.”
Rush yards over expected, in other words, is imperfect but far more accurate in identifying a highly productive rusher (or scheme) than stats fantasy managers used a decade ago.
I asked Eager if I had lost my analytics-loving mind for considering the pursuit of the boring back over the metrics god running back. Was I simply jaded? Was I spinning narratives that would ease my frustration in identifying and drafting good-but-unused running backs onto my fantasy roster?
No, Eager said.
“One thing I noticed when looking at tracking data was Ezekiel Elliott did really well when you looked at things like ‘how much the linebackers moved at play action,’ which speaks to the respect he has from coaches and other players,” Eager told me. “In fantasy, I think we know in our minds that efficiency goes down with volume (e.g. what will happen with Tony Pollard this year) but we don’t believe it in our hearts. Coaches instinctively act on this fact (probably too much).”
Sarah Mallepalle, a Carnegie Mellon graduate and a superstar on football analytics Twitter before she worked in the Ravens’ analytics department, entered an NFL analytics community that largely believes “running backs don’t matter” because so much of their production hinges on offensive line play, offensive scheme, and the number of defenders in the box before the snap. “Running backs don’t matter” has long been an analytically-driven approach to team building that has effectively crushed the bargaining power of NFL backs, including the game’s most productive and well known rushers -- guys you may have heard of like Austin Ekeler, Josh Jacobs, and Saquon Barkley. Zeke Elliott, for this reason, may go down as the last NFL running back to net a truly massive second contract.
Mallepalle, hired by the revamped Cowboys’ analytics department in June, said at the MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference in March that her mind had changed -- to some degree -- on the foundational analytics belief that running backs are largely replaceable.
“Once you get to that second or that third level defender and you’re one on one with them, are you a back who is able to shake that tackle or do you get wrapped up,” she said during a conference panel. “Some backs are better at that than others.”
Vision, Mallepalle said, is another factor not easily measured by our various metrics. Some guys have the enhanced vision and instinct to make the right moves to gain yards on a poorly blocked run play. Others: Not so much.
There is no accurate statistical measure for a running back who might be special against second and third level defenders, the backs made in the mold of Jamaal Charles, who, for my money, is the greatest running back to ever play. I suppose tape grinders would say they can spot a special rusher. And maybe they can once in a while. An objective measure identifying these players is an entirely different story.
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What It Means For 2023 Redraft Leagues
It’s not that every productive running back has poor efficiency metrics. Just last year, Rhamondre Stevenson, Tony Pollard, Derrick Henry, and Breece Hall were among the league leaders in rush yards after contact per attempt. Of course, Khalil Herbert, Gus Edwards, Eno Benjamin, and Kenyan Drake (of all people) also popped in this category. But you get the idea. Good running backs create more yards than are blocked on a given play. Sometimes, the numbers tell a story that makes sense.
It’s not that I will willfully ignore advanced running backs stats this season, but that I’ll put more weight on how players are used and what coaches say about their backfield. My newborn skepticism of chasing the shiny running back certainly doesn’t mean I’m abandoning the Zero RB draft strategy in favor of a balanced or Robust RB approach, as I lack the elevated testosterone levels for such an approach.
I don’t think it’ll be difficult to apply the Boring RB approach to Zero RB. There are a handful of intriguingly boring mid(ish)-round running backs who could fit well into a Zero or Hero RB strategy (I’m using Fantasy Football Calculator ADP, which more closely reflects player valuation in normal leagues). None of these guys qualify as analytics darlings, yet I find myself targeting them in this jaded phase of my fantasy football life.
Miles Sanders (ADP: 5.07)
Sanders is actually an undercover analytics darling. I would guess analytics bros writing off Sanders don’t know or won’t acknowledge that among backs with at least 400 carries since 2019, Sanders ranks first in EPA per rush. I don’t care about all that though. The Panthers seem intent -- for now -- on making Sanders the team’s lead back. ESPN reported in May that the Panthers’ goal is for Sanders to return to his 2019 usage, when he caught 50 of 63 targets for 509 yards and three touchdowns before being relegated to early-down banger status from 2020 to 2022. He could shape up as a screaming arbitrage option for backs going in the second round of redraft formats.
Damien Harris (7.05)
Harris’ rushing profile is the very definition of “mid” and I don’t care. He won’t get much, if any, passing down work. Again, I don’t care. Harris, who notched 15 scores in 2021, is in line to be the primary early-down back and primary goal line option for a high-octane Buffalo offense. Bills coaches’ growing obsession with protecting Josh Allen from big hits could make Harris’ goal line role more valuable than anyone could guess headed into 2023. Forget that James Cook has all the fancy numbers on his side. Give me Harris.
Brian Robinson (8.04)
Perhaps no yet-to-deliver running back is shinier than Antonio Gibson. He’s shifty and fast and an excellent pass catcher because, well, he was a receiver in college. I’m doing my damndest to ignore the Gibson buzz coming out of Commanders minicamp. Robinson, the quintessential boring back, is one year recovered from the gunshot to his leg and once again has the confidence of Washington head coach Ron Rivera. That’s good enough for me.
Jamaal Williams (8.07)
My dad’s words still ring in my ears: Jamaal Williams had just scored his third touchdown of the day against the Giants in Week 11, I was mourning the deaths of my otherwise-good DFS tournament lineups, and my dad asked why I hadn’t played the guy who gets all the goal line touches. I had a tantrum and yelled about touchdown regression, but the old man was right. Our game isn’t difficult if you don’t want it to be. Get the running backs who score touchdowns. Williams could easily take on a similar role in New Orleans, especially if Alvin Kamara gets hit with a lengthy suspension.
My newfound love of the boring back doesn’t mean I’m morally obliged to ignore all other options. I reserve the right to glom on to some fancy-pants analytics king who emerges in the late summer -- if, that is, said running back is going late enough to allow me to hammer early-round wide receivers and tight ends.
I’m going to spend the next 90 days paying close attention to what beat writers and coaches say about their backfield options, and I will not, under any circumstance, pretend I know better than an NFL coach. Even if we somehow, some way do know more than a coach, it’s all immaterial, inconsequential.
My pledge to you is that I will no longer pretend it matters that a running back is good.
