NextGen Stats - Running Back Breakdowns and Takeaways

September 23, 2020

Antonio Losada provides key fantasy football updates for running backs after Week 2, using Next Gen data to help fantasy owners make the best lineup and waiver wire decisions.

The season is officially in full swing. Two weeks are gone, and 32 games are already on the books providing some tasty information and data to crunch.

To gain the biggest edge in your fantasy football league, it's necessary to understand how to apply the advanced statistics being used in sports nowadays. Back in the day, it was all about wins and losses, passing yards, and touchdowns scored. It's not that those stats are now worthless, they just don't offer enough information to savvy analysts. While football is still in its infancy compared to baseball in terms of analytics, the evolution the sport has seen lately in those terms is notable.

Each week, I'll be tackling NFL's Next Gen Stats, bringing you data from the previous week's games with notable takeaways you should consider when assessing fantasy players for the upcoming week. In case you're new to the series, or Next Gen Stats altogether, I recommend you read our NGS-primer. Now, let's get to the data!

Week 2 - The Running Game Is Alive!

Back a couple of weeks ago when I introduced the series to you, I mentioned one of the most important concepts to consider when analyzing players: Air Yards. The metrics around it are key to know who is really over-performing or under-performing among receivers and passers, but it doesn't have much to do with rushers. For this last group, which mostly features on the ground, we can look at time, speed, and efficiency metrics.

With only one week of data, I deemed it optimal to first look at wideouts and tight ends, as their receiving profiles were probably true from the get-go. The best players were going to get targeted no matter what, and deep threats would remain to be speedsters, just as short-router-runners would also keep their profile the same. I'll focus on running backs for this week's entry.

Today, I'll present each of the stats from the NFL's advanced metrics site, its correlation with rushers-fantasy points, and a list of leaders and trailers in each category along with some notes and takeaways on both the players' and the metrics' impact on fantasy football as a whole. For the 2020 season, the NFL has introduced the concept of Expected Rushing Yards (xRY; How many rushing yards is a ball-carrier expected to gain on a given carry based on the relative location, speed and direction of blockers and defenders?), and Rushing Yards Over Expectation (RYOE; The difference between actual rushing yards and expected rushing yards on an individual play or series of plays). I will also tackle Rush Pct Over Expected (ROE%; The percentage of runs where a ball-carrier gained more yards than expected) in this column.

I will only focus on fantasy production as pure rushers, eliminating the pass-catching element from their game. This will concentrate entirely on their total rushing yardage and rushing touchdowns in terms of the fantasy points per game numbers shown (labeled ruFP/G). I will also include an extra column, "ruFP/15At", which is accounts for the fantasy points a rusher is getting per 15 rushing attempts, which would be considered an RB1 workload on average and allows us to know how different players in different roles would be doing if given the same opportunities.

So let's dive in. Note: The cutoff is set at 10 rushing attempts.

Efficiency

Correlation with Rushing Fantasy Points (based on the 2019 season): negative-28%

Leaders and Trailers:

Leaderboard Notes:

• Remember, the most "efficient" a rusher is, the least amount of yards he "wastes" going headfirst toward the opposition goal line in a straight route. With that in mind, and through two weeks of play, only seven rushers out of 53 qualified can be considered true "north/south rushers" with marks below 3.00 EFF.
• Of those, the two "most efficient" rushers, though, are averaging a minimal 4.5 and 4.3 ruFP per game... It is not that it gets much better getting a little bit further. Of the other five players below 3.00 EFF, just Kareem Hunt and Aaron Jones are averaging over 10+ fantasy points per game on the ground.
• It gets a little bit better when looking at the "normalized" fantasy points per 15 rushing attempts column, though. You see there how no one of the top-7 RBs on EFF are averaging fewer than 8 ruFP/15att.
• At the bottom of the leaderboard, the "least efficient" rushers (over 5.0 EFF) are all (also seven players) averaging fewer than 8 ruFP per game, and only four are over 10+ ruFP/15att. Also, none of the players in that group have rushed the ball 20 times over the last two weeks.

• On a per-team basis, it is interesting to find both Packers' running backs ranking high in the EFF leaderboard and using the same bully-ish approach on their carries. Something similar happens with Cleveland's Kareem Hunt and Nick Chubb, both in the top-11 on EFF.
• Saquon Barkley's numbers are not important now that he's been ruled out ROS, but it is also interesting to find the Giants at the completely opposite side of things with both of their rushers in the bottom-5 of the EFF ranks.

• As expected, the correlation between EFF and ruFP/15att remains negative from last season and the most productive players have been those wasting the least yardage on average.
• Five players are averaging 15+ ruFP/15att (Fournette, Jones, Cook, Kamara, and Jordan Howard) and only one of them (Howard) is above 4.77 EFF with Fournette and Jones at-or-below 3.13 EFF.
• On the other hand, of the seven players averaging fewer than 5 ruFP/15att (Mixon, Gore, Akers, Moss, Burkhead, Saquon, Coleman) only Frank Gore is posting an EFF mark below 4.00 with both Saquon and Coleman at a staggeringly-high 9.6+ EFF marks.

Percentage of Stacked Boxes Faced

Correlation with Rushing Fantasy Points (based on the 2019 season): negative-2%

Leaders and Trailers:

Leaderboard Notes:

• The correlation between stacked boxes and fantasy points is so minimal that it doesn't make much sense to be overly worried with it, if anything at all.
• Don't throw away stacked boxes completely given that almost non-existent relation, but keep in mind that it is heavily related to the role a player has on his offense and to what teams expect from him.

• Only six players have seen stacked boxes in more than 35% of their rushing attempts and only four of those in over 40%, although it must be said that none of those players have rushed the ball more than 18 times.
• Four of those six players are averaging 9.6+ ruFP/15att but those marks have been boosted up by scoring touchdowns in all cases except Coleman's. It is reasonable to find it's worked that way: stacked boxes often come in the red zone, and those scores have happened right there.
• Five players have yet to face a stacked box while having rushed the rock between 11 and 19 times each. Of those, only Fournette has been a valuable fantasy player, both in raw (more than 5 ruFP/G) and normalized (more than 7 ruFP/15att) numbers. Fournette's two touchdowns skew the stats, though, and without them, all five players would fall under the 10 ruFP/15att threshold.

• Of the 17 players averaging more than 10 ruFP/G, only five (29% of them) have an 8+D% over 25%. Of the 36 below 10 ruFP/G, 11 of them (30%) have faced stacked boxes over 25% of their attempts. See how the correlation with FP is just virtually random here?
• Perhaps Josh Jacobs has been the best rusher facing the toughest environment: the Raider has faced stacked boxes on 30.8% of his 52 attempts, but still has averaged 18.1 ruFP/G and a good enough 10.4 ruFP/15att while scoring 3 TDs and racking up 181 yards through two games.

Average Time Behind The Line Of Scrimmage

Correlation with Rushing Fantasy Points (based on the 2019 season): 4%

Leaders and Trailers:

Leaderboard Notes:

• You might think that TLOS and EFF are related, as a north-south rusher should spend less time behind the line of scrimmage. With two weeks on the books already, the relation sits at negative-14%. Good if you will, but not truly great as an indicator.
• The relation between TLOS and actual fantasy points is pretty much nonexistent, so this metric can be almost discarded when analyzing players in fantasy leagues.

• The top of the leaderboard is telling. Of the six players spending more than 3.00 seconds behind the LOS, three are averaging fewer than 3 ruFP/G, and the other three are all over 7.5 ruFP/G. Normalizing those numbers to 15 rushing attempts paint an even more contrasting picture with both groups separated by a larger 6-ruFP gap at the very least.
• Things have looked a little better for the "quickest" rushers, though. Five of the six-fastest players to cross the LOS are averaging 10+ ruFP/15att and Jamaal Williams is close at 8.4. But don't get too hyped about it. The next five players are all averaging fewer than 8 ruFP/15att while still having an under-2.60 TLOS...

ATT & YDS & Y/A & TD

Correlation with Rushing Fantasy Points (based on the 2019 season): 81% / 87% / 34% / 88%

Leaders and Trailers:

Leaderboard Notes:

• With such a small sample of games played and rushing attempts, it is normal to find six players averaging more than 6 YPC at this point in the season (two of them, Fournette and Edwards, haven't even reached 20 ruAtt yet).
• That will regress through the year no matter what. Last season only Raheem Mostert finished above 5.5 YPC, with just six players at 5.0+ YPC.
• Something similar will happen at the bottom of the leaderboard. Of last year's qualified rushers, only two of them finished below 3.5 YPC while there are currently five players below the 2.0 mark. Don't expect that to hold for long--the averages will go up, or the players get out of consideration with fewer carries than to qualify for the leaderboard.

• With such low yardage averages, both Barber and Howard are true TD-dependent players these days, both with a couple of scores each. Had not been for those scoring plays they would be basically unrosterable--even more than they already are.
• It sounds corny and stupid, but the beautifulness is in the middle. Dalvin Cook, Alvin Kamara, and Christian McCaffrey are averaging between 3.8 and 4.3 YPC (sustainable averages over the season) and scoring between 14.5 and 16.9 ruFP/15att. That's the sweet spot: not too high, not too low.

• It is still too soon to find outliers in the scoring department, but some rushers have already made their cases. Take the aforementioned Barber and Howard. With two TDs each, they're averaging 7.5 and 6.6 ruFP/G respectively. Their average ruFP/15att if they hadn't score those touchdowns would be a putrid 2.5 and 1.3 fantasy points...
• Aaron Jones is the only running back averaging more than 10 ruFP/15att without taking touchdowns into account, even though he already has scored three of them. That's insane. Every other player with 3 TD is at 6.5 ruFP/15att at most in that metric (Dalvin Cook).
• Kareem Hunt is the only player on par with Jones in ruFP/15att without factoring touchdowns in, although he's scored just one run through two games compared to Jones' three.

YDS & RYOE & Y/A & RYOE/A & ROE%

Leaders and Trailers:

Leaderboard Notes:

• Starting this year, the NFL has introduced the concept of Rushing Yards Over Expectation. Basically, it comes down to the extra yards a rusher gained (or lost) in a given play given the context of that play (down, distance, etc...).
• The RYOE metric indicates how many extra yards the rusher gained/lost on his carries over/under those he actually rushed for. Ex: YDS = 100, RYOE = 10, then the rusher was expected to rush for 90 yards, but overperformed that mark by 10 (RYOE) thus getting to 100.
• The RYOE/A metric indicates the average extra yards gained/lost per rushing attempt. Ex: Y/A = 0.5, RYOE/A = -1.5, then the rusher was expected to rush for 2.0 Y/A but underperformed that mark by -1.5 (RYOE) thus getting 0.5 Y/A.
• The ROE% metric indicates the percentage of rushing attempts the rusher exceeded the expected yards (gained more yards than expected). Ex: ATT = 10, ROE% = 50.0, then the rusher gained more yards than expected in 5 of 10 (50.0%) of his carries.

• Three players are destroying the history books overperforming on the ground by posting 2.9+ yards per carry more than expected. All of them have rushed the rock at least 17 times, not bad for a two-week sample.
• Mostert, though, is the least "reliable" of those three going forward in keeping up his RYOE/A average. Why? He's only surpassed the expectations in 30.4% of his carries, compared with Fournette's 58.5% and Hunt's 65.2%, both almost doubling him. Mostert's W2 80-yard touchdown boosted that average a lot while coming in just one attempt, thus not raising his average and just bulking his total/raw RYOE mark on the year.
• Dion Lewis was atrocious filling into Saquon's vacated role after getting injured last weekend. So far he's rushed for a paltry 1.9 yards per attempt while he should be at 4.1 given the situations he's been on while carrying the ball. He's by far the worst rusher of the year and the only one below -1.8 RYOE/A.

• Mark Ingram II would be averaging the most yards per carry among running backs through two weeks (actual Y/A-RYOE/A) at 5.8. Sadly, he's averaged -1.4 than expected.
• Again, Aaron Jones appears at a rather high spot in that leaderboard, as he'd be averaging 5 Y/A even if he had rushed to the expectations through his two games. Jones is the only player other than David Montgomery (0.1) with a positive RYOE/A that would be averaging 4.9+ Y/A if rushing to the expectations instead of overperforming them.
• If Mostert had not scored that monster 80-yarder odds are he'd be looked at in a rather different perspective. He would be averaging just 3.3 Y/A instead of his current 6.4...

• The correlation is rather low at this point (positive-11.2%) but the most consistent overperformers are those averaging the most fantasy points per game so far. It will be interesting to keep an eye on this to see how it develops as carries keep piling up over the year.

That's it for today. Until we meet again next week, I hope you can crush your waiver wire, set up the best possible lineup, and get ready for another weekend full of fireworks!

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