RADIO
Fantasy football draft season is upon us and RotoBaller is here to help! In this series, two RotoBaller experts will discuss the merits of two players with similar value and average draft position (ADP). Remember that situations will change for all players over the course of the summer and it may impact where they are selected in drafts.
This article comes from staff writers Tyger McGuiggan and Wai Sallas, who compare two running backs in standard formats with ADPs that fall around the eighth round.
This time, our writers are throwing down on a pair of teammates in the same backfield. Wai defends this year's incumbent starter at RB for Green Bay, Jamaal Williams, while Tyger contends that Aaron Jones has the higher upside. Which part of the Packers backfield should you own?
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Opening Statements: Who Do You Draft?
Williams Has the Trust Factor - Wai Sallas
If you begin by looking at just basic numbers, Williams led all Green Bay running backs in carries, starts, yards, receptions, receiving yards, and total touchdowns. The only advantage Jones had was in yards per carry. That's great if you garner enough carries to make that stat applicable. Jones, however, didn’t have more than five carries after Week 6. That Week 6 game against New Orleans was also the last time he was the lead rusher and had any fantasy relevance. One could point to Jones’ knee injury as the catalyst but the truth is much more basic.
There are two major components that make Williams the running back to own. The first is Williams is a better pass protector. See, the Packers have this guy named Aaron Rodgers that they want to protect. As we witnessed last year, when Rodgers is not in the game, the team is very bad. To protect him, you need a running back who can—er—do pass protection. Williams is much better than Jones in this area. Head coach Mike McCarthy trusts Williams more. Also, Jones is suspended for two games. If Williams excels in the first two weeks, Jones won’t see the field unless it’s to spell Williams, much like we saw at the end of last year.
All this information is reflected in Williams having a slightly higher ADP than Jones. Trust the experts, Jamaal Williams is your guy.
Go for Ceiling, Not Safety - Tyger McGuiggan
Why should you take Aaron Jones? It all comes down to upside. There is no running back on the Green Bay Packers who has the tremendously high ceiling of Aaron Jones. While he struggles in pass protection, Jones is clearly the best runner in Green Bay.
You can see his talent both in stats and from the film. Injuries and the general ineptness of head coach Mike McCarthy limited Jones to only 81 carries last year. While the small sample size should be a reason for some restraint, 81 carries isn’t insignificant. He averaged 5.5 yards per carry. His advanced stats also look great. Of running backs who had 50 or more rushing attempts, Aaron Jones is second on Football Outsiders DVOA. Jones accrued 143 Defensive-adjusted Yards Above Replacement (DYAR). That measure is a cumulative stat, so it should increase with more rushing attempts. However, Jones has accrued more DYAR than Jamaal Williams despite having close to half as many carries.
Where these great numbers come from is evident in the film. Aaron Jones has elite quickness. He can find and exploit holes that are open for only brief moments. Holes that simply are not open long enough to be an option for Ty Montgomery or Jamaal Williams. He can reach the outside and turn the corner before defenses can get over and close it down, which Williams cannot do. In general, his speed gives him more angles and avenues to attack than an average runner like Williams. And it’s not like that speed hurts him once he is in the open field.
The best argument against Jones is that you should never trust Mike McCarthy to make the right decision. However, Jones threatens defenses in ways that Jamaal Williams never could. He would force defenses to game plan to him and defend the run honestly. The threat of a real run game is crucial to the success of Green Bay’s very vanilla passing attack, so I must believe that sooner or later Jones is going to wind up getting most of the carries in Green Bay.
Rebuttals: Why Take One Over the Other?
Coaching Decisions Will Keep Jones on the Sideline - Wai Sallas
There are two things we agree with - First, Jones is the better runner, and McCarthy's decision making is, at best, questionable. One thing McCarthy has made clearly evident over the years is that the running game is not a priority for him as the head coach of the Green Bay Packers. In the 12 years he's toed the sidelines at Lambeau, only twice (back-to-back Eddie Lacy seasons in '13-'14) has a running back finished in the top-nine in PPR scoring leagues. At the same time, Packer wide receivers have finished in the top five in half of McCarthy's dozen years.
All this is to say, McCarthy does not care about the run. He is a pass-first coach. Last year, with Brett Hundley at quarterback for the last nine weeks of the season, the Packers threw the ball 61.36 percent of the time, seventh most. Rodgers is one of the best quarterbacks in the history of the NFL. Deep down, McCarthy knows his job is safe as long as Rodgers is upright. While Jones may be the better running back, by deductive reasoning, having Williams in there to protect Rodgers, keeps McCarthy safe.
Unfortunately, in this case, the better runner will not start because the situation deems it so.
Williams Is Not a Special Talent, Jones Could Be - Tyger McGuiggan
It is true that Jamaal Williams is a much better pass protector than Aaron Jones. To take it a step further, Jamaal Williams is also a much better receiver than Jones. A player can improve as a pass-protector and as a route runner, but as the saying goes, “You can’t teach speed.” It is entirely possible that Aaron Jones has done absolutely nothing to improve his pass protection over the course of an entire offseason despite it being the biggest weakness in his game. It is also possible that Aaron Jones maintains his deer-in-headlights look whenever a ball is thrown his way. But either of those things happening seems unlikely. Jones and the Packers have made a big deal about how Jones has improved his lower body strength and why they expect that to help his pass protection. We have every reason to think that Jones will be better in pass protection this year.
On the other hand, Jamaal Williams is still going to be the same replacement level talent he was all of last year. He is not going to be faster or more dynamic. He is dependable, but his ceiling remains incredibly low. My fear with Williams is that the confluence of events that happened last year are the only situation in which he can have success in fantasy. He played bad defenses with no competition for carries on an offense that grew more averse to throwing the ball. Williams needs a lot of volume to get going. He struggled last year when used inconsistently. With other healthy running backs on the roster and the offense re-adopting its pass heavy identity, Williams will see his workload cut in half. According to NFL.com, Williams faced a stacked box 21.57% of the time, or the 11th least in the league. So Rodgers returning isn’t going to improve William’s efficiency. Jamaal Williams is going to be in a less favorable situation this year and we can’t trust he keeps his role when he struggles. Just look at what happened to Aaron Jones last year.
Despite playing well before the injury, head coach Mike McCarthy had no qualms about riding the hot hand and taking carries away from Jones. While we shouldn’t be so quick to discount Aaron Jones’ knee injury. It did completely knock him out for several weeks and left him limited in practice for the remainder of the year. He was never 100% after it and the risk of a re-injury was real. However, pass protection was also a concern and McCarthy didn’t hesitate. There is no reason to think he won’t look at the situation the same way this year. If Williams struggles with less volume and Jones is looking good, Mike McCarthy will make the switch regardless of what happened the first two weeks. This season could go in a variety of different ways and both Jones and Williams have their share of concerns. However, only one of those running backs has actual upside and that running back is Aaron Jones. That is why he should be the running back you target in your drafts.
