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The Best and Worst Running Backs - Fantasy Football NextGen Season Review

Nick Chubb - Fantasy Football Rankings, NFL Injury News, DFS Lineup Picks

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

Time's up! The 2022 fantasy season is done and gone for good. Whether you play in a redraft league or are part of a dynasty format, the days of sitting at the edge of your couch and biting your nails are over. We have a tough eight-month desert to walk through ahead of us, but hey, the real NFL players are this close to kick-off and we will still enjoy football for another month and change, so you better get to it while it lasts! With the numbers in place and the games finished, it's time to wrap up the series and take a final look at who was who during this 2022 season.

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!

Be sure to check all of our fantasy football rankings for 2025:

 

The Best and Worst Running Backs - NextGenStats

The season, at least for us fantasy nuts, is finally over. That is nothing good for our enjoyment of the fantasy game, but it is a time of calm and peace to enjoy the real NFL playoffs that we're also invested in. With all of the regular season numbers now in place, it is time to wrap up the NextGenStats series position by position.

Today, I will go through the running back position and will provide a final update on how the league's rushers have done in the different metrics we've already tackled during the season. I will only show a small number of names for each category, present the correlation with the fantasy points averaged by the player, skip the gory details, and instead, provide a new "combined" leaderboard at the end of the column.

Keep in mind also that 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 this time, "ruFP/15At", which 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.

Note: The cutoff is set at 90 rushing attempts.

 

Running Backs Efficiency

Correlation with Rushing Fantasy Points: negative-24%

Leaders and Trailers:

 

Percentage of Stacked Boxes Faced

Correlation with Rushing Fantasy Points: 28%

Leaders and Trailers:

 

Average Time Behind The Line Of Scrimmage

Correlation with Rushing Fantasy Points: 14%

Leaders and Trailers:

 

ATT & YDS & Y/A & TD

Correlation with Rushing Fantasy Points: 86% / 88% / 27% / 85%

Leaders and Trailers:

 

RYOE & RYOE/A & ROE%

Correlation with Rushing Fantasy Points: 53% / 36% / 11%

Leaders and Trailers:

 

Combined NextGenStats Leaderboard

To build this leaderboard, I used every metric that is part of the NGS site and put everything together in a combined score I labeled "NGS" in the following table.

The calculation of each player's NGS score is simple. I calculated where each player ranked for each metric and then multiplied that rank for the correlation between that metric and my ruFP/G metric. Players ranked higher (closer to one) in each category will have lower scores for those categories.

In the end, I added up each player's scores from all of the categories, getting a single NGS score.

The lower the NGS, the better the player for fantasy.

Each category was already weighed given its correlation with the ruFP/G metric. Here are the results:

 

Running Back Leaderboard Results

Nick Chubb is your Rushing King, folks.

I know that there will be detractors out there still favoring Derrick Henry, but Chubb was the best rusher looking at it from an NGS perspective and arguably from both a real/fantasy angle.

Chubb only lost the total rushing tally to Henry by a mere seven yards, but he reached his mark on 47 fewer carries for a 5.0 YPC average to Henry's 4.4 YPC figure.

The fight for the no. 1 position on the combined NGS leaderboard was incredibly tight, though, with a mere 0.9-point separation between Chubb and Henry. The distance from the top two to no. 3 Josh Jacobs wasn't that big, but of course notable nonetheless compared to how close Chubb and Henry finished.

Chubb finished inside the top five in five different NGS categories while Henry only did so in four. Chubb is the only player this season with as many as five such finishes.

Both Henry and Chubb topped one category each. Khalil Herbert bested them with two different top finishes in Y/A and RYOE/A. No other player topped more than one category.

Melvin Gordon was the absolute-worst NGS player of the season. He trailed everybody in three different statistical categories while also finishing in the bottom five in six different ones. Only one more player logged six different bottom five finishes: Michael Carter of the Jets.

No rusher had five different bottom five finishes other than Gordon and Carter, with fellow New York Jet James Robinson being the only one with four such bad finishes.

J.K. Dobbins is the only running back with at least two top five and two bottom five finishes this season. In fact, he finished inside the top five in three different categories.

Chubb won the NGS rushing crown while still finishing dead last in one category: TLOS. Henry didn't rank outside of the top 30 in any statistical category.

Kenneth Walker III (seventh) is the highest-ranked player among those with at least two bottom five finishes. Najee Harris is the next-best but already at a low 19th place. Dalvin Cook and Ezekiel Elliott are the other two rushers with one bottom five finish ranked between Walker and Harris.

The correlation between ruFP/G and NGS scores is at a very strong 92% for the 2022 season.

That eight-percentage-point gap explains the small differences in both ranks:



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REAL-TIME FANTASY NEWS

Willy Adames

Out With Side Soreness on Tuesday
A.J. Brown

on Track to Play in Week 1
Jacob deGrom

Being Skipped in Rotation Due to Shoulder Fatigue
Adley Rutschman

Scratched on Tuesday With Abdominal Discomfort
CBJ

Brendan Smith Joins Blue Jackets on Tryout Deal
STL

Milan Lucic Joins Blues for Tryout
DET

Red Wings Pick Up Travis Hamonic
Austin Riley

Doesn't Appear Ready to Return Any Time Soon
Aaron Judge

Unikely to Throw Normally Again This Year
Jalen McMillan

Could be Out Through Week 9 Bye
Indiana Pacers

Pacers Coach Rick Carlisle Agrees to a Multiyear Contract Extension on Tuesday
Washington Wizards

John Wall Retires After 11 NBA Seasons
Daniel Jones

Named as Colts Starting Quarterback
Jalen McMillan

Will Not Be Ready for Season Opener
Collin Sexton

Hornets Have High Hopes for Collin Sexton
Rui Hachimura

Likely to Start Season Without Contract Extension
Jaime Jaquez Jr.

Hopes to Bounce Back in 2025-26
Stephen Curry

Ready to Go for New Season
Orlando Magic

Lester Quinones Agrees to Deal With Magic
Luka Dončić

Luka Doncic Cleared to Play on Tuesday Night
Vladimir Guerrero Jr.

Pulled With Hamstring Tightness
MLB

Game 2 of Brewers-Cubs on Monday Postponed
Bryce Miller

to be Activated on Tuesday
Kyle Tucker

to Get Multiple Days Off
Shane Bieber

to Make Season Debut on Friday
Joe Mixon

Could Start Season on NFI List
Zack Wheeler

has Surgery to Remove Blood Clot
De'Von Achane

Unlikely to Practice This Week
Justin Jefferson

Returning to Practice
Chris Godwin

Bucs Chris Godwin Likely to Start Season on PUP List
Joe Flacco

Browns Name Joe Flacco as Their Week 1 Starter
Jalen McDaniels

Inks Deal With New Orleans
N'Faly Dante

Signs Deal With Hawks
Matthew Stafford

Practicing on Monday
Dru Smith

Agrees to Deal With Heat
Austin Dillon

Scores an Upset Victory at Richmond
William Byron

Clinches the Regular Season Championship Title at Richmond
Denny Hamlin

Pit-Road Struggles Impede Denny Hamlin's Chances of a Top Finish at Richmond
Joey Logano

Earns A Fourth-Place Finish at Richmond
Kyle Larson

Rallies to A Top-10 Finish at Richmond
Malik Nabers

Dealing With Back Injury
Khamzat Chimaev

Is The New UFC Middleweight Champion
Dricus Du Plessis

Gets Dominated At UFC 319
Aaron Pico

Suffers Knockout Loss In His UFC Debut
Lerone Murphy

Scores Stunning First-Round Knockout
Leodalis De Vries

Earns Promotion to Double-A
Nathaniel Lowe

Finalizing Deal with Boston
Geoff Neal

Suffers First-Round Knockout Loss
Ketel Marte

Arizona Could Trade Ketel Marte in the Offseason
Carlos Prates

Gets Back In The Win Column
Michael Page

Dominates At UFC 319
Jared Cannonier

Gets Outclassed
Tim Elliott

Gets Submission Win
Kai Asakura

Still Winless In The UFC
Austin Cindric

has Arguably his Best Run of the Season at Richmond
Ryan Blaney

Contends for First Richmond Win but Comes Up Short
Alex Bowman

Finishes Second but Loses Ground in Playoffs
NASCAR

Bubba Wallace Sets Personal Laps-Led Record at Richmond
Chris Buescher

Falls Out of Playoffs After Miserable Richmond Run
Coby White

Bulls Not Interested in Trading Coby White
Dereck Lively II

Expected to be Ready for Camp
Brian Robinson Jr.

Commanders "Shopping" Brian Robinson Jr.
John Metchie III

Texans Trade John Metchie III to Eagles
Victor Scott II

Placed on 10-Day Injured List
Trey Hendrickson

Bengals Listening to Trade Offers for Trey Hendrickson
Marcelo Mayer

to Have Season-Ending Wrist Surgery
Samuel Basallo

Called Up From Triple-A Norfolk
J.K. Dobbins

Expected to Win Starting RB Job?
Quentin Johnston

Suffers Concussion in Preseason Loss
Jaxson Dart

Plays Well on Saturday Night
Marcus Semien

Avoids Serious Injury
Kyle Stowers

Heads to Injured List With Left-Side Strain
Zack Wheeler

Placed on Injured List With Blood Clot in Shoulder
Terry McLaurin

Commanders Optimistic Terry McLaurin Deal Can Get Done Soon
De'Von Achane

De’Von Achane Dealing With Lower-Body Injury
Luka Dončić

Luka Doncic Likely Avoids Serious Injury
Josh Hader

Unlikely to Return During Regular Season
Denny Hamlin

the Heavy Favorite to Win at Richmond
Christopher Bell

Has Been Great at Richmond
Tyrese Haliburton

No Longer Using a Scooter, Crutches
Ryan Blaney

Can Ryan Blaney Finally Break Through at Richmond?
Joey Logano

Will Start Last at Richmond After Practice Trouble
Chase Elliott

Lack of Top-Line Speed Hurts his DFS Potential
Kyle Larson

Recent String of Crashes Make Him a Big Risk at Richmond
William Byron

Probably Slightly Too Inconsistent at Richmond to Start for DFS
Ryan Preece

on Pole at Richmond as Playoff Deadline Looms Closer
Brad Keselowski

Probably the Best RFK Racing DFS Option at Richmond
Chase Briscoe

Still Figuring Out Richmond
Chris Buescher

a Solid Choice for DFS Play, but Teammates Look Faster
Terry McLaurin

Commanders Activate Terry McLaurin From PUP List
Rashee Rice

NFL Could Reach Settlement Before Hearing
Haywood Highsmith

Dealt to Brooklyn on Friday
Amir Coffey

Signs One-Year Deal With Bucks
Khamzat Chimaev

A Favorite At UFC 319
Dricus Du Plessis

Set For His Third Title Defense
Aaron Pico

Set For UFC Debut
Lerone Murphy

Looks To Remain Undefeated
Geoff Neal

Looks For His Second Win In A Row
Michael Page

Set For His Second Middleweight Bout
Jared Cannonier

Looks To Win Back-To-Back Fights
Kai Asakura

Looks For His First UFC Win
Tim Elliott

Set To Open Up UFC 309 Main Card
CBJ

Mikael Pyyhtia Re-Signs With Blue Jackets for One Year
UTA

Caleb Desnoyers Expected to Miss 12 Weeks After Wrist Procedure
Tyson Foerster

on Track to Be Healthy for Season Opener
NHL

Olivier Rodrigue Signs KHL Deal
NHL

Emil Bemstrom to Join Swiss Team
Payton Pritchard

Reportedly Moving Into Starting Lineup
Kevin Durant

Rockets Not Interested in Keeping Kevin Durant with Max Extension
NBA

Isaiah Mobley Joins Turkish Team
NBA

Cole Swider Links Up with EuroLeague Powerhouse

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