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Antonio Losada uses Jaguars running back Leonard Fournette as a case study for running backs by examining the impact of long runs in the overall rushing profile of running backs for fantasy football.
There is something that has been in my head since the day it happened, all the way back in September during a game featuring the Jacksonville Jaguars and Tennessee Titans. Back then, Leonard Fournette accrued 66 rushing yards on 15 rushing attempts. That's not bad, as the final stat line read 4.4 yards per carry for Fournette and gave him 6.6 fantasy points on the ground. Not bad, but not great either.
We could leave things there, but there was something to that game that caught my attention more than anything. Of those 66 yards, 69 of them came on a single attempt. Wait, what!? Yes, you read it right. Up to that carry, his 12th on the day, he had rushed for negative-8 yards. He then went all the way for 69, two, none, and three more to finish with 66. Had he not broken for those 69 yards and gained no yards at all, he would have finished with negative-3 yards and negative fantasy points.
That got me thinking about what I've called Lenny Yards--the longest of runs logged by a player in a game--and how those yards impact running backs in the NFL. So I went and crunched some numbers.
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Introducing Lenny Yards
Welcome to the magnificent world of Leonard Fournette, where you can log negative yards most of the day and finish close to 100 when all is said and done... thanks to one single carry. This is nothing new, and it has happened since the first football was snapped. Actually, it appears in most box scores that include a single column in which you can catch the longest run or catch of the day by each player so you can quickly know who had the most explosive plays.
I have called the longest-yardage runs Lenny Runs, and their yardage gained the Lenny Yards. Making an absolutely ridiculous example of it, a rusher with two rushing attempts per game on the season would log 32 rushing attempts. If the first run always goes for 5 yards, and the second for 10, he would have (5+10)*16 yards on the year, which are 240 rushing yards. Of those 240 yards, 10*16 or 160 would be Lenny Yards. We can subtract the Lenny Yards from the Rushing Yards to get a player Sure Yards, which for our man would be 240-160 equal 80 Sure Yards.
So this player would finish the year like this:
- 32 Rushing Attempts
- 240 Rushing Yards
- 160 Lenny Yards
- 80 Sure Yards
- 66.6% Lenny Rate, which is more than half his yardage, which means most of his fantasy value on the ground came via one-off explosive plays, which means this player should not be considered very reliable.
But the question is this: are Lenny Yards something? Or are Lenny Yards too random to create player profiles out of them? Let's dig a little deeper.
The 2019 Season in Lenny Yards
By now, you know the man behind the Lenny Yards concept. Leonard Fournette was the player that fostered this idea and thus the one who gave it its name. But was he actually a Lenny player or not? Turns out he indeed fits the profile like a pair of gloves fits my bare hands.
I have to say I felt a sense of relief when I found out that indeed Fournette led the league in Lenny Yards last season. Probably one of the few times the eye wasn't completely lying to me, but here we are.
While Fournette led the league in total raw Lenny Yards, we're not considering how many times each of the rushers in the charts actually rushed the ball. Things remain the same if we look at Lenny Yards per game (remember, there is only one Lenny Run per game, the longest one).
Fournette had the longest Lenny Run on average of those attempting at least 100 rushes (total) on the season at 32.1 yards. Kenyan Drake was second at 31 and Derrick Henry third at 30.5.
Things start to take a turn when we look at the total rushing attempts each player logged on the year, instead of just at the games they played.
Fournette is high on Lenny Yards per game, but he's also one of the players with the most rushing attempts in the league. That means that removing one single explosive run from his total yardage might not go for much, lessening the full season impact of his "Lenny ways" on his overall performance. In fact, this is made clear by the Lenny Rate (Rushing Yards vs Lenny Yards).
Here, the color ranges from red (first-quartile, or inside the top-25%) to green (outside the top-75%). As you can see, Fournette didn't have the lowest of Lenny Rates (41.8 percent of his rushing yards were Lenny Yards) but neither the worst (James White's 73.3% Lenny Rate).
Here is the actual leaderboard.
Fournette ranked 11th of 42 qualified running backs, high enough as to consider him quite a Lenny Player.
Fantasy Impact of Lenny Yards
The main takeaway from the Lenny Yards concept is very simple: try to avoid players that rely too much on Lenny Yards to generate fantasy points. Data backs up this thought, as the R-Squared between rushing fantasy points (based on pure yardage on the ground, extra-points for touchdowns not factored in the calculation) and Lenny Rate is as high as 0.50.
The relationship is quite obvious. The more yardage a player gets on single, explosive runs over the season, the worst if those plays are the only ones he relies on to generate fantasy points.
It is not a problem generating those plays if there is more than one per game, or if they don't make for the bulk of the player's yardage. The issues arrive when rushers log rather mediocre averages on the ground and then make up for them with those huge, once-in-a-game explosive runs.
This is also linked to the concept of Volatility that I have explored earlier this month. There is nothing more volatile in a running back than long runs. They happen from time to time, and they usually end with the player reaching the end zone, but seeking those explosive plays is akin to seeking touchdowns, which we all now are highly variable and do not correlate that much season-to-season.
Leonard Fournette is a great player. Lenny Yards are just part of a running back life. And a high Lenny Rate is not bad... as long as the player carrying it is also carrying the ball more than a bunch of times every single game and constantly putting up good numbers. Wherever Fournette winds up playing in 2020, he will be a running back worth starting each week as long as he keeps getting the ball frequently.
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