Fantasy Football Beneath the Surface: Week 15
Another week of NFL football, another pile of data to sift through looking for clues. Clues as to what leads to certain results and clues for speculating what might be coming next. They say, “looks can be deceiving.” The same can be said for surface-level statistics in fantasy football. In this weekly article series, I will be looking beneath the statistical surface, beyond the standard box score, using the premium statistics provided by FantasyData, including advanced and efficiency metrics across the fantasy skill positions, to search for puzzle pieces that fit together.
While I am always trying to uncover and provide actionable data, this article’s theme doesn’t always lend to short-term actionable information, such as the lineup decisions you are making each week. Last week I dove into some of the Advanced and Efficiency data available at FantasyData, looking specifically at the Top 24 QBs in fantasy points per game. If you would like to read that article you can find it here. For this article, I will be focusing on some of FantasyData’s Advanced and Efficiency metrics at the RB position.
NOTE: For the most part, the Week 14 Thursday Night Football (TNF) between the Seahawks and 49ers is not factored into this data.
RB Advanced and Efficiency Data
I want to spend some time in this article highlighting the advanced/efficiency metrics available at FantasyData for the RB position. I will be looking at the following metrics among the current Top 36 RBs (points per game, PPR format), which show efficiency, elusiveness, and production.
- Opportunity Share (Percentage of team rush attempts plus team RB targets)
- Team Offensive Line Grade (per Pro Football Focus entering Week 15)
- Yards per Rush Attempt
- Juke Rate (Evaded tackles per touch)
- Yards Before Contact per Attempt (Yards gained prior to first being contacted)
- Yards Created per Attempt (Yards gained beyond what was blocked; yards gained after the first evaded tackle)
- Breakaway Run Rate (Rushes of 15+ yards per rush attempt)
- Dominator Rating (RB’s percentage of total team yards and team TDs)
- PPR Fantasy Points per Touch
- Target Share
As with QBs in the previous article, these are some of the metrics that are effective indicators of an RB’s skill. Simply put, the goal of an RB is to move the ball as far down the field as possible, so the ability to avoid being tackled is tightly linked to that goal.
Entering the NFL, we have certain data sets available to analyze in trying to project how rookie RBs will fair in the NFL. Draft capital, college production profiles, and speed/athleticism metrics at the NFL Combine and NFL Pro Days are the data sets. An RB like Breece Hall stood out (significantly) in all three. Hall was the first RB selected in the 2022 NFL draft. He was near or at the top of the 2022 rookie RB class in many college production statistics commonly used in projecting rookies (e.g. RB rush share, rushing yards per team rush attempt, total yards per team play, TD share, breakaway runs per game). He also smashed in the speed/athleticism metrics. Hall ran a 4.39 40-yard dash, was second in the class in the broad jump, had the second-highest speed score, and a best-in-class vertical jump, burst score, and relative athletic score. Hall’s odds of succeeding at the NFL level are higher than most based on the historical hit rate for those numbers. And before Hall’s injury, he was showcasing that NFL dominance. But, once the NFL games and seasons start to build for rookie RBs, beyond obvious cases like Breece Hall, we have to also look elsewhere for indicators of potential emerging studs (like Tony Pollard and Rhamondre Stevenson) or projecting who might break out into the upper echelon of NFL RBs (like Khalil Herbert in my view). That is where these efficiency and production metrics are useful.
Like the Expected Points discussion in previous articles, these RB metrics add important details to the story being told by box score statistics. And they are good indicators of an RB’s skill. We don’t get to revisit the pre-NFL metrics as time goes by. NFL players do not run a 40-yard dash or see how far or high they can jump before every game, so we have to look at the in-game action. I’ll use my “two players” example again. Player A is handed the ball and runs through a giant hole created by his offensive line, getting tripped up by a safety for a gain of 12 yards. Player B is handed the ball and immediately makes a defender miss, sees a slight crease open and cuts back through a backside hole, evades two more tackles, and drags a third before finally being brought down for a gain of 12 yards. I am in no way knocking Player A here. We want our RBs to have giant holes to run through. But Player B exhibited more RB skill (vision, speed, athleticism, strength, and elusiveness) on his run. Again, this is not to diminish the skill of Player A. Both are a 12-yard gain in the box score. But in the quest to quantitatively measure skill as an indicator for potential consistent and sustained success. Player B tells us more. Let’s say Player A is Breece Hall. No issues with that. But, if it were Breece Hall (based on looking at this type of data), the chances are higher that he would make that safety miss, and turn it into a much larger gain (Breakaway Run) after being given the initial benefit of a massive running lane. That is why these efficiency metrics are so important. They tell us (generally) how much credit for an RB’s success on a given play should be attributed to the RB.
The following chart shows the current PPR Top 36 RBs in points per game, with a minimum of eight games played. This first chart includes the following RB efficiency data points to help visualize this discussion. I am including offensive line rankings by Pro Football Focus (PFF) as a reference point to generally show what each RB is working with. The reason I am including only the one opportunity metric (Opportunity Share) will become clear.
- Opportunity Share (Percentage of team rush attempts plus team RB targets)
- Team Offensive Line Grade (per PFF entering Week 15)
- Yards per Rush Attempt
- Juke Rate (Evaded tackles per touch)
- Yards Before Contact per Attempt (Yards gained prior to first being contacted)
- Yards Created per Attempt (Yards gained beyond what was blocked; yards gained after the first evaded tackle)
- Breakaway Run Rate (Rushes of 15+ yards per rush attempt)
Some names jump out immediately with this data. Nick Chubb, Tony Pollard, Rhamondre Stevenson, Kenneth Walker, D’Andre Swift, and Khalil Herbert all catch my eye on the positive end of what this data is telling us.
Nick Chubb
Chubb’s talent as an NFL RB is well-known at this point. He has been one of the more efficient runners in the NFL since he joined the league. He is one of few active RBs with a career yards per rush attempt above five and has been at or above that number in every season he’s played. But yards per rush attempt are on the “box score” side of the data. What is beneath the surface of that rate? According to PFF, the Browns’ have had a Top 10-graded offensive line in each of Chubb’s NFL seasons (including so far in 2022), with the exception being 2019 when they ranked 23rd. So a solid offensive line has played a role in Chubb’s NFL success. But it is Chubb’s elusiveness that he has added to that equation to become, to some, the best pure runner in the NFL. The only reason Chubb doesn’t threaten the overall RB1 season after season is that he catches very few passes. Chubb is second among the Top 36 RBs in juke rate, which is a straightforward elusiveness metric showing how many tackles he evades per rush attempt. An evaded tackle can mean different things. It can be an athletic move forcing a would-be tackler to “whiff,” and it can be shedding a would-be tackler after they have made contact. Either way, many positive attributes of an RB are on display when forcing a tackler to miss. Some combination of vision, patience, instinct, speed, and strength are required to force NFL-caliber defenders to miss a tackle. Even the worst tacklers in the NFL are still the best some of the best tacklers in the world. The reason Chubb continues to be in the “best pure runner” conversation is that he is at an elite skill level with each of these elusiveness requisites.
Yards Created
Yards Created per Rush Attempt are tied closely to Juke Rate. Yards created are the yards gained after the first evaded tackle or yards gained beyond what was successfully blocked. This is similar to the more traditional statistic of yards after contact (YAC), but involves an official evaded tackle rather than a more general “first contact.” Yards created adds the context of yardage (the goal of an RB) to an RB’s elusiveness. Chubb ranked in the Top 10 in both Juke Rate and Yards Created per Rush Attempt in each previous season.
Tony Pollard
Pollard is an emerging superstar in 2022 even while sharing the backfield with Ezekiel Elliott. Elliott is signed through the 2026 season (ridiculous), but the Cowboys do have a potential out with Elliott after this season according to Spotrac.com. Pollard is at the end of his rookie deal and will be an unrestricted free agent in 2023, and, if not re-signed by Dallas, one of the biggest free agents of the offseason. Elliott has edged Pollard this season in opportunity share (~52% to 48%), but Pollard has been the pass-catching back in Dallas with a 10.2% target share, more than doubling Elliott’s number (4.5%). Pollard is second in yards per rush attempt (5.66) behind only Khalil Herbert (5.96), eleventh in juke rate, and tenth in yards created per rush attempt. Pollard leads the NFL in the percentage of his rush attempts that go for at least 15 yards (10.1%). So, while Pollard is not quite at the top of the elusiveness metrics, he has turned more of his attempts (on average) into big gains. But he is high enough on the RB elusiveness scale to show that much of Pollard’s success can be attributed to him being a highly skilled RB, with the Cowboys also being middle-of-the-pack with a 15th-best offensive line grade according to PFF.
Pollard is the main reason I decided to include Opportunity Share, which does not directly fit in with elusiveness and efficiency data. Here is this same group of RBs sorted by Opportunity Share (highest to lowest):
There are only seven RBs in the Top 36 PPR fantasy RBs who have a lower Opportunity Share than Pollard. The next closest RB in PPR Rank to Pollard (at RB8) with a lower Opportunity Share is D’Andre Swift, who is the RB20 with a 34.7% Opportunity Share. You have to move down the PPG ranks 12 spots to find an RB seeing fewer of his team opportunities than Pollard. I checked, and since 2011, there have only been 11 RBs to finish as a Top 12 RB (PPR) with an Opportunity Share below 50%. Now you might be thinking that isn’t necessarily a good sign. I often talk about hit rates based on historical data, meaning the argument could be made that Pollard is having an outlier season that might not be repeatable. That is a valid point and is a potential outcome with Pollard. But that’s only if he stays at a sub-50% Opportunity Share and it somewhat ignores Pollard’s underlying peripherals being spotlighted in this article. Sure, Pollard’s PPR rank is slightly inflated by his blow-up games in Week 8 (100+ rushing yards and three rushing TDs) and Week 11 (100+ receiving yards and two receiving TDs) but I would argue that also gave us a glimpse of Pollard’s ceiling as an excellent runner and receiver. If Pollard stays in a timeshare after this season, remaining in the sub-50% Opportunity Share range, his odds of finishing as a Top 12 RB in that situation are not high. But, if his opportunities increase, whether in Dallas or with a new team, Pollard legitimately has Top 6 and potential overall RB1 in his range of outcomes.
Opportunity Share
The other benefit of including and sorting by Opportunity Share is it also showcases RBs who are relying more on volume than efficiency among the Top 36 RBs. Other than Josh Jacobs, there are no other RBs who are Top 12 in Opportunity Share and also Top 12 in Juke Rate, and only two other RBs who are Top 12 in Opportunity Share who are also Top 12 in Yards Created per Rush Attempt (McCaffrey and Kamara). Jonathan Taylor has had devastating season for those who selected him first or second overall. Part of that reason can be seen here. Taylor is 17th in Juke Rate (25.6%), 26th in Yards Created per Rush Attempt (2.34), and 24th in Breakaway Run Rate (3.6%). All of this with a 24th-ranked offensive line (PFF) has been a recipe for a massively disappointing season for 2022’s overall RB1. To drive this point home further, Taylor had a league-leading 44.4% Juke Rate and a ninth-highest 6.9% Breakaway Run Rate in 2021.
You see a fair amount of yellow-red conditional formatting at the top of the list when sorted by Opportunity Share. Alvin Kamara, Dalvin Cook, Joe Mixon, Saquon Barkley, Dameon Pierce, and Najee Harris have been below-average in these metrics. I will point out that so has Derrick Henry, who also plays behind the worst-graded offensive line according to PFF. But King Henry is a unicorn when it comes to advanced analytics and typical prerequisites for top-scoring fantasy RBs.
Rhamondre Stevenson
Like Pollard, Stevenson is also in the midst of a breakout season. Although currently battling injury, Stevenson checks in as the PPR RB10 through 14 weeks. Partially aided by the early season injury woes of fellow Patriot RB Damien Harris, Stevenson is another RB who has done much of his fantasy scoring damage as a pass-catcher. A beneficiary of the fifth-highest-ranked offensive line in New England, Stevenson wrestled the lead back job away from Harris even when Damien returned from injury to the tune of a season-long 64.2% Opportunity Share. Now, that ranks 14th amongst this group of RBs, but you have to take into account the “Belichick Effect.” As we have seen many times in recent Patriots’ history, and as we saw once Stevenson went down with an injury in Week 14, being able to trust one specific New England RB is typically a fool’s errand. That’s not the case with Stevenson.
Stevenson currently leads the NFL with an elite 45.0% juke rate and is third yards created per rush attempt (3.86). It should be noted that the only two RBs ahead of Stevenson in that category are Jerick McKinnon (5.56) and D’Andre Swift (4.71), not coincidentally also the two RBs with the lowest Opportunity Shares. Fewer rush attempts can equal higher rates across many statistics. As you increase the rush attempts (denominator) the total decreases on average. So, if you look at RBs with an Opportunity Share above 50%, Stevenson is tops in the league in creating yards on his own. I realize that looking at yards created per rush attempt (as opposed to per touch) cuts out pass-catching work, but it is in rush attempts that I think yards created are the most useful. An RB is given the ball behind the line of scrimmage with most players on both his team and the opposing team in his way. Creating yards in that constant scenario tells us more in my opinion. But don’t worry about Stevenson in that context. Along with his top-tier rushing peripherals, he is also third among RBs in target share (18.3%), behind only Christian McCaffrey and Austin Ekeler.
Kenneth Walker
Walker has had a rough stretch of games. Since his 100+ rushing yards, two-TD game in Week 9, Walker has failed to eclipse 50 rushing yards in a game. Now, he did leave the Week 13 game versus the Rams with an injury, but it has not been pretty for Walker as of late. But the future is still extremely bright for the Seattle RB based on his peripherals. Before his recent downward trend, Walker was above five yards per rush attempt through Week 9, and he is currently fourth in Juke Rate (38.9%), fifth in yards created per rush attempt (3.66), and fifth in Breakaway Run Rate (8.0%). Walker’s season-long Opportunity Share is only 60.1% (17th), but keep in mind he’s a rookie and he did not start seeing double-digit touches until Week 6. Since then he has been one of the bigger bell cows in the NFL.
Seattle’s entire offense (and team) has taken a step back late in the season as they’ve run into some tougher opponents and regressed to the 0.500 team they are. I am not sure how much fantasy value Walker will have in the fantasy playoffs, having scraped together 79 total yards against the 49ers and with the Chiefs and Jets remaining, but I still think based on what Walker has shown us in his rookie season he will be in the RB1 conversation each year he is healthy. He has excelled at times with the same RB skill-based attributes I listed for Nick Chubb: Vision, patience, instinct, speed, and strength.
Khalil Herbert
I’ll conclude this week’s article with one of my favorite candidates to emerge who has not yet, and that’s Khalil Herbert. Herbert showed some flashes this season before his season-ending injury but still took a backseat to David Montgomery. But Montgomery is an unrestricted free agent after this season, while Herbert will be entering year three of his rookie deal. I have no insider information. I don’t know what the Bears’ plans are with Montgomery, but there is a decent chance he moves on. According to OverTheCap.com, the Bears currently have approximately 10.7 million dollars in cap space, so not dire straits but also not a lot. RBs do not typically break the bank in the current NFL landscape, but Montgomery won’t be cheap relatively speaking. It would make sense for the Bears to let Montgomery move on, especially if they are confident in a much cheaper Herbert. And they should be.
Although a smaller sample size (lower denominator = higher totals), Herbert does lead the NFL with a 5.96 yards per rush attempt rate. Herbert has the third-highest Juke Rate (41.2%), the seventh-highest Yards Created per Rush Attempt, twelfth-highest Breakaway Run Rate, and the sixth highest Yards Before Contact per Rush Attempt (and that’s with the 29th-ranked offensive line according to PFF). Herbert does have the second-lowest target share among these RBs (2.6%) but I think that is more a product of his second-fiddle nature in the offense, rather than him not being a good pass-catcher. As the primary back in this Bears’ system, Montgomery has seen an eleventh-highest 11.2% target share, so RB pass-catching has been part of the offensive game plan for the Bears’ primary back, and I think that will be Herbert in 2023.
Herbert is also seventh on this list of RBs in PPR Fantasy Points per Opportunity (FPTS/OPP) at 0.93. The reason I see this as another indicator for future success with Herbert is that higher FPTS/OPP for RBs typically follow the higher target shares. It makes sense as receiving targets are worth more expected fantasy points than rush attempts.
This last chart shows the following for the same group of PPR Top 36 RBs. Similar to Opportunity Share above, I am including one opportunity metric (Target Share) because it factors into the analysis of these efficiency rates.
- Dominator Rating (RB’s percentage of total team yards and team TDs)
- PPR Fantasy Points per Touch (chart is sorted by this metric)
- Target Share
Here is where Herbert’s potential stands out even more. Herbert has by far the lowest target share among the leaders in FPTS/OPP, meaning that fantasy point scoring efficiency has not relied on pass-catching as it typically does. You can bring up the same counterpoint as we did with Pollard. Maybe this is an outlier based on the smaller sample size with a second-fiddle RB like Herbert. But also like Pollard, that’s only if Herbert stays second fiddle, which I don’t think he will. Based on Herbert’s peripherals, I believe he’ll have a major breakout season in 2023 if handed the reigns to the Chicago backfield. Buy Herbert in dynasty while you still can. He is one of my biggest early off-season trade targets before Montgomery potentially moves on.
I’ll end with this. I have seen rumblings lately on Twitter about why we are still valuing D’Andre Swift so highly in dynasty formats. Go back and look closer at the data in this article and you will see part of the reason why. Swift just needs to find a way to stay healthy.
Thanks for reading! If you have any questions about the data used in this article or about fantasy football in general, feel free to hit me up on Twitter.
