The Running Game Is Alive! NextGen Stats Analysis

3 years ago by Antonio Losada

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With five weeks of play in the books and things starting to settle a bit, it's time to get back to studying some of the rushers around the league and see how they have performed through (almost) the first third of the 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!

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Week 5 - Running Back Takeaways from NextGenStats

I have mentioned one of the most important concepts to consider when analyzing players through this series of articles: 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.

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.

Last season, the NFL introduced the concepts 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?)
Rushing Yards Over Expectation (RYOE; The difference between actual rushing yards and expected rushing yards on an individual play or series of plays)
Rush Pct Over Expected (ROE%; The percentage of runs where a ball-carrier gained more yards than expected)

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/15Att", 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 25 rushing attempts.

Running Backs Efficiency

Correlation with Rushing Fantasy Points (based on the 2020 season): negative-32%

Leaders and Trailers:

Leaderboard Notes:

Remember, the more "efficient" a rusher is, the lower amount of yards he "wastes" going headfirst toward the opposite goal line in a straight route.
There were three rushers below a 3.0-EFF mark the last we checked back in Week 2, but now only Tony Pollard sits up there with his 2.83 yard-EFF.
Pollard could be considered an "outlier" among those with the lowest EFF marks: the Cowboys' backup is averaging just 7.7 FPPG (remember, I'm only using rushing FP) compared to 11.8+ by the next three qualifiers with the next-lowest EFF of the 53 players to make the cut.
We have to give Pollard a break, though, as he's actually putting up the highest ruFP/15att among those top-4 EFF rushers if we take touchdowns away (Pollard has 1 TD through W5, the other three players have 4+ each).

Among all 53 qualifiers for W5 leaderboards, the average EFF is at 4.00 yards.
Derrick "King" Henry sits atop the FPPG leaderboard five games into the season... and he's definitely doing it in his own way. Henry has a 3.75 EFF mark so far while the other four players averaging more than 12 FPPG don't have marks above 3.46 (and three of them are, in fact, below 3.29 EFF).
The group of 12 RBs averaging 10+ ruFP per game is posting an average EFF of 3.75, precisely Henry's mark so far this year.
The group of 13 RBs averaging <5 FPPG is at a 4.28 EFF.

Kenyan Drake failed to qualify for this weekend roundup, but Phillip Lindsay has retained the lead as the least efficient of rushers in the NFL--and it's not even close. Lindsay's 8.85 EFF is absolutely ridiculous, and almost doubles the mark of 2nd-highest average Mike Davis (4.86).
Only Mike Davis and rookie Michael Carter are needing 4.75+ yards to cross the LOS. None of them is averaging even 6.0 ruFPPG per game.
Those two fantasy outcomes contrast a lot with the next two in the high-EFF leaderboard (James Conner and Josh Jacobs) as both tailbacks are putting up an average of 10+ FPPG through Week 5.
The average rushing fantasy score of the highest-10 EFF-players sits at 6.4 FPPG.
The average rushing fantasy score of the lowest-10 EFF-players sits at 10.0 FPPG.

Touchdown scoring doesn't have a lot to do with EFF.
There are seven players with 4+ TDs through Week 5 and they're averaging marks of 3.55 EFF. The lowest is James Robinson's 3.15, and the highest is Conner's 4.61.
There are also seven players with 0 TDs in that span and they're averaging marks of 3.82 EFF. The lowest is Chase Edmonds' (3.25) and the highest Chuba Hubbard's (4.38).
Now, if you paid attention: yes, both Cardinal's tailbacks (Conner and Edmonds) featured in those last two points. Conner has 5 TDs at 4.61 EFF and Edmonds none at 3.25.

Percentage of Stacked Boxes Faced

Correlation with Rushing Fantasy Points (based on the 2020 season): 8%

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 about 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.

With Chris Carson banged up and Rashaad Penny injured, Alex Collins turned into a go-to WW target for fantasy GMs. Collins is the only qualified RB to have not faced a single Stacked Box (SB) through Week 5.
It's interesting to note how only six players have faced SBs in fewer than 10% of their rushing attempts, and how two of those six both play for Kansas City and are below the 5-percent mark so far.
What is not so great, though, is the fact that the four players with the fewest percentage of SBs faced are all averaging 6.1 or fewer rushing FPPG through Week 5.
Moving to the top of the leaderboard we find once more Peyton Barber and Malcolm Brown leading everybody in 8+D% as the lone two players above a 47.1-percent mark five weeks into the season. That being said, none of them has reached 40 carries on the year yet.
The truth is that only 8 of 53 qualifiers have faced stacked boxes in more than 35% of their rushing attempts. Four of them have rushed the rock at least 40 times (they are probably facing the 8+D because of fear of their actual talents) while the other four are either less talented RB1 on their teams or just subpar/secondary-role players.
Special mention to Derrick Henry, whose staggering 41.6% SBs faced has come on a massive 142 rushing attempts. No other player to carry the ball 90+ times through Week 5 has a higher percentage than Henry, and Jonathan Taylor (32.9%) is the only other player with an 8+D% above 26.6 percent.

Stacked boxes are often employed in the red zone. That probably explains why 10 of the 11 rushers with the highest rate in 8+D% have already scored a touchdown, with Alexander Mattison the only one still to bring the rock to the end zone. They are the ones tasked with carrying the ball through the goal line, so defenses lock heavily into them when they reach that zone. And Ds are actually preventing scores on those plays, though, because of those 10 players only two (Henry and Taylor) have more than 1 TD.
Rushers with 60+ carries through W5 see stacked boxes 22.5% of the time while those with <50 carries so far see them 24.3% on average.
See the thing about there being no correlation between SBs and any other stat? Well, there's that.

Looking at the metric from a pure FPPG perspective, the top-12 per-game scorers at the position have faced 8+D an average of 22.5% of their attempts. Only Derrick Henry, Kareem Hunt, and Austin Ekeler are posting marks above 30.0%. David Montgomery stays as the outlier among those in that group with a super-low 8.7% SBs rate.
On the other hand, the bottom-12 FPPG rushers are facing stacked boxes 20.9% of the time on average. Only Malcolm Brown, Ty Johnson, and Chuba Hubbard are the lone three with marks above 30%. On the contrary, Myles Gaskin, Darrel Williams, and Alex Collins are all below 6-percent SBs faced-rate.

Average Time Behind The Line Of Scrimmage

Correlation with Rushing Fantasy Points (based on the 2020 season): 21%

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 five weeks on the books already, the relation sits at a ridiculous 0.5%. I mean... Nothing linked between these two things, I'm afraid.
The relation between TLOS and actual fantasy points is also pretty much nonexistent, so this metric can be discarded when analyzing players in fantasy leagues and trying to predict their outcomes.

Kareem Hunt's mark has gone down a bit from 3.27 to 3.43 seconds of TLOS. Even then, he is an absolute outlier among qualifiers while he's averaging 11.9 FPPG.
Interestingly enough, the other Brown to qualify this week (Nick Chubb) is second in the TLOS leaderboard with a 2.99 mark while averaging 15.3 FPPG himself.
The two Browns are pretty much outliers (along with Joe Mixon) in the group of "slow" rushers: of the 10-slowest players (highest TLOS marks), only those three are averaging more than 6.2 FPPG.

At the opposite end of the TLOS leaderboard, the "fastest" rushers to cross the TLOS (those below 2.60 seconds) are averaging 6.0 FPPG and only two of them are putting up averages of 8+ FPPG so far through Week 5 of the season.
Only three players are below 2.50 seconds in TLOS. Too bad for all of them, though, their upside is almost killed with Ronald Jones II barely playable in fantasy leagues, AJ Dillon a subpar RB2 in Green Bay, and Payton Barber underperforming and potentially having played his best games already.

The top-22 running backs in FPPG (8.0+) are averaging a 2.79 TLOS
The bottom-20 (<6.0 FPPG) players are averaging 2.75 seconds behind the LOS.
There is something to this, but it's ridiculously insignificant to give it any importance at all for fantasy purposes.

ATT & YDS & Y/A & TD

Correlation with Rushing Fantasy Points (based on the 2020 season): 83% / 90% / 53% / 86%

Leaders and Trailers:

Leaderboard Notes:

Yes, Tony Pollard's stupid 7.7 YPC mark from three weeks ago has gone down. Also yes: Pollard remains King of the YPC with 6.4 yards per carry on a healthy 51 rushing attempts. Only two other rushers are above 5.5 YPC, and Pollard is the clear leader among qualified RBs with a 9.6 ruFP/15att average (not factoring touchdowns into the calculation).
At the other end, we were worried about Kenyan Drake's low 1.5 YPC back in Week 2. Well, he's not there anymore because he straight didn't qualify for the W5 roundup. But Phillip Lindsay took on the putrid role of trailing everybody else with his stupid 1.7 YPC on 29 carries. Yikes.

James Conner is putting up 10.0 FPPG on pure rushing terms. That's great, but that also has a lot to do with his 5 TDs in five weeks. Other than that, Conner's has kinda sucked with the fourth-lowest YPC mark among all qualifiers at just 3.2 yards per attempt.
Funny though, is the fact that Conner's teammate Chase Edmons has yet to score a single touchdown while having a top-4 YCP mark through W5 with 5.5 yards per carry. Positive regression is going to come Edmonds' way sooner or later, so stay strong if have shares of him.

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

Correlation with Rushing Fantasy Points (based on the 2020 season): 90% / 67% / 53% / 53% / 33%

Leaders and Trailers:

Leaderboard Notes:

Starting last year, the NFL 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, defender positional data, 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.

Of course, rookie Ty'Son Williams' hype and unsustainable production had to die at some point. His 2.0 RYOE was impossible to stay that high for long, and now Ty'Son only has a 0.8 RYOE on 31 rushing attempts (yes, he's also losing ground in terms of touches).
Two players are equally great at overperforming expectations five weeks into the 2021 season, and once more two Browns appear at the top of the leaderboard in a category--this one the most important--as both Hunt and Chubb have wildly overperformed the historic production of their carries.

Things have settled on the ROE% front too, with no player overperforming his carries more than 52 percent of the time through Week 5. In fact, only Hunt and Ezekiell Elliott have been able to stay above the water, the water being a massive 48.3 ROE% in this case.
I have to point out the fact that both Henry and Chubb, while on lower ROE% marks, have many more carries than no. 1 Kareem Hunt (55).
Derrick Henry has overperformed expectations in a league-leading 62 carries so far. The next-best player, Elliott, has done so 44 times, followed by Chubb's 40-mark. Nothing surprising considering Henry has rushed the rock a ridiculous 142 times already.

Phillip Lindsay stays on the very low side of things when it comes to RYOE... as his putrid negative-2.1 mark shows. Nobody has underperformed by more than a yard other than Lindsay, and he's done so to more than twice that extent. Lord have mercy.
Interesting to find the likes of D'Andre Swift, Christian McCaffrey, and Alvin Camara at the bottom part of the RYOE leaderboard. All of them are rushing for -0.7 yards per carry than expected, though it's also true that all of them have 50+ rushing touchdowns and are relied upon more often than not, making it harder to log large marks.

Only two rushers posting averages of 10.0+ FPPG have underperformed with negative RYOE marks (Jacobs at -0.5 and Conner at -0.6). The other 10 such rushers are overperforming to an average of +0.8 yards per carry.
At the opposite end, of the 20 rushers with averages of <6.0 FPPG only five of them are on the positive side of the RYOE leaderboard (Chase Edmons has the highest mark at 1.0, yet the zero in the TD department has killed his fantasy upside).
The correlation is sky-high (positive-54% r-squared value between ROE% and FPPG) and the most consistent overperformers are those averaging the most fantasy points per game so far.

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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