"The always underrated Brian Westbrook shows up twice in the top ten with games from last year; the Week 10 game against Washington is the game where he sat down on the one-yard line to ice the clock instead of scoring his fourth touchdown of the day."

No, he did that in Dallas in Week 15 (link in name). Nitpicking aside, great article!

Very interesting article.

Amazing that not only did someone have over 250 yard total offense and not score a TD - it happened 3 times? Wow! Marshall Faulk at least has the Rams offense to blame, what was the deal with Corey Dillon? Oh, and btw thanks for calling the 90's "before the turn of the century". I'd forgotten that I'm freakin' old.

I love the guy, but maybe Edge figures no publicity is bad publicity, so long as they spell his name right. His consistency and success rate were both so high, but there was some boom and bust there: I'll remember him for a long time, the 200+ yards I saw live against Seattle along with the 13 yards on 9 carries against the Jets in that 41-0 playoff loss. The OL must have been a seive in the game he caught 2 of 7 from Manning.

oh, and phenomenal article, a few typos aside.

That Fred Taylor game against Pittsburgh was (at the time - not sure if it still is) the single-game rushing record against them, and he did it in Pittsburgh. That was an impressive game to watch and it's good to see the advanced stats back that up.

Looking at this article prompted me to look at the season stats for the Saints' RBs, which prompted me to ask the question: Is Pierre Thomas destined to be the next Marion Barber/Jerious Norwood, languishing on the bench behind clearly inferior players?

I am utterly amazed that the post-Curtis Martin, pre-Corey Dillon Patriots don't show up on any of the "worst rushing game" lists. Am I mis-remembering how abysmal their rushing attack was for about five years?

The Ultra Back!

Re 9:

This is single player performance, not team. I presume the Patriots aren't up there because no single player sucked enough on their own.

It's interesting how the QB performances were (seemingly) much more intuitive than the RB performances. In other words, the games that QBs were ranked highly on seemed to also be intuitively good-- at least compared to RB games.

Does this say something about the way that FO rates running backs, or the way the public rates them? Or something in between?

12: FO stats are rating RB production, not the RBs themselves. I have long suspected that rushing DVOA is dramatically affected by the quality of the run blocking and the offensive system - much more so than yards per carry.

Re: 12

I think some of it also has to do with the fact that we hear more often "QBEagles went 25-40 for 300 yards", but we don't hear "Bo Jackson ran for 100 yards on 43 carries"--we just get the raw yardage, so that sounds quite impressive.

FO stats are rating RB production, not the RBs themselves

A semantic, surely... most people do rate RBs on their production, as opposed to their.. um... attractiveness or some such.

14. You may be on to something here. After all, it's hard for a QB to rack up a bunch of yards without completing a lot of passes... and MOST of the time (or at least more so than a 4 yard run), a completed pass will be a success, in the FO- version of success. But we do see RBs who rack up a ton of yards, and can even average a ton of yards per carry without consistently providing value.

I think the thing is that the public often is very impressed by, for example, 25 carries for 100 yards, because they place too much emphasis on things like ball control/killing the clock/wearing down the defense/etc.

On the other hand, I think FO underrates some backs by undervaluing long runs. When a back has a reputation as a "homerun hitter", it often causes defenses to devote extra attention to him, since they don't want to get burned for a long one. That, in turn, opens up things for the passing game, especially the play action. Of course, this effect doesn't show up in the RB's stats.

1. Great article, as always.
2. Brian Westbrook ROCKS. I really hope he and the Eagles can come to an agreement on his contract. I see him as a Tiki Barber-type of back, only getting better in the next couple of years. There really isn't anything he can't do.

how long can we call Brian Westbrook underrated until he stops being underrated? People are finally starting to look at him in the same light as guys like LT. He'll never have the career numbers...but there isn't a single thing you can ask of a RB that Westbrook can't do.

A semantic, surely… most people do rate RBs on their production, as opposed to their.. um… attractiveness or some such.

Production is dramatically affected by situational stuff. FO stats give Kenton Keith a higher DVOA than Frank Gore. That is a pretty poor measure for RB ability. (It's true that running plays involving Kenton Keith were, on average, more effective than running plays involving Frank Gore. It just doesn't mean Keith is a better running back.)

Yards per carry is actually probably a better proxy for RB ability. As mentioned, Kenton Keith has a high DVOA, comparable to Adrian Peterson's, despite a much lower yards per carry. That's because people play safeties deep against Manning, and he gets his 4.5 yards, and then someone tackles him, and that's that. Against Peterson, people stuff the box fearlessly, sometimes literally playing a 5-3 defense, and sometimes he never has a chance. Nonetheless, he hits enough homeruns to have a much higher YPC than Keith.

I think this sort of thing happens a lot. Given two backs on different teams with equally high DVOA, where one averages 4.5 yards per carry and the other averages 5.5 yards per carry, I'd guess that the first is a decent back on a great team, but the second is a great back on a weaker team.

I know there's an issue with quarterbacks' rushing DYAR, but what about RBs' passing? It's probably impossible to figure in, but in that 20th best DYAR game, Tomlinson threw for a TD too.

@18: I've been stealing Westbrook late first round/early second every year for the last few years, because my friends trust those "fantasy draft rankings" that never seemed to have him in the top five. We don't even give points for receptions, either. Unfortunately it seems those rankings finally realized he always outperforms them and now he's top 3 everywhere :(

How great was Westbrook against Detroit to finish that high in DYAR despite facing a defense that finished 30th in the league?

Is Pierre Thomas destined to be the next Marion Barber/Jerious Norwood, languishing on the bench behind clearly inferior players?

I don't know about Marion Barber, but I'd say Jerious Norwood is getting all the carries he can handle. Actually, maybe a few more than he can handle, given that he has yet to go through an entire season uninjured. If he can only carry the ball about 100 times without losing significant time to injury, then he can still be a very valuable player (and he is), but he shouldn't be given a full workload of carries. Remember, DVOA doesn't account for durability at all. This isn't a problem for most positions, but with RB, it can become an issue. Just because his DVOA is much higher than his teammates' when he gets 100 carries doesn't mean he should get more carries than he currently does. Remember, if he's on the bench injured, his DVOA doesn't change at all, but his value to his team plummets.

How great was Westbrook against Detroit to finish that high in DYAR despite facing a defense that finished 30th in the league?

How about this for crazy:

Receiving:

Westbrook against Detroit - 111 yards, 1 TD.

Terrell Owens against Detroit - 21 yards, 0 TDs.

Rushing:

Westbrook against Detroit - 110 yards, 2 TDs.

Entire Cowboys Team against Detroit - 87 yards, 2 TDs.

Yeah, that Westbrook guy, he's kinda good, I guess.

#23:

You've got to be kidding. Norwood has missed a total of 3 games in 2 years, which is a trivial number for a RB. It's absurd to affix the "injury-prone" label to a guy who has suffered a couple of minor injuries, without his production suffering at all.

It's also extremely ironic, given that you spend the rest of your post praising Westbrook, who has NEVER played a "full season" (by your definition) in any of his SIX years in the league! In fact, early in his career, the knock against Westbrook was exactly the one you're making against Norwood: that he was too small and too injury-prone to be able to handle a full load. Pretty silly, huh?

The fact is the Falcons will never know whether Norwood is capable of carrying the load unless they try giving it to him, which their recent signing of Turner seems to suggest that they remain unwilling to do. It may end up working out OK for them, as Turner certainly represents a significant upgrade over the broken-down shell of Warrick Dunn, but I still say Norwood deserves better.

Norwood has missed a total of 3 games in 2 years, which is a trivial number for a RB. It’s absurd to affix the “injury-prone” label to a guy who has suffered a couple of minor injuries, without his production suffering at all.

I didn't say he was a bad player. And maybe he's not that injury-prone, but still, I think it makes sense to be cautious with a young RB that's a little on the light side, so that you don't overwork him and get him really badly injured. So, sure, increasing his carries isn't out of the question, but I don't think he should be getting 15-20 carries a game. 8-12 carries a game (which would be a modest increase over his previous years) is probably a better idea. If he can handle that, great, keep increasing his carries gradually over the years, and see what happens. But a full load of carries is way too risky at this point in his career.

In fact, early in his career, the knock against Westbrook was exactly the one you’re making against Norwood: that he was too small and too injury-prone to be able to handle a full load.

Yes, and early in his career, Westbrook was too small and injury-prone to handle a full load of carries. That's why the Eagles' coaching staff wisely decided not to give him a full load of carries. You think it's some huge coincidence that this past year was the first time Westbrook has even gone remotely close to 300 carries in a season? That he only had 20+ carries in a game twice in his first 4 seasons? That he's had 30+ carries in a game a grand total of 1 time (in his sixth year)?

Westbrook is injury-prone (like seemingly every other player on the Eagles' roster, but that's neither here nor there). He's one of the best RBs, if not the best RB, in the NFL, in spite of that. And he didn't get that way by having a full load of carries in his third year in the league. In fact, it might be helpful to look at how many carries Westbrook had in his first few seasons, for comparison purposes:

2002 - 46 carries
2003 - 117 carries
2004 - 177 carries
2005 - 156 carries

Not exactly threatening the Curse of 370, was he? Hell, until his 5th season, he wasn't even threatening the Curse of 270. And I don't think it had anything to do with his team disrespecting his abilities. They just didn't want to lose one of their best players to a career-ending injury, so they played it safe until they were sure he could handle more and bounce back from whatever minor injuries he had along the way.

Westbrook didn't have 300+ carries in any of his first few seasons. He didn't last year, and he probably never will. But that didn't stop him from leading the league in rushing DPAR/DYAR in 2007.

Look, I'm not criticizing Norwood. I think he's done an excellent job so far, and he has a good chance of developing into an elite RB. But he's not going to do it in a hospital. If you asked Norwood to carry the ball 300 times next season, he'd probably run it very well for maybe 200-250 carries, easily break 1000 yards, and then break his legs. That doesn't help him, the Falcons, or anyone else involved. Caution is the way to go with undersized RBs. It can yield fantastic results.

And let's be honest, it's not like a little more Jerious Norwood is all the Falcons needed to be a playoff team last year. Winning 5 or 6 games instead of 4 isn't a good reason to risk a major injury to a young RB. In contrast, if Warrick Dunn suffers a career-ending injury, not such a big deal, since he should be retiring soon anyway (well, ok, I guess it is a big deal to Dunn, but not because it's going to rob him of his prime or something). Norwood will have plenty of time to get more carries when the Falcons are actually competitive, and his efforts can be put to good use. But there's no reason to rush things.

The fact is the Falcons will never know whether Norwood is capable of carrying the load unless they try giving it to him, which their recent signing of Turner seems to suggest that they remain unwilling to do.

I might be in the minority in this opinion, but I doubt the Falcons are going to expect either Turner (who has never had more than 80 carries) or Norwood to "carry the load", at least not next year. My guess is that Norwood and Turner will split carries roughly evenly, and the Falcons will use each of them in the situations where they are most effective, maximizing their value and minimizing their injury risk. Say each of them gets somewhere between 150-200 carries. I suspect they'll form an impressive two-headed monster, and the team's rushing attack will benefit greatly.

I guess I'm having trouble seeing that as unfair to Norwood. I mean, yeah, if all Norwood wanted to do was compile stats, then that won't help him, but presumably he's a bit more interested in helping his team win, and it will help him do that. But I could be wrong about the Turner thing, we'll have to wait and see.

#25:

You make a good point about how the Eagles have used Westbrook, although I think part of the reason he's gotten more carries the last couple of years is that Reid has been unable/unwilling to rely on McNabb quite as heavily as he once did.

Perhaps I misinterpreted your statement about 100 carries, which I took to mean that you didn't feel that Norwood should ever get much more than 100 carries. If, as you suggest, the Falcons employ a 50/50 split next year, that would seem to be a very reasonable way to employ their 2 backs. Very few backs are actually capable of thriving while getting 300+ carries per year.

However, I have serious doubts that there will be a 50/50 (or even 60/40) split. I don't think they gave all that money to Turner to watch him standing on the sidelines. I'm actually expecting Turner to get about 3/4 of the carries. I'm basing this on the fact that Dunn got about 2/3 of the carries, and Turner is younger, bigger, and figures to be much more productive than Dunn.

However, I have serious doubts that there will be a 50/50 (or even 60/40) split. I don’t think they gave all that money to Turner to watch him standing on the sidelines.

They don't have to put Turner on the sidelines to have Norwood on the field. There's no rule against using both of them at once. In fact, I think that's probably the best idea for the Falcons. And not just for running. They can have one split out wide, or in the slot, while the other stays in the backfield to block or sell a play action fake. But in any case, I think Norwood is going to be getting more carries this year than he did last year. I think the main reason they paid Turner so much is that he was a free agent, whereas Norwood was already on the team, so they don't need to offer him a huge contract.

I’m basing this on the fact that Dunn got about 2/3 of the carries, and Turner is younger, bigger, and figures to be much more productive than Dunn.

Maybe, but I don't think Dunn was viewed as a long-term investment the way Turner is, so the team didn't have to be as careful with Dunn. With Turner, I think they'll probably give him a reasonably light workload, but greater than his workload in previous seasons, before they count on him to take on a full workload.

Still, since my belief is based on the idea that Falcons' management has some small modicum of intelligence, it is obviously quite suspect.

Btw, I must say, Raiderjoe is right about Sierra Nevada Pale Ale. It's very good stuff. I only had two before I wrote this post, and I almost made some very obvious spelling/grammar mistakes. I can totally understand why that kind