In the past, we've talked on the show about the idea of improving the offensive line, because it's generally accepted that average running backs can perform well behind a good offensive line. Terrell Davis, a hall of fame running back for the Broncos, had some amazing years in Denver. But his offensive line performed so well that backs like Olandis Gary, Mike Anderson and Clinton Portis also performed well.
But what about the reverse? Can a running back actually perform well behind a bad offensive line?
There aren't many measures for offensive line play that relate to the running game. So I settled on Football Outsiders measure of Adjusted Line Yards. This formula penalizes offensive lines when running backs are tackled behind the line of scrimmage and gives them credit for the gains up to 10 yards beyond the line of scrimmage. They don't get credit for yards gained beyond 10 yards.
To measure running back success, I went with the top 10 rankings for yards for the season. I looked a couple instances of running backs and yards per carry and yards per game. Yards per game seemed useful and there were some notable backs, but I wanted to account for backs who were able to stay healthy for most of the season. Yards per carry had the potential to bring in running backs who weren't even trusted to take on the majority of the team's rushing game.
With those measures in mind, I went back and looked for running backs who finished in the top 10 in yards, but had an offensive line that finished in the bottom 10 for adjusted line yards.
I found that since 1997, this has happened 34 times. Taking a look at the distribution of where these running backs were drafted, half of them were drafted in the first round and 75% in the first two rounds. Here are the rounds the running backs were drafted:
Round 1: 17
Round 2: 9
Round 3: 2
Round 5: 2
Round 6: 1
Undrafted: 3
Maybe it should be expected that backs drafted higher would be able to perform well without as much help. But there has been a lot of criticism for teams that draft backs early. This seems to support the logic that if you're going to have an offensive line that performs poorly in adjusted line yards (the Seahawks were ranked #31 and #26 the last two years) then drafting a running back early could offer a better shot at having a successful run game.
Full table:
|
Year |
Player |
Draft Round/pick |
Yards Rank |
Line Rank (Adjusted Line Yards) |
|
1997 |
Napolean Kaufman |
RD 1 / 18 |
6 |
30 (last) |
|
1998 |
Barry Sanders Marshall Faulk |
RD 1 / 3 RD 1 / 2 |
4 9 |
29 27 |
|
1999 |
Ricky Watters |
RD 2 / 45 |
9 |
22 |
|
2000 |
Corey Dillon |
RD 2 / 43 |
5 |
24 |
|
2001 |
Corey Dillon LaDainian Tomlinson |
RD 2 / 43 RD 1 / 5 |
7 9 |
26 22 |
|
2002 |
Deuce McCallister |
RD 1/ 23 |
6 |
24 |
|
2003 |
Ricky Williams |
RD 1 / 5 |
10 |
28 |
|
2004 |
– |
|
– |
– |
|
2005 |
– |
|
– |
– |
|
2006 |
Willie Parker Travis Henry |
UDFA RD 2 / 58 |
6 10 |
23 26 |
|
2007 |
LaDainian Tomlinson Willis McGahee Thomas Jones |
RD 1 / 5 RD 1 / 23 RD 1 / 7 |
1 8 10 |
25 24 23 |
|
2008 |
Matt Forte |
RD 2 / 44 |
7 |
24 |
|
2009 |
Steven Jackson Cedric Benson |
RD 1 / 24 RD 1 / 4 |
2 8 |
28 26 |
|
2010 |
Chris Johnson Steven Jackson |
RD 1 / 24 RD 1 / 24 |
4 8 |
31 26 |
|
2011 |
Michael Turner LeSean McCoy Steven Jackson |
RD 5 / 154 RD 2 / 53 RD 1 / 24 |
3 4 9 |
27 26 30 |
|
2012 |
Chris Johnson |
RD 1 / 24 |
9 |
31 |
|
2013 |
LeSean McCoy Alfred Morris Frank Gore |
RD 2 / 53 RD 6 / 173 RD 3 / 65 |
1 4 9 |
25 23 29 |
|
2014 |
LeSean McCoy Arian Foster |
RD 2 / 53 UDFA |
3 6 |
29 23 |
|
2015 |
Todd Gurley Chris Ivory Frank Gore |
RD 1 / 10 UDFA RD 3 / 65 |
3 5 9 |
24 26 27 |
|
2016 |
– |
|
– |
– |
|
2017 |
LeSean McCoy Jordan Howard Melvin Gordon |
RD 2 / 53 RD 5 / 150 RD 1 / 15 |
4 6 7 |
27 28 26 |
I'm open to other ideas for measuring running back success. Just going by the top 10 ranking for yards in a season allows for teams that are very run heavy in terms of play calling to have players with a high volume of yards even behind a low ranking line. I'm thinking there are some other measures that could get us closer to the type of running back performances that we're looking for, but it may be a bit more complicated for trying to calculate and filter out those backs against the adjusted line yard rankings. If you have any thoughts on it, post a note below!
