Interesting Emmitt Smith Fact

[Melonfeud]

Good analysis. I was going to do some extrapolation myself, once I got to a PC. I also figured you could just double Sanders totals (since he has 5 seasons covered by PFR and 5 seasons not covered) and then use averaging on Smith’s totals. I would definitely say I’m less certain that Emmitt is the definite leader, it could easily be one or the other. What I am certain of is that they are both pretty close together, and that both guys lost and GAINED a ton of yards and however they did it worked for them.
Either way it should end the homer nonsense bullet point of Sanders running around in circles in the backfield losing yards on every play while Emmitt is a mini-Christian Okoye who never went backward at all. Even a conservative projection has Emmitt at a career -1000.

+3 points awarded in the utilization of the intellectually refined word of " extrapolation "

In a differing dither of discussion

 

[T-RO]

Stop with the revisionist history. You specifically said Emmitt had “very very few lost yardage runs” when in fact Emmitt lost more yardage than anyone in history, save for possibly a few. It’s a dumb homer talking point that tries to boost Emmitt but looks dumb under any scrutiny. The end.

Counting stats are limited.

If you give a guy 100,000 carries he’ll have the most of everything: yards, negative carries, fumbles. Those don’t mean much.

Ratio stats are more meaningful.
Yards per carry
Fumbles per carry
Negative plays per carry

And some of the newer stats are even better: yards per carry after contact, etc.

 

[Gangsta Spanksta]

And some of the newer stats are even better: yards per carry after contact, etc.

Madden would call that Bouncability

 

[Melonfeud]

Madden would call that Bouncability

That ICON did possess a wellspring of verbiage,,, NO DOUBT!

 

[xwalker]

Your numbers are really screwed up.

Your second column is repeating values from his first years. Not how stats work.

It's not that complicated.

The 1st column is years 1 through 5.

The 2nd column is years 1 through 11.

You appearently want me to exclude the 1st 5 years in the 2nd calculation. I stated that you were looking at the numbers from the wrong perspective. I'm not going to just repeat the way you did it.

Emmitt had a 4.3 yards per carry average for the first 11 years.

If they sign Zeke to a 2nd contract, it will be finished in less than 11 years.

 

[T-RO]

Madden would call that Bouncability

I don’t know if you are joking. If that’s for real...pretty cool.

 

[T-RO]

It's not that complicated.

The 1st column is years 1 through 5.

The 2nd column is years 1 through 11.

You appearently want me to exclude the 1st 5 years in the 2nd calculation. I stated that you were looking at the numbers from the wrong perspective. I'm not going to just repeat the way you did it.

Emmitt had a 4.3 yards per carry average for the first 11 years.

If they sign Zeke to a 2nd contract, it will be finished in less than 11 years.

If you are judging a guy for how he plays at various ages...then you isolate those seasons. There isn’t any other meaningful way to do it.

GMs are too savy now to pay players for previous results. They project how the players will produce moving forward.

 

[xwalker]

If you are judging a guy for how he plays at various ages...then you isolate those seasons. There isn’t any other meaningful way to do it.

GMs are too savy now to pay players for previous results. They project how the players will produce moving forward.

How complicated is it to look at Emmitt's first 11 years in the NFL?

His average over the first 11 years is just barely off of his first 5 years (4.3 vs 4.4).

If you could guarantee that Zeke would average 4.3 in his first 11 years, then they would definitely re-sign him.

 

[xwalker]

If you are judging a guy for how he plays at various ages...then you isolate those seasons. There isn’t any other meaningful way to do it.

GMs are too savy now to pay players for previous results. They project how the players will produce moving forward.

If you can only understand that way, then here are those results.

Emmitt's Average
Years 1-5: 4.4
Years 6-10: 4.2

 

[Aviano90]

How complicated is it to look at Emmitt's first 11 years in the NFL?

His average over the first 11 years is just barely off of his first 5 years (4.3 vs 4.4).

If you could guarantee that Zeke would average 4.3 in his first 11 years, then they would definitely re-sign him.

I would be extremely disappointed in 4.3. Here are the averages of out top back since 2007. (I use this since it is when JG was offensive coordinator)

2007 - Barber 4.8
2008 - Barber 3.7
2009 - Barber 4.4
2010 - Jones 4.3
2011 - Murray 5.5
2012 - Murray 4.1
2013 - Murray 5.2
2014 - Murray 4.7
2015 - DMC 4.6
2016 - Zeke 5.1
2017 - Zeke 4.1
Total of our top back - 2578 rushes for 11,821 yards = 4.58 ypc

Considering we have invested so heavily in the offensive line and drafted Zeke #4 overall, and considering it will probably take a pretty penny to resign him to a second contract, 4.3 ypc is not where we want him to be averaging. He needs to be 4.6 at minimum, IMO. 4.3 would be on the low end of what our top back normally has normally produced in the JG era and should be able to get that without paying a premium.

 

[T-RO]

If you can only understand that way, then here are those results.

Emmitt's Average
Years 1-5: 4.4
Years 6-10: 4.2

I already pulled and posted the numbers...from pro football reference. That was early in the thread. The thread focuses on the first 6 years of a RB...and the decline thereafter.
Years 1-6: 4.462 Yards Per carry
Years after: 3.913 Per carry

All 4 of Emmitt’s best seasons were during the initial 6 seasons. After that he never averaged better than 4.2 yards.

 

[T-RO]

How complicated is it to look at Emmitt's first 11 years in the NFL?

His average over the first 11 years is just barely off of his first 5 years (4.3 vs 4.4).

If you could guarantee that Zeke would average 4.3 in his first 11 years, then they would definitely re-sign him.

Not how it works. Not at all.
1. 4.3 isn’t particularly good average!
2. Contract offers are 100% on Projected future value.
3. GMs know the analytics and the trend line w/backs. Why do you think Boys never made Murray a serious offer?

Your argument makes no sense...based on your logic a team is going to say to a guy...”Hey you gave us 5 yards a carry during the first contract so we’ll be happy with 4 YPC during this upcoming contract....because it will average to 4.5”. That is valid math, but pure gibberish in terms of how any business or team is run.

 

[Gangsta Spanksta]

I don’t know if you are joking. If that’s for real...pretty cool.

I *think* that was him who said that. That some players had the ability that when people are trying to tackle them, they bounce right off them. Emmitt for instance, you saw so many people bounce off of him, hence bounceablity

 

[xwalker]

Not how it works. Not at all.
1. 4.3 isn’t particularly good average!
2. Contract offers are 100% on Projected future value.
3. GMs know the analytics and the trend line w/backs. Why do you think Boys never made Murray a serious offer?

Your argument makes no sense...based on your logic a team is going to say to a guy...”Hey you gave us 5 yards a carry during the first contract so we’ll be happy with 4 YPC during this upcoming contract....because it will average to 4.5”. That is valid math, but pure gibberish in terms of how any business or team is run.

Not when the first 5 is 4.4 and the first 11 is 4.3.

The 4.3 avg is about 2.2% of the 4.4 avg.

If Zeke continues his current career 4.6 average for his first 5 years, then they would be OK if his average for all years at the end of his 2nd contract was guaranteed to be 4.5 (2.2% of 4.6).

 

[xwalker]

I would be extremely disappointed in 4.3. Here are the averages of out top back since 2007. (I use this since it is when JG was offensive coordinator)

2007 - Barber 4.8
2008 - Barber 3.7
2009 - Barber 4.4
2010 - Jones 4.3
2011 - Murray 5.5
2012 - Murray 4.1
2013 - Murray 5.2
2014 - Murray 4.7
2015 - DMC 4.6
2016 - Zeke 5.1
2017 - Zeke 4.1
Total of our top back - 2578 rushes for 11,821 yards = 4.58 ypc

Considering we have invested so heavily in the offensive line and drafted Zeke #4 overall, and considering it will probably take a pretty penny to resign him to a second contract, 4.3 ypc is not where we want him to be averaging. He needs to be 4.6 at minimum, IMO. 4.3 would be on the low end of what our top back normally has normally produced in the JG era and should be able to get that without paying a premium.

It is relative. The comparison was Emmitt first 5 years vs 1st 11 years.

The 4.3 avg is about 2.2% of the 4.4 avg.

If Zeke averaged 5.0 in his first 5 years, then they would be OK if he ended his 2nd contract with and average of 4.89 (2.2% of 5.0).

Average per carry is a bit of an overrated stat.

It includes goalline and 3rd & short, 4th & short. Emmitt had a lot of goalline and short yardage play; whereas a guy like Barry Sanders often came out on short yardage plays.

 

[Aviano90]

It is relative. The comparison was Emmitt first 5 years vs 1st 11 years.

The 4.3 avg is about 2.2% of the 4.4 avg.

If Zeke averaged 5.0 in his first 5 years, then they would be OK if he ended his 2nd contract with and average of 4.89 (2.2% of 5.0).

Average per carry is a bit of an overrated stat.

It includes goalline and 3rd & short, 4th & short. Emmitt had a lot of goalline and short yardage play; whereas a guy like Barry Sanders often came out on short yardage plays.

I agree with a decline of 2.2% but I want to see his starting average in the first 5 years higher to come down from. If Zeke is giving is 4.4 then he better come cheap on his 2nd contract.

 

[AdamJT13]

Nope, Emmitt lost tons of yards... we know he at least lost 756. But we can't fill in the data ourselves because of missing box score data.

The data is not missing. It just isn't readily available in a public database.

 

[kskboys]

Counting stats are limited.

If you give a guy 100,000 carries he’ll have the most of everything: yards, negative carries, fumbles. Those don’t mean much.

Ratio stats are more meaningful.
Yards per carry
Fumbles per carry
Negative plays per carry

And some of the newer stats are even better: yards per carry after contact, etc.

Vinnie Testaverde was 8th in yds when he retired. Is he the 8th best QB in history?

 

[Super_Kazuya]

The data is not missing. It just isn't readily available in a public database.

No it doesn’t exist. It wasn’t tracked. Football Outsiders have talked about this many times. Sometimes individual teams would record this data, but they weren’t consistent.

 

[T-RO]

Vinnie Testaverde was 8th in yds when he retired. Is he the 8th best QB in history?

That’s just one more example that proves the point. Counting stats* demonstrate very little.

Ratios and seasonal rankings on metrics are much more meaningful. Deeper analytic stats better still.

*For the uninitiated:
Counting stats are volume stats.
-guy throws for 380 yards passing in game...then you look and see he passed 55 times
-guy plays fifteen years and stacks up a bunch of tackles despite not having high tackles in any one season.