Crown Royal
Insulin Beware
- Messages
- 14,229
- Reaction score
- 6,383
I'd always felt that comparing E. Smith to B. Sanders was a matter of taste - do you want a consistent 4 yard gain and move the chains on each carry, or are you willing to sacrifice losses and no gains to get a few home run hits. I feel after the Giants game in week 17 that we may be gearing up to see the second iteration of this discussion between Barkley and Elliott. Barkley is a quality RB - he has great vision, elite speed, strength, and is dangerous out of the backfield. He also has a terrible OL - HOWEVER, despite reputation, Elliott did not have great blocking this season either. I feel like Barkley has the potential to break off a 50+ yard run at any given time, whereas I trust Elliot to find me the 3-4 "dirty yards" on virtually any play.
Fortunately, our friends at Pro-Football-Reference make slicing this data relatively simple. I decided to take three RBs and break down their rush attempts into buckets to see how often they lose yards, gain nothing, gain a little and gain a lot. The chart and table are available for your reference below:
In order to flatten for the number of attempts, I repeated the table for % of carries. For instance, Barkley had 4 carries that resulted in a loss of 4-5 yards, whereas Gurley had only 1, BUT, Barkley also carried the ball 5 more times, so while he lost those yards 2% of the time, Gurley did less than 1%.
Analysis:
More surprising to me than anything is not the comparison between Barkley and Zeke, rather, the comparison between Gurley and the others. Gurley doesn't have NEARLY the dirty yards Zeke and Barkley have (0-3 yards) - he just has a whole lot of 5 yard runs. Not the homerun hitter either of them are, just a good consistent 5 yard guy.
Zeke definitely seems to get the dirty yards like no other, and really nails it on the 5-10 yard range. I see a lot of consistency from Zeke - seldom loses yards, gets dirty yards and gets some good positives. Barkley is really similar though on less carries, but man cna he hit a home run.
Crazy to me that Zeke has that many more runs than either of them, but especially Saquon. I suppose they pass to Saquon more in NY, thus is total scrimmage yards, and the Rams are clearly a passing team. But wow, 40-50 more carries is about 2 games worth. Definitely tells you what a workhorse Zeke is and what the Cowboys are going to try to do, even with a few steps back on the OL.
Conclusion:
Not a ton to be honest. Basically, there aren't any glaring items of note. These are three similar running backs that all three of their teams are incredibly happy to have. Statistics don't tell you a ton other than more often than not, these guys are going to get you 3+ yards and break a few good ones. Who you would prefer is no more than a matter of taste and how your team is built. Arguing about who is "better" is probably a silly discussion overall. Maybe if there was a statistical way to discuss "intangibles" it would matter, but then they wouldn't really be intangible.
You have to wonder what the effect of carries has overall on these. Certainly the fact that the % for Zeke is higher on dirty runs and 15-20 yard runs, despite more carries, matters, but we're talking the different of about 5-10 rushes here (which Saquon makes up on 50+ yard runs).
What do you guys think?
Fortunately, our friends at Pro-Football-Reference make slicing this data relatively simple. I decided to take three RBs and break down their rush attempts into buckets to see how often they lose yards, gain nothing, gain a little and gain a lot. The chart and table are available for your reference below:
In order to flatten for the number of attempts, I repeated the table for % of carries. For instance, Barkley had 4 carries that resulted in a loss of 4-5 yards, whereas Gurley had only 1, BUT, Barkley also carried the ball 5 more times, so while he lost those yards 2% of the time, Gurley did less than 1%.
Analysis:
More surprising to me than anything is not the comparison between Barkley and Zeke, rather, the comparison between Gurley and the others. Gurley doesn't have NEARLY the dirty yards Zeke and Barkley have (0-3 yards) - he just has a whole lot of 5 yard runs. Not the homerun hitter either of them are, just a good consistent 5 yard guy.
Zeke definitely seems to get the dirty yards like no other, and really nails it on the 5-10 yard range. I see a lot of consistency from Zeke - seldom loses yards, gets dirty yards and gets some good positives. Barkley is really similar though on less carries, but man cna he hit a home run.
Crazy to me that Zeke has that many more runs than either of them, but especially Saquon. I suppose they pass to Saquon more in NY, thus is total scrimmage yards, and the Rams are clearly a passing team. But wow, 40-50 more carries is about 2 games worth. Definitely tells you what a workhorse Zeke is and what the Cowboys are going to try to do, even with a few steps back on the OL.
Conclusion:
Not a ton to be honest. Basically, there aren't any glaring items of note. These are three similar running backs that all three of their teams are incredibly happy to have. Statistics don't tell you a ton other than more often than not, these guys are going to get you 3+ yards and break a few good ones. Who you would prefer is no more than a matter of taste and how your team is built. Arguing about who is "better" is probably a silly discussion overall. Maybe if there was a statistical way to discuss "intangibles" it would matter, but then they wouldn't really be intangible.
You have to wonder what the effect of carries has overall on these. Certainly the fact that the % for Zeke is higher on dirty runs and 15-20 yard runs, despite more carries, matters, but we're talking the different of about 5-10 rushes here (which Saquon makes up on 50+ yard runs).
What do you guys think?