How Special is Ezekiel?

[Kaiser]

Latavius Murray, CJ Anderson, Dion Lewis, Spencer Ware, Giovanni Bernard. There are many many RB's who have been in the league 5+ years.

Murray has been in the league 5 years, Dion Lewis for six (averaging 4 starts per year), Bernard six seasons averaging 3 starts per year, Spencer Ware four seasons and CJ Anderson averaging 6 starts per year for six seasons - and he was cut in midseason last year.

How is that list a bunch of good starting RBs lasting 10 years?

 

[blueblood70]

You’ve heard me say it a million times that I do not want to pay a RB. I do not believe in it. It is the least important position on offense. Elite production can be found more readily later in the draft. Yeah I said it. And i've said it before. I also know that the Cowboys are going to keep Zeke. This isn't about that.

A funny thing happens when I say I would not pay a RB. They point to Emmitt and other big time RBs that have led their teams to the promised land. They say they agree with me in theory but that I need to be more nuanced. I need to make exceptions for truly transcendent talents. So is Zeke that….a transcendent talent?

That's the question right?

I've always assumed he would be awesome. When we drafted him i'd assumed he would be awesome. As he's racked up awards I've assumed he was awesome. I was wrong. Let's investigate.


The counting stats speak for themselves...

Rushing yards:

2016: 1,631 || League Rank: #1; League Rank Per Game: #1

2017: 983 || League Rank: #10; League Rank Per Game: #1

2018: 1,434 || League Rank: #1; League Rank Per Game: #1


His receiving work has shown steady improvement

Receptions Per Game:

2016: 2.13

2017: 2.6

2018: 5.13


Receiving Yards Per Game:

2016: 24.2

2017: 26.9

2018: 37.8


The awards speak for themselves.

2x Pro Bowl (2016, 2018)

First-Team All Pro (2016)

Second-Team All Pro (2018)

PFWA All-Rookie Team (2016)

FedEx Ground Player of the Year (2016)


If you stop the analysis here Zeke is unarguably the most accomplished RB league wide since he has put on The Star. You could at least squint and make the argument that you pay transcendence.

However, we are better than our fathers and grandfathers. We now know that efficiency is more important than volume in everything from financial analysis, to online marketing and yes also to professional football. So how efficient is Zeke relative to his peers?

Well here we can look to PFF’s RB statistics. Now I don’t like PFF when they try to evaluate players but they can count things like a missed tackle or a fumble. And they do!
Source: https://www.pff.com/news/pro-explaining-dallas-cowboys-rb-ezekiel-elliotts-2018-pff-grade


Forced missed tackles per game among RBs

2016: 31st

2017: 40th

2018: 35th

*Last year Zeke was 1st in total yards after contact but 18th in yards after contact per carry.


Breakaway Percentage among Rbs (percentage of yards a RB gains on runs of more than 15 yards)

2018: 15th


Fumbles among RBs

2018: 1st


Yards per route run among RBs:

2016: 24th

2017: Did not qualify due to suspension

2018: 19th


Put all together and PFF’s Eric Eager found Zeke’s production in 2018 was worth just 0.2 wins above a replacement player. Zero. Point. Two. For the laymen out there...that is not a lot. For reference Mahomes who led the league in the metric checked in at 7.49. That is 37.45 times higher than Zeke. If Zeke is worth 15MM a year what do should the Chiefs pay Patrick?

Look this is not good. But what many have told me is that the Cowboys offensive line combined with Zeke is where his true value lies. Instead of having just a good running game with our line we have a great running game with Zeke. A truly overbearing force they say! So surely the results of Zeke and the line together is what is most important and we can point to that dominance right? The problem? We know rushing efficiency is not correlated with winning. We know passing efficiency is correlated with winning. Putting this aside we could argue that at the very least situational running is important right (think red zone work, short yardage situations to extend drives and running out the clock in the 4th quarter)? That is where Zeke can point to his value?

Thankfully FiveThirtyEight ran the numbers.
Source: https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/ezekiel-elliott-is-not-worth-the-money-he-wants/

Because winning matters, let’s start with closing out games.

If we look at all runs in the 4th quarter when the Cowboys were ahead we can look at how each run increased or decreased our win probability.


Win Probability Added in the 4th:

2018: Cowboys ranked 7th overall (Hat tip to Dak)

2018: Zeke ranked 22nd

Last 3 years: Zeke lead in attempts but ranked 26th in win probability added.





Field goals in the red zone get teams beat. Surely Zeke shined in the red zone?


Red zone runs by expected points added:

2018: Cowboys ranked 10th overall

2018: Zeke ranked 16th in EPA and 28th in success rate

Last 3 years: Zeke ranked 11th in EPA and 10th in success rate

Staying on the field and wearing opposing defenses down is something we have preached since Zeke was drafted. Hopefully this year we don’t fear sending out our defense as much as we have in our recent past. How much has Zeke helped our defense by extending drives on the ground?


Short yardage runs in open field by expected points added:

2018: Cowboys ranked 4th overall

2018: Zeke’s EPA ranked 10th, his success rate of 67% was good for 11th

Well Zeke helps Dak right? And QB is the most important position in all of sports right? Zeke draws extra defenders into the box and makes our play action more effective right?



So yes QBs do well when they run play-action. No, we don't need an efficient RB/game to achieve that enhancement.

Look, as I have long acknowledged and accepted and stated as much in this post….The Cowboys are very likely to pay Zeke, make him fabulously wealthy and set some benchmarks other RBs look to hurdle (cough) in coming years. So let’s talk about salary cap efficiency since we’re here

“According to data from Overthecap, the share of average team salary allocated to all rostered running backs has fallen from 6.8 percent of spending in 2013 to 4.5 percent in 2019. Zeke’s salary alone in his optioned fifth year will represent 4.5 percent of the Cowboy’s salary cap. If Zeke signs an extension before the 2020 season, his cap hit combined with the rest of Dallas’s spend at the running back position will likely be double the league average.”

So if Zeke is going to lead to the Cowboys spending roughly double what the league will then we should expect Zeke to be worth double what a replacement level back is worth, right? Well you remember his 2018 wins above replacement number? Zero. Point. Two.

So is Zeke a transcendent talent? What exactly other than volume and counting stats would make you think he was?

And before you answer take a look at this:



^^^

This is a good take. Speciilty backs who post big efficiency numbers on minuscule volume are likely not better than Zeke. If they were they'd get more volume! However, Zeke likely isn't appreciably better than a lot of RBs who are in committees and share the load. He's just higher paid, more famous and in a better offense.

As we stand and breath nothing but the Cowboys stuffing Zeke with volume and inflating his counting stats points to Zeke being a transcendent talent. In fact you could say he’s been quite average. And this is depressing. When not wanting to pay Zeke I at least knew he was tremendous. I knew he was a special talent. At least we were paying a Hall of Famer! An objective look at his 3 years career to date presents a very different picture. Cognitive dissonance will cause many to dismiss this post. That's fine.

Everyone is entitled to their own opinion. But no one is entitled to their own facts.

TY for this post I was able to print it out and use it for toilet paper, I ran out it was life saver LOL

 

[mattjames2010]

He has an elite ability to avoid filling up 20 page threads with butthurt cherry picked stats like "breakaway percentage".

Bro, you posted cringe.

 

[kskboys]

I’m offering fundamental principles of statistical analysis. This isn’t a debate about Zeke at this point, it’s about the merits of various methods of data analysis.

Tape has nothing to with it, the OP simply thinks he can draw valid conclusions from data sets that have no business being compared.

He is talking data. You either don't understand freshman level statistics or you're being deliberately obtuse in order to win an internet argument.

Look up the Law of Large Numbers. This is graph of dice rolls vs running back carries, but you can see how comparing a back with say 10 short yardage carries vs one with 200 short yardage carries, or a back with 50 short yardage carries vs one with 200 short yardage carries is problematic.

Zeke's volume puts him in a league apart from any back you want to compare him to. As far as short yardage carries go, he is three times farther down that tail than any RB you want to compare him to. Of course his average rate of success will be lower than some of the fluky guys on the left end. It's also far more stable.

Nicely done, guys.

I'd given up on this mess, but you two provided some great clarity and counterarguments.

 

[mattjames2010]

TY for this post I was able to print it out and use it for toilet paper, I ran out it was life saver LOL

Are you people 12 years old?

 

[Kaiser]

You need to factor everything in, not excluding major contributions such as yardage. That makes no sense. That's the number one job, gaining yardage.
Besides that, there are other things that make Elliott an elite RB.

The word elite means the top subset out of a group and there are only a couple of RBs that can make an argument for being the top RB in football. Zeke is one of them, which makes him elite by definition.

And we are twenty pages into nonsense like breakaway percentage.

 

[Kaiser]

Barkley is #1. You won't find more than 10% of NFL GMs to disagree. Zeke, Gurley and Bell are a slight notch below. IMO Kamara is right behind that group.

If I was a mod I would bold this post and close the thread.

 

[Kaiser]

The fundamental flaw with all of these arguments is the idea that you can extrapolate the efficiency of niche backs out to the volume of touches Zeke sees.

Exactly, its a thread of misusing stats like "breakaway percentage". The percentage of runs of more than 15 yards is a metric for specialty backs making the surprise run against nickel defenses.

Then he says "Zeke can't break long runs", when Zeke had a terrible OL and broke runs of 15 yards in 13 of his 15 games last year. In the 14th he had a run of 14 yards and the 15th was the Commanders game where they sold out against the run (successfully).

 

[Kaiser]

You either don't understand freshman level statistics or you're being deliberately obtuse in order to win an internet argument.

A) Doesn't understand basic stats
B) Deliberately obtuse
C) Both A & B

I'll take answer C.

 

[mattjames2010]

He is talking data. You either don't understand freshman level statistics or you're being deliberately obtuse in order to win an internet argument.

Look up the Law of Large Numbers. This is graph of dice rolls vs running back carries, but you can see how comparing a back with say 10 short yardage carries vs one with 200 short yardage carries, or a back with 50 short yardage carries vs one with 200 short yardage carries is problematic.

Zeke's volume puts him in a league apart from any back you want to compare him to. As far as short yardage carries go, he is three times farther down that tail than any RB you want to compare him to. Of course his average rate of success will be lower than some of the fluky guys on the left end. It's also far more stable.

This was already addressed - maybe read? His “volume” still shows he was not efficient - the volume is not what made him inefficient. This was, again, already addressed

Why are you saying something that has already been countered?

Try again?

Let’s also point out something here, the entire point of the OP is that Zeke isn’t worth what he is asking for

Giving Zeke the biggest RB contract of all time for one area he plays well in (he is actually not elite there either), seems like a pretty piss poor argument

So, I will ask you again - I want to see you break down the numbers in short yardage situations and show me he was efficient - by the way you can’t, because it already shown that with his volume of carries in those situations, he’s not exactly spectacular. It would actually support the argument he should get less carries in said situation

It’s also a little funny to me that now volume here matters, but the “rushing title” gets brought up like that isn’t due to volume

A similar argument used to be made about Marshawn Lynch.

 

[kskboys]

Murray has been in the league 5 years, Dion Lewis for six (averaging 4 starts per year), Bernard six seasons averaging 3 starts per year, Spencer Ware four seasons and CJ Anderson averaging 6 starts per year for six seasons - and he was cut in midseason last year.

How is that list a bunch of good starting RBs lasting 10 years?

No one said 10 years. 3 years was mentioned, and I was pulling names off the top of my head of RB's that have been around for much longer.

I agree that RB's don't last as long as some positions. However, they last much longer than 3 years if they are good enough. Most good ones last more along the lines of 8 seasons. I believe that's along the lines of what I said.

Zeke will still be in the league drawing paychecks after 5 years. W/ 34 mil made in his first 5 years, unless he's dumber'n a bag of hammers, he's already set for life.

 

[ghst187]

No, no...not at all. Where did I ever say Zeke was a JAG. You and @Beast_from_East (who never did find the quote he accused me of saying) like to make assumptions and accuse others of saying things they never said to try and prove a point. That’s one of my biggest pet peeves and has been worthy of being put on ignore if it continues.

Show me where I said anything about Zeke being a JAG or shut your mouth because I’ll show you plenty where I said is a top 3 RB, may have said top 5 once or twice, but the burden is on you since your the false accuser. I’ll be waiting.

You essentially said he wasn’t “elite” bc he had a few bad games, which is just silliness and what started it all. Now you say he’s top 3, which is it?
Top 3, elite, semantics?
I compared to Emmitt and could add Barry too because you can find game logs where they had a few crummy games too. Over the course of one or multiple seasons though it becomes easy to see how elite, vice a one year wonder. Zeke followed his near Dickerson record breaking season with a second rushing title and would’ve been 3 were it not for the suspension. If he plays 16 games this year he will likely get #3.

 

[Kaiser]

No one said 10 years. 3 years was mentioned, and I was pulling names off the top of my head of RB's that have been around for much longer.

We are zigzagging each other, I said DeMarco Murray played 7 quality years and that was longer than average.

Totally agree on RBs in general, I thought letting DeMarco go was the right move when his price went up to 9 Million a year. DeMarco is good, but you can replace good with OK at a low price.

Zeke is elite and you have to pay for that, the broader point is if he will hold up over the long run like the guys you mentioned or drop off when he takes the usual pounding RBs do. AD is a freak of nature and you can't expect that of other RBs, but Zeke just turned 24 and has been durable so far. Its completely realistic to think he stays at a high level for another 5 years.

 

[Ken]

He's 'already wearing down'? Where, exactly, do you see his diminished performance? The following stats (quoted from the OP) are despite every opponent making Zeke their priority to stop.

2016: 1,631 || League Rank: #1; League Rank Per Game: #1

2017: 983 || League Rank: #10; League Rank Per Game: #1

2018: 1,434 || League Rank: #1; League Rank Per Game: #1

Also, the notion that RBs are simply plug-n-play is absurd. We've tried the running back by committee approach and it doesn't work.

WAR (wins above replacement) is much more specious in football than it is in baseball. Analyzing a baseball player is done, by its nature, in a vacuum. That isn't possible in football, though I'm sure the analytics guys will beg to differ, at least by varying degrees.

Is the RB position the same as it was in the early 90's? No. Is it the 'least important position within the offense'? One must be mighty high to think that's true.

YPG:
2016: 108.7
2017: 98.3
2018: 95.6

This while the whole time he was the focal points of defenses.

Longest explosive play, running or catching:
2016: 80
2017: 72
2018: 40

Rushing TDs:
2016: 15
2017: 7
2018: 6

Eyeball tells me he isn't as explosive.

 

[Kaiser]

YPG:
2016: 108.7
2017: 98.3
2018: 95.6

2016: Dez Bryant, Travis Frederick, Ron Leary, Healthy Zack Martin

2018: Allan Hurns, Joe Looney, Rookie Williams, Injured Zack Martin

 

[JD_KaPow]

I have been making the argument. You didn't understand.

Aside from his rook year at 4.6, he's had a subpar YPC, even in his 2nd year when Palmer was throwing for a ton of yards.

4.2 YPC is pedestrian. It's OK, not great.

I don't rate players by TD's and consider it a very poor way to rate them. Way too much depends on scheme and usage and such.

So your entire evaluation is based on the 4.2 ypc. As I said, that's a number that varies a lot from year to year (Zeke was at 4.1 his second season). But the rushing isn't what made Johnson special. It was the fact that he was a perfectly fine rushing RB AND at the same time a truly exceptional weapon in the passing game.

 

[Ken]

2016: Dez Bryant, Travis Frederick, Ron Leary, Healthy Zack Martin

2018: Allan Hurns, Joe Looney, Rookie Williams, Injured Zack Martin

So Zeke needs players around him to be great? Dak doesn't get that excuse...

 

[Kaiser]

So Zeke needs players around him to be great? Dak doesn't get that excuse...

I never said Dak was elite and I never said Dak was part of the reason Zeke had fewer YPG in 2018.

 

[blueblood70]

Are you people 12 years old?

or a lighthearted response to ridiculously long post that was overkill trying to make a point on zeke..but look at the 500 threads on Zeke, im sick of it so if I choose to wipe my arse with the printed out version of that post I will ..LMAO..to me thats what is was worth because no hollow stts can minimalize that Zekes a top Elite Back that means a ton to this team.. Imbetting if this stuff existed back when Emmitt and Irvin played they would have the same data..the draft proves it ES wasn't happy Irvin looked like your typial WR not HOF guy but when you simply watched gams you just know they are special, no amount of Analytics can explain away their greatness.. they Looked slow and not so special but you look at the Byron JOnes or worse other guys where Anyatics are through the roof and they turn out to be Jags or Busts..

IMO the hate is out of control and ill be relying similarly to counteract this bs..

 

[aria]

You essentially said he wasn’t “elite” bc he had a few bad games, which is just silliness and what started it all. Now you say he’s top 3, which is it?
Top 3, elite, semantics?
I compared to Emmitt and could add Barry too because you can find game logs where they had a few crummy games too. Over the course of one or multiple seasons though it becomes easy to see how elite, vice a one year wonder. Zeke followed his near Dickerson record breaking season with a second rushing title and would’ve been 3 were it not for the suspension. If he plays 16 games this year he will likely get #3.

Essentially or did I say “not elite”? Don’t mince my words. You can be top 3 and not be elite depending on several factors. If Zeke played behind a horrendous O line and barely cracked 1,000 yards would he still be considered elite? Can a RB be considered elite after 3 seasons? 1 season? or does it take a career of 5 years or more?

Personally, I think at this point with regards to Zeke, elite is thrown around way to much.