It is a well known fact that 3rd year wide receivers have enjoyed break out seasons and helped Fantasy owners that were able to find which one(s) would do it on that particular year. Are we able to do the same with young running backs?

The Methodology

I have looked at every season since 1996 - for every running back that had at least one carry in one of those seasons. I used FBG scoring as to measure RBs performances. From this data, I looked at RBs that scored 100 points more in season T compared to season T-1, making sure that these players never scored 150 points in a season before.

From this, we get a subset of 43 running backs that have done it from Shaun Alexander in '01, Tiki Barber in '00, Reuben Droughns in '04 or even Napoleon Kaufman in '97 and Nick Goings in '04.

Gathering all this information (from www.pro-football-reference.com) - we can see that young RBs are the ones that dominate these 43 players/seasons - this comes to no surprise, since RBs don't last long and have a better shot at breaking out if they have not done it in the past! Out of these 43 players/seasons - 19 came from rookies, while 11 of the 43 occurrences came from rookies going into their 2nd season (Chris Brown, Travis Henry, Rudi Johnson, Deuce McAllister and Willie Parker are a few) - while 5 of them were from sophomores going into their 3rd season (Ahman Green and Michael Pittman to name a couple).

Conclusions

From these 16 players/seasons (rookies going into their 2nd season and sophomores playing their junior season) - the most interesting fact that comes out is the yard per carry stat in the year prior to the break out. Interesting enough, those that had the best break out years were the ones that had a yard per carry average of over 4.3 the previous season (McAllister, Alexander, Green, Parker, Kaufman). Only Henry is the exception to this list, posting a 1747/14 (combined) season in '02 while having a yard per carry average of 3.42 in '01!

What can we draw from this?

There are 21 young RBs that fits the profile for 2006. (Steven Jackson, Kevin Jones, Julius Jones, Willis McGahee, Willie Parker and Carnell Williams are excluded since they already have scored 150 points in a season - thus having "broken out"). Only those with all least 100 yards rushing in 2005 are listed - the only notable excluded were Ciatrick Fason (62 yards) and Brandon Jacobs (99 yards).

Sorting them by yards per carry in 2005, we get the following:

Looking at this chart

• It seems easy enough to predict a break out season to Ronnie Brown and possibly Frank Gore and Tatum Bell.
• Michael Turner, Ryan Moats and Chris Perry seems to be only an injury away from stud status.
• The only long shot is Maurice Hicks - he has a chance but needs Gore to fail.

Even more interesting are the ones that are in the bottom half of the chart - Samkon Gado and Marion Barber III are those that jumps out - it seems that their success in '06 had to do more with getting a lots of carries, rather than effectiveness when called upon. Another notable is Cedric Benson who was not "as advertised" in his freshman season - he doesn't seem like a break out candidate in '06 either with Thomas Jones still lurking in the windy city.

Conclusion

Obviously, scoring big as a running back in fantasy world as a lot to do with talent and opportunities (carries and receptions) but it seems that NFL staff are more inclined to give these opportunities to guys that produced early in their career. When young RBs don't fare too well in their early days - their team staff seems to want for that old veteran to hang on a while longer - just ask Thomas Jones and Fred Taylor. People are judging quickly nowadays and the NFL stands for "Not For Long" for those that don't impress at first glance - J.J. Arrington would sure attest to that...

First Year Breakout RBs

Second and Third Year Breakout RBs

Breakout RBs with More Than Three Years of Experience