In this article I adjusted the 2005 fantasy point totals for quarterbacks, and also normalized the numbers on a per game basis. The feedback was great, but the most common response was: "are you going to write a similar article for other positions?" I didn't do so in 2005, and I didn't plan to in 2006. Here's why.

The key to the rearview SOS article for QBs is the concept of adjusted games. I wish I could take credit for it, but Doug Drinen thought of the idea and the programming. But adjusting for games played is what drives the whole system - Marc Bulger's 6.8 games can't be compared to Eli Manning's 16 games any other way. In the NFL, you only have one QB in on every play. So dividing a quarterback's pass attempts by all team attempts will give an excellent approximation of what percentage of the game he played.

There's no similar metric for RBs. A running back might break his leg four carries into the game. Or, he could get shut down, his team could fall behind early, and he still only gets four carries despite playing the whole game (yes, I mean you, Curtis Martin). More commonly, a RB will be part of a committee. But if Tatum Bell's in a RBBC with Mike Anderson, it's hard to know how many partial games he really played. Did Bell get 20 of 30 RB carries because he was playing well? Did he get 5 of 30 because he was bad or because Mike Anderson was great? These questions just don't come up with the QBs.

As a result, I've decided to ignore the idea of partial games for running backs. I don't think this is ideal, and that's why I didn't write a similar article last year. But I decided something is better than nothing, and we'll just have to do a bit more case by case analysis with the runners. We'll get by.

Because I'm not using adjusted games, I can't produce an expected fantasy points column either. (You might remember, that was one of the key columns in the rearview article.) So here's how we're going to adjust for strength of schedule. Let's start with a big table. Here's the key:

RSHYDA = Rushing Yards Allowed to opposing RBs
RECYDA = Receiving Yards Allowed to opposing RBs
RRTDA = Rushing and Receiving TDs allowed to opposing RBs
RBFPA = Fantasy Points Allowed to opposing RBs
Adj Rate = FPA divided by the league average FPA

The table is sorted by "opposing team you'd most want your RB to face" to "opposing team you'd least want your RB to face." This isn't necessarily a list of the best defenses or even the best defenses that contain RBs - teams like the Raiders, Texans, Bills, Jets and 49ers were pretty bad. As a result, opposing RBs piled up the carries (and fantasy points) late in games and those "bad" defenses were on the field a ton.

But whatever the reason why a team allowed lots of FPs to opposing runners, the list gets at exactly what we want. Nine times a RB logged 100 rushing yards against the Falcons; conversely, the Steelers only let Edgerrin James crack the century barrier. So it stands to reason that James should be rewarded relative to all the guys that beat up on the Falcons.

So here's what I did. I divided the fantasy points scored by every RB in each game by the "adjusted rate" number that correspondent to his opponent. When Willis McGahee rushed for 140 yards and scored one TD against the Falcons, his 20 FPs were downgraded to just 15.93 FPs, since it came against Atlanta. When Tiki Barber totaled 110 yards and scored once against Denver, his 17 FPs were upgraded to 20.96 FPs - after all, he did it against the Broncos. Rinse and repeat for every game this year, and you get the following list, sorted by adjusted fantasy points.

FPs = Fantasy Points = (Rushing Yards / 10 ) + (Receiving Yards / 10) + (Rushing TDs x 6) + (Receiving TDs x 6)
AFPs = Adjusted Fantasy Points = FPs adjusted by the method described above
DIFF = AFPs minus FPs
FPR = Fantasy Points Rank
AFPR = Adjusted Fantasy Points Rank

Shaun Alexander was helped by an easy schedule, which isn't surprising. The greatest statistical seasons ever are usually aided by a good bit of luck. A player to bump up might be Steven Jackson - he had two good games against the Seahawks, and totaled 200 yards and scored a TD against the stingy Jaguars. Neither Corey Dillon nor DeShaun Foster were good in 2005, and they look worse when you realize the cupcake schedules both runners faced. Edgerrin James, Fred Taylor and Samkon Gado also had easier schedules than most.

Then you have everyone's favorite three whipping boys - Julius Jones, Kevin Jones and Kevan Barlow - with three seasons that weren't as bad as we first thought. Remember Julius Jones' 33.1 FPs against Carolina in week 16 last year? Well it ranked as the 15th best game normally, but adjusted for schedule, it was the second best fantasy game of the season (Tiki Barber's game against the Chiefs was a point better). Kevin Jones didn't have that dominant game but performed admirably against the Bucs, Ravens, Bears and Cowboys (although getting in the end zone bailed him out of ugly games against two of those teams). And Kevan Barlow? His top two games were against the Colts and Bucs - two tough Ds - when he managed to total over 120 yards both times.

Three of the best RBs of the last 10 years - Curtis Martin, Clinton Portis and Tiki Barber - also faced tougher than average schedules. But Portis and Barber had great seasons, and strength of schedule was the least of Martin's troubles in 2005.

Overall, though, there's not a lot of movement on this list. I'd imagine if there was something we could use to adjust for playing time, that would reveal a bit more. This list might cause you to move Shaun Alexander down a bit - although you might bump him back up after deciding his 2006 schedule looks just as easy (I make no claim that it is or is not). I thought the list might be more informative if we looked at fantasy points per game and adjusted fantasy points per game and those corresponding ranks, instead of the raw totals. Here's that table.

This isn't terribly revealing either. Ironically enough, you might end up where you started with a RB like Steven Jackson. He finished 11th best in FPs last season - but he played fifteen games - and he only ranked 16th in FP/G. But then once you account for his hard schedule, well, he shoots back up to the 11th spot. Corey Dillon's the reverse - he ranked 16th overall, only played 12 games and ranked 11th in FP/G, but an easy schedule dropped that to 15th best. Dom Davis is aided a bit - you won't find many lists indicating that he was a better fantasy RB than Clinton Portis. But adjusted for games played and strength of opponent, Davis was the better back in 2005.

On the other hand, Willis McGahee is 23rd on this list. His ADP is RB13, and he ranked 13th last year. He had a bad year last year, and many think he's a top level talent who suffered a down season. But be careful and remember that he suffered a down season while playing a weak schedule. Four of the five times he rushed for 100 yards were against the Falcons, Jets and Texans, teams that allowed over 1900 rushing yards to opposing RBs last year.

You might wonder why Ronnie Brown's schedule was a little harder than average while Ricky Williams had a schedule much easier than average. Both players, of course, were on the Dolphins last year. But Ricky Williams missed games against the Panthers (2nd) and Broncos (4th) while Ronnie Brown's only missed game was against the Titans (24th). Since Browns' biggest game was against Carolina, while Williams' best game was against Tennessee, the totals are adjusted accordingly.

In the end, I don't know how useful this all is. Here's what I'd take away from this: RBs score FPs for lots of reasons, but the quality of the opposition just isn't one of the big ones. While top 10 fantasy QBs are often average players with easy schedules, the same logic doesn't hold true for running backs. And since strength of schedule isn't consistent from year to year, it makes sense that QBs are less predictable than RBs - QBs are affected by the schedules more. RBs are products of the system, and if a coach calls a running back's number a lot, the chance are he's going to be a pretty valuable fantasy player.

While the strength of schedule might not affect a RB's fantasy points total very much, it could certainly swing a runner's YPC average. Lots of people think YPC is the top stat for evaluating a runner, so let's take a look at adjusted yards per carry. Here's a table of the defenses.

Warrick Dunn (5.06) and Shaun Alexander (5.08) both topped five yards per carry last year. On the surface, the numbers appear nearly identical. However, in fact, one of them was a lot better than the other. So how do we compute adjusted yards per carry? As always, here's an example.

Clinton Portis ran 23 times for 144 yards against the Bucs, and that sparkling 6.26 YPC average was easily the best against Tampa Bay all year. But when you adjust for how great Tampa's D was -Portis' game stands out. Dividing his 144 yards by 0.81 gives us over 178 yards rushing. His adjusted 7.75 YPC that game was the third highest all year for RBs with at least 20 carries, behind two stud games from Tomlinson and Barber.

Rinse and repeat again, and here's the full list of every runner's adjusted YPC for the year. The table is sorted by adjusted yards per carry. Like the earlier table, a negative "DIFF" value implies that the player should be docked that amount.

Warrick Dunn had a phenomenal 2005 season- he had five games against the top four defenses yet still averaged over five yards per rush. He's always underrated as a fantasy player, and while older RBs can fall off out of nowhere, nothing in Dunn's play last year suggests he's ready for a decline. Clinton Portis' yards per carry average rises to 4.5 when you adjust for strength of schedule, which ranks fourth among RBs that had at least 300 carries. Earlier I wrote that Dom Davis shoots past Portis when you adjust for schedule in terms of fantasy points, but you get the exact opposite result here. Davis and Portis had similar actual YPC averages in 2005, but adjusting for schedules polarizes them in line with how most would rate their talent levels as runners. Kevin Jones also moves up from "bad" to "barely adequate", so maybe not all hope is lost.

On the other hand, there's Shaun Alexander once again leading the list of guys aided by soft schedules. But note that Fred Taylor's right behind him. A 3.8 "real" YPC average for a man who used to always average 4.6 YPC seems to reaffirm what everyone else already knows - Taylor's no longer an elite runner. You've also got a handful of young RBs - DeShaun Foster, Willie Parker, Dom Davis, Frank Gore and Cadillac Williams - that were helped by easier than normal schedules. For them I think this is more important. We don't have much data to go on them - only Davis logged a 120-carry season before last year - so you might normally place a lot of weight on their 2005 YPC averages. A deduction of .1 or .2 yards per carry isn't significant, but it's something to keep in mind.