Rearview SOS - 2008 Running Backs

  Posted 8/6 by Chase Stuart, Exclusive for Footballguys.com

In June, I wrote Rearview QB, an article that described my process of adjusting each quarterback's 2008 numbers for strength of schedule and adjusted games played. Three summers ago, I wrote a similar piece for running backs, and I decided this was the year to revive that idea.

All we're going to do here is adjusted each running back's yards per carry average by the strength of the defenses he faced. The actual math behind it is a bit complicated - you need to adjust the defenses for strength of schedule (i.e., talent of opposing running backs) at the same time as you adjust the running backs for strength of schedule (i.e., talent of opposing defenses). If you keep tinkering with the adjustments, after enough iterations, the numbers start to converge. Once they do, you know you've arrived at each player's (and defense's) true rating.

Let's start the defenses. I put the top and bottom five movers in bold and italics. For example, Pittsburgh ranked 2nd in yards per carry allowed to opposing running backs, 0.10 YPC behind the Ravens. However, the Ravens had a neutral schedule while the Steelers faced running backs that were slightly above average (0.1 more yards per carry than average). As a result, the Steelers and Ravens were actually equally difficult defenses to face last season. The biggest mover after adjusting for SOS was Arizona, who faced a murder's row group of running backs: Adrian Peterson, Frank Gore, Brian Westbrook, Clinton Portis, Derrick Ward, Steven Jackson, Thomas Jones and DeAngelo Williams. That's why the Cardinals actual YPC allowed average is deceiving - Arizona had one of the better rush defenses in the league last year. Going the other way? The Houston Texans. Their six highest carry games came against Willis McGahee, Ryan Grant, Willie Parker, Justin Fargas, Joseph Addai (twice) and Adrian Peterson; of those, only Peterson wasn't below league average in YPC last season.

Now that we have defensive ratings we can trust, we can grade the running backs. I decided to split the runners into two groups - a high carry (150+) and low carry group. Once again, I've put the most underrated (i.e., faced the hardest schedule) in bold, and the overrated (at least based on raw numbers) in italics:

Derrick Ward's amazing 5.63 YPC last season was actually misleading -- he should have had an even better average! Ward faced the top four rush defenses -- the Steelers, Ravens, Eagles and Vikings. Similarly, Brandon Jacobs had a very difficult rushing schedule.

Clinton Portis was banged up with injuries all year, but he still would have averaged 4.5 YPC against a generic schedule. Likewise, Steven Jackson is probably underrated; it's hard to think of Jackson as having a difficult schedule, because the Rams usually face a bunch of easy defenses. But Jackson faced only one cupcake defense all year -- Atlanta, when he torched the Falcons for 161 rushing yards and two scores.

On the other side, guys like Justin Fargas, Larry Johnson and Michael Turner had easy schedules. Much has been made of Turner inflating his stats against the bottom dwellers, and it's true - he had one of the easiest schedules in the league last year. Because a player's strength of schedule is so inconsistent from year to year, I like to use the adjusted YPC averages as my baseline, and now what each player produced last year.

Let's take a quick look at the low carry guys:

As Sigmund Bloom has pointed out on the Audible (if you're not a regular listener to this podcast, you're missing out), Tashard Choice not only put up huge numbers last year, he did it against the Steelers, Ravens and Eagles. Edgerrin James is a free agent right now, and many probably think he's washed up - but he faced a brutal schedule last year. It's not too surprising that Arizona's running game on both sides of the ball looked bad last year but then turned it up in the playoffs. Arizona wasn't nearly as bad as the regular season numbers said they were.

Earnest Graham (4.27 unadjusted, 4.06 adjusted) is supposed to steal carries from Derrick Ward (5.63, 5.93). While Ward certainly played behind a much stronger line than Graham, and perhaps benefited from rotating with Brandon Jacobs, I'd keep this in mind when projecting the Tampa Bay backfield this season. Darren McFadden and Darren Sproles are two electric players that are easy to fall in love with; however, several AFC West runners faced some very easy defenses last year, potentially inflating their statistics.

As always, please send any questions or comments to stuart@footballguys.com.