351: Running Back Prospects Who Produced Like Studs

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Speaker 1: This is the Label podcast with your host JJ zacher Retha, JJ zacher Resa, what's up everyone. It's JJ Zachareson, the editor in chief at FanDuel and at number five dot com. And this is episode three hundred and fifty one of the Late Round podcast on many shows that are part of the FanDuel podcast network. Thanks for tuning in. If you listen to the show last week, then you heard me talk through some of the things that go into my wide receiver prospect model, and you heard me talk about some of the key players that I'm higher and lower on in this year's class. Today's plan is to go through a similar exercise, but with the running back position. I'll look at the production related factors that go into the model and explain where my head's at as we enter the combine. Now, before doing that, you guys may remember me talking about this in the past, but you really should check out Odds Fire. Whether you're playing dfs or betting on sports, Odds Fire should be a key tool for your research. You can shop for the best lines in each market and you can see which side is getting the most bets and money. Odds Fires the premier odds comparison experience across major bookmakers in the regulated US market. Never settle, always get the best odds. Check out the experience for free at oddsfire dot com gambling problem called one eight hundred gambler. So before looking at what goes into this running back prospect model, I need to make one blanket statement, and it's that draft capital, or where a player gets drafted, matters a lot more for running backs than it does wide receivers, Meaning where a player gets drafted will help predict that player's future fantasy success much more at running back than at wide receiver. So yes, I absolutely use draft capital in my model, and it's weighed more heavily for running backs than it is wide outs. Now, with that being said, when other factors are added on top of draft capital, the model helps predict fantasy success at a much better rate than simple draft capital alone. What the model looks at is college product, some athleticism thresholds, strength of competition, and draft capital to help predict how well a prospect is going to perform during his first three years in the NFL. And his performance is all driven by fantasy points, So how that player will perform in fantasy football The focus today and what I want to talk about today is on college production. As you can tell by the title of the episode, I'm here to look at this year's draft class, the production they had in college, and see how that production stacks up against how successful NFL running backs performed when they were in college. And to do that, I'll be looking at the three main production metrics that I use in my model. One of them is final season reception share, which is the percent of team receptions made by the running back during his final collegiate season. The second one is final season touchdown share, or the percentage of touchdowns that are running back had versus his team's touchdowns during his final season. And then the last factor, which is probably the most important, is yards accumulated per team play during the final season. Because the model is looking at fantasy success ross the first three seasons of a running backs NFL career, successful NFL running backs also generally did well within these three metrics. In fact, if you look at all the running backs with multiple top twenty seasons since twenty eleven, and then you filter out guys who were older or guys who didn't get drafted to go to the combine you get a sample size of forty two running backs. Those forty two running backs are what I'm going to refer to as the NFL Studs. It's the NFL Studs sample. Among those running backs, the average final season touchdown share was about thirty four percent, the average final season reception share was about eleven point three percent, and their final season total yards per team play was one point nine zero. Now, if you compare those numbers to the thirty running backs who were invited to this year's combine, the NFL Studs sample naturally looks a lot better. This year's draft class average a total touchdown share that was about eight percentage points lower than what the Studs sample was during their final collegiate season, the reception share was over two percentage points lower, and the total yards per team play while the NFL stud sample had an average of one point nine, this year's class was one point three to six. Essentially, like the wide receivers last week. Productive NFL running backs were also productive in college. They were more productive than the average running back who's looking to make it in the NFL, and this shouldn't be surprising. Good players get the ball a lot, and if a player is getting the ball a lot he's going to produce. Let's take a look at what this means for specific prospects in this year's class, and let's start with total touchdown share. Like I just said, the average final season touchdown share among our NFL Studs subset, or the players who have had multiple top twenty seasons since twenty eleven in the NFL, their average final season touchdown share was about thirty four percent. Within the sample of running backs who were going to this year's combine, only seven of them hit that mark, which means twenty three of the thirty didn't. Ohio States JK. Dobbins was one of the players who didn't get there, but he was at about twenty six percent. That's not that big a deal. Within our stud sample, thirty one percent of the running backs had a touchdown share during their final collegiate season. That was that low. And touchdown share among the three metrics that I'm going to talk through today, it's the least important to the model. But two players who we should focus on here are Clyde Edwards A Laire and DeAndre Swift. Let's start with CEH. Only nine percent of our stud NFL running back sample had as low of a touchdown share during their final collegiate seasons as Edwards a Laire, but we should give that some context. Also, speaking of context, it's always necessary with exercises like this one. We always need context. No one is selling or should be selling a prospect models indisputable. The idea is to be more accurate through a focus of important information, but not everything is going to fit perfectly, and I think we sort of have that with Edwards Hilaire. Joe Burrow was LSU's quarterback this year, so it's not surprising that LSU finished twelfth in the nation and passed to rush touchdown ratio Because Joe Burrow was good. That's naturally going to drive down a running back share of offensive touchdowns, So I'm not that concerned over this metric for Edwards Hilaire. DeAndre Swift is the player to focus on regarding context, though. He's a Georgia running back who only saw seventeen percent of his team's touchdowns this past year, and when you dig deeper into his profile, you see things like a thirty eight percent rush attempt share and fewer than two hundred rush attempts. If a player is so good and Swift is probably the consensus top running back right now, then why the hell wasn't he getting the ball more. Some of you may point to the recent history of Georgia backs, most notably with Sony Michelle and Nick Chubb, but the obvious difference is that Swift wasn't sharing a backfield with a Nick Chubb or a Sony Michelle level talent, or the split wasn't at least that extreme. This is where context is unbelievably important. Swift's season long rushing numbers kind of look average, but he was barely involved in kakwalk games against Murray State in Arkansas State, and then he got hurt later in the year. In bigger games, he was pretty much the workhorse for Georgia. Again, this doesn't mean that you can't or shouldn't prospect through data. Because a model won't necessarily see DeAndre Swift as elite doesn't mean that the model is a piece of junk. It just means that we should always provide context, and not only that. Like I said at the top draft, capital matters a lot for running backs. If DeAndre Swift is a Day one pick, not only am I gonna won him on my fantasy teams. But the model's gonna like him a lot too, because he then has draft capital and that's important. But he also wasn't that bad within the other two metrics either, So let's dig in there. Let's look at reception share. Swift had a final season reception share of nine point four percent, which was higher than the average from this year's class. That number isn't glaring at all. It's actually pretty impressive given how little he played throughout the season. This is just another reason as to why I think Swift is absolutely fine as a prospect. Josh Jacobs was a much scarier prospect production wise than DeAndre Swift is. I generally get a little bit worried when a running back had a reception share during his final season below five percent. That's what we saw with Ronald Jones a couple of years ago. Fortunately, this class has a lot of good running backs who passed that threshold. The only one who didn't who's getting some love or who got some love at the Senior Bowl is Josh Kelly. But none of the true top backs struggled as receivers from a production standpoint, and that's a good sign. The same can generally be said about yards per team play as well. I really like yards per team play because it's a market share metric. It shows how dominant a player was within his offense, but it also appropriately weighs rushing and receiving. The NFL stud sample had an average yards per team play of one point nine during their final collegiate season. That was met by four running backs in this year's class Jonathan Taylor, JK. Dobbins, which is another reason I don't care about his lack of touchdown share, Zack Moss, and AJ Dillon. But like I said, no really good running back or no running back who's being highly touted right now did exceptionally bad within this metric. Now, if you look at the averages from the NFL stud sample, no bet this class actually met each of the three averages. No running back was good across the board. That's fine. That doesn't mean that we have zero top backs in this class. Some guys were just barely lacking in one of the three statistical categories. That's no big deal. If we loosen up the parameters a bit, four running back names do emerge. You've got Jonathan Taylor, Zach Moss, Keishan Vaughn and Eno Benjamin. As of today, I think Jonathan Taylor out of Wisconsin is the best back in this class. He's got the most complete profile, but as usual, draft capital is going to go a long way, and whether or not that holds. Keishan Vaughn and Eno Benjamin are two guys that the model seems to like more than the consensus the most of those two, Vaughn is the more intriguing player given that he doesn't have the same type of size concerns as Benjamin. Benjamin was apparently one hundred and ninety five pounds of the Senior Bowl, and because he's a good pass catcher, you have to think that that's how teams are gonna view him at the next level. So his upside might be capped a little bit from a fantasy perspect but Keishawn Vaughn's production at Vandy was awesome. His touchdown share, reception share, and total yards per team play were all well above average in my database. According to the model, right now, without measurements in draft capital, Vaughn is actually the RB two behind Jonathan Taylor. Again, that's not where he's gonna finish once the draft is over, unless he goes way higher than expected. To me, it's more about watching where he lands and knowing that you do have potential with him for fantasy purposes. Now. Cam Akers is the last top back in this year's draft class that I haven't talked about yet. I mentioned that Swift is more than okay despite a production profile that could use a little bit of help. JK. Dobbins was awesome in yards per team play. Jonathan Taylor is the easy go to, is the most complete back. Clyde Edwards Alayer looks pretty good overall despite low touchdown share numbers. I can't fault anyone for liking one of those players the most in this class. Honestly, cam Akers statistically is pretty good across the board too pre combine, and again this is without draft capital, but pre combine, he ranks just to head of DeAndre Swift. He's an easy top ten player in the model right now, and then I'll only get better with draft capital. It's always nice when the consensus top players in a draft class align really well with production and the things that matter within the model. It makes for crappier content because I'm not out here being contrariant about anything but it's hard to be. I don't see any glaring red flags for any of the top backs in this year's class, and then I really like Keishaan vond. If there's one super sleeper in this class, I'm gonna go with James Robinson from Illinois State. Clearly, competition wasn't there for him, but I actually found that strength of competition in the conference that are running back played in matters a lot less for fantasy success than compared to wide receivers. Robinson had an insane touchdown share during his final season, and his reception chair was well above twelve percent, and his yards per team play was above the Combine group's average too. I have no idea if he's even gonna get drafted at the end because of that draft capital, he's not gonna look like a top ten running back in this class according to my model, but as of right now, he's my dart throw in this class. In the end, I don't have as strong of takes with this running back draft class as I do the wide receiver one, which isn't that surprising because wide receiver talent matters more. I think the big takeaway is that I do think that this running back class is good and I do think that we're gonna see a lot of fantasy football impacts stemming from it. And there are a handful of backs who could be part of that group who makes an impact, that's gonna do it. For today's show, though, thanks to all of you for listening. If you've get to subscribe to the Late Round podcast, make sure you are by searching for it pretty much anywhere podcasts can be found, and don't forget to follow me on Twitter at Late Round QB. And if you're on iTunes, if you're on Apple Podcasts and you're listening to the show, please do me a favor and leave a rating and review. Thanks everyone, I'll talk to you later in the week with the Mailbag Show.