Jack Brickman
Hall-of-Famer
- Joined
- Aug 12, 2012
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How is it meaningless? You brought up his yards and touchdowns to paint it as a good game. I brought up that it took a whole hell of a lot of touches to get those numbers
And 3.8 isn’t going to get it done in this league. It really doesn’t matter what the circumstances around it are, that’s putrid. For a top 5 pick I don’t care what the circumstances are you’re drastically underperforming if that’s your efficiency.
Well, the argument there is that you shouldn't be taking RBs in the top five anyway, which I think we all agree on. I also think that YPC can vary drastically more based on team than individual talent.
Melvin Gordon, until this year, averaged around 3.8 or 3.9 YPC, and I think most would agree he's one of the best backs in the NFL and has been for two or three years now. He's also up to 5.4 YPC this year. Did he suddenly become a significantly better runner? Of course not. Gordon has always been good, outside of his rookie year, but he's only facing a stacked box on 18.7% of his carries this year compared to 28.9% last year, which makes it a hell of a lot easier to be efficient. Overall offensive talent and O-line matters a great deal when it comes to RB production.
To compare, Fournette faced a stacked box on 46.3% of his carries last year. I'd cite his stats for this year too but he's only played in like two and a half games so it would be relatively pointless due to sample size.