My 2015 Running Back Report

[Dynasty DeLorean]

....................

[Jason3123]

Nice work man. Hurt my feelings with the T.J. Yeldon ranking though!

[Reljac]

Out of curiousity... are your historically listed players the only players from recent years named Tier 1/Tier 2? I assume you didn't leave anyone out.

[MEuRaH]

This is crazy. Your rankings reflect my rankings almost identically. I love all of the work you have put into this, I can't wait to see the results.

[Dynasty DeLorean]

Nice work man. Hurt my feelings with the T.J. Yeldon ranking though!

lol, well it's not 100% accurate, so... there's always a chance!

Out of curiousity... are your historically listed players the only players from recent years named Tier 1/Tier 2? I assume you didn't leave anyone out.

Did not leave anyone out from the players that I could find stats for. I found stats for roughly 175 running backs. There are some notable players that did not make the Tier 1 or Tier 2 lists that have produced over a period of several years such as Arian Foster. Although I have my doubts that Foster's workout numbers were accurate and/or not negatively influenced by some sort of injury at the time.

I love all of the work you have put into this, I can't wait to see the results.

Thanks! I can't either. Will only have to wait a few years

[Dookmarriot]

Love love love the analysis. The guys I like to follow are the ones that follow a process, and show their work - this is great stuff.

You know my reservations about DJ, but if he comes to me cheap, I'm taking a flyer on his scared to run inside behind!

[evorzan]

Awful, awful analysis. No one should use this, move along. *jots down notes*

Seriously, though, well done. I like that some of your items like speed score being weighted heavily lines up with the work of others.. gives it more merit and weight.

[Csl312]

Would you be able to cross reference this list with a list of top 15 RBs for the same years spanning your sample? I am curious how many Arian Fosters there are in the group, and what they scored on this analysis.

[whodunnit]

Great write up!

[snitchinsider]

Thanks for putting this together! I still think there is more to be said about prospects than their profile but this is a good baseline for people to start grading from.

One question I have: Did you control for volume of players within a given physical profile? As in, success of profiles isn't skewed by how often said profile is drafted (vs. their own profile field basically instead of vs. the field as a whole)?

[Reljac]

Out of curiousity... are your historically listed players the only players from recent years named Tier 1/Tier 2? I assume you didn't leave anyone out.

Did not leave anyone out from the players that I could find stats for. I found stats for roughly 175 running backs. There are some notable players that did not make the Tier 1 or Tier 2 lists that have produced over a period of several years such as Arian Foster. Although I have my doubts that Foster's workout numbers were accurate and/or not negatively influenced by some sort of injury at the time.

In that case, I applaud. Outstanding work.

[Dynasty DeLorean]

Would you be able to cross reference this list with a list of top 15 RBs for the same years spanning your sample? I am curious how many Arian Fosters there are in the group, and what they scored on this analysis.

Well I've gotten the most RB's I could from past years. The problem is playerprofiler doesn't keep stats for every RB. I'm not sure if this will help answer your question, combed through the other lists to find the most relevant information. I could have just posted the entire lists but I feel it would just be a giant wall of text that might turn most people off to reading the more useful information. So from the other 3 lists I would deem a total of only 3 RB's to be a success (aka the system missed) from a total of 141 players.


Tier 3 (Sample size of 42 players)

Success
Frank Gore
Eddie Lacy

Most Notable Still Relevant
Jonathan Stewart
Doug Martin?


Tier 4 (Sample size of 9 players)

Possible Success
CJ Anderson

Most Notable Still Relevant
Reggie Bush


Tier 5 (Sample size of 90 players)

Success
Arian Foster

Possible Success
Jeremy Hill

Most Notable Still Relevant
Mark Ingram


Now of course nobody wants to miss out on the Frank Gore's and Arian Fosters of the world, but you also don't want to be stuck with the Trent Richardsons and Montee Balls of the world either which are far and away more plentiful on these lists.

[Csl312]

That was pretty much what I was looking for. Thanks for putting in the work, it is great stuff.

[Dynasty DeLorean]

One question I have: Did you control for volume of players within a given physical profile? As in, success of profiles isn't skewed by how often said profile is drafted (vs. their own profile field basically instead of vs. the field as a whole)?

I did add as many undrafted and UDFA's as I could find. I'm not sure if that answers your question though. In general, undrafted guys don't have the great metric profile that drafted players have. Draft position does matter though.


Interesting notes:
- 20 of the 27 players in Tier 1+2 are 1st-3rd round picks.

- 10 of 20 1st round picks will end up in Tiers 1+2 [50%]
- 6 of 24 2nd round picks will end up in Tiers 1+2 [25%]
- 4 of 19 3rd round picks will end up in Tiers 1+2 [21%]
- 2 of 23 4th round picks will end up in Tiers 1+2 [9%]
- 0 of 14 5th round picks will end up in Tiers 1+2 [0%]
- 2 of 24 6th round picks will end up in Tiers 1+2 [8%]
- 0 of 13 7th round picks will end up in Tiers 1+2 [0%]
- 3 of 31 Undrafted FA's will end up in Tiers 1+2

As you can see, your percentages go down dramatically outside of the 1st round, then again outside of the 2nd and 3rd rounds.


Draft Pick Round, by Tier...

Tier 1
1st - 8
2nd - 5
3rd - 4
4th - 2
5th - 0
6th - 2
7th - 0
Undrafted - 1

Tier 2
1st - 2
2nd - 1
3rd - 0
4th - 0
5th - 0
6th - 0
7th - 0
Undrafted - 2

Tier 3
1st - 5
2nd - 6
3rd - 7
4th - 8
5th - 2
6th - 6
7th - 3
Undrafted - 6

Tier 4
1st - 1
2nd - 1
3rd - 2
4th - 1
5th - 0
6th - 0
7th - 0
Undrafted - 4

Tier 5
1st - 4
2nd - 11
3rd - 6
4th - 12
5th - 12
6th - 16
7th - 10
Undrafted - 18


And as mentioned previously, the RB's the system likely missed on: Foster (UDFA), Lacy (2nd), Gore (3rd).

[sugbear65]

Very nice, looks like some good work went into creating this, and I applaud it as well. Personaly I will use he high rankings of some of "my guys" as a way of confirming my thoughts, and of course I will chalk up any low ratings of "my guys" to some kind of flaw in your system.