Just eyeballing the stats, with emphasis on carries, YPC, first downs, 20+ yard runs, and fumbles, I’d conclude that MJD, LeSean McCoy, and DeJonathan Stewiams (that’s DeAngelo Williams and Jonathan Stewart combined) were roughly the best running backs in the NFL last season. MJD and McCoy were both 2nd round picks, Willams and Stewart both 1st round picks.
This seems within my capabilities. Copy/pasted the top 20 or so running backs by Football Outsiders’ DYAR for 2011, and added a few other names that I thought should have been included. Draft positions are per wikipedia, because I sure don’t remember where they were drafted.
Player Position DYAR Rk DVOA Rk Runs Yards EYds
L.McCoy 2nd (53rd) 324 1 17.40% 4 273 1,309 1,597
M.Jones-Drew 2nd (60th) 231 2 7.20% 14 343 1,604 1,604
M.Lynch 1st (12th) 230 3 11.10% 12 285 1,204 1,358
J.Stewart 1st (13th) 202 4 24.40% 2 142 762 846
R.Mathews 1st (12th) 197 5 13.70% 10 222 1,091 1,074
P.Thomas UDFA 193 6 32.60% 1 110 562 712
F.Jackson UDFA 178 7 16.10% 6 170 936 915
D.Williams 1st (27th) 178 8 21.00% 3 155 831 798
D.Murray 3rd (71st) 169 9 15.30% 7 164 896 876
B.Tate 2nd (58th) 167 10 14.80% 8 175 949 889
A.Peterson 1st (7th) 163 11 11.90% 11 208 973 962
W.McGahee 1st (23rd) 159 12 7.00% 16 249 1,206 1,126
R.Rice 2nd (55th) 148 13 3.70% 24 291 1,364 1,286
A.Foster UDFA 141 14 3.80% 23 278 1,236 1,196
S.Greene 3rd (65th) 140 15 4.80% 20 252 1,053 1,132
D.Brown 1st (27th) 134 16 16.70% 5 134 645 671
C.Wells 1st (31st) 123 17 3.20% 28 245 1,048 1,103
B.Green-Ellis UDFA 121 18 6.00% 18 181 667 928
R.Mendenhall 1st (23rd) 121 19 3.80% 22 228 928 1,039
D.McFadden 1st (4th) 100 20 14.30% 9 113 616 533
A.Bradshaw 7th (250th) 95 21 4.50% 21 171 659 776
S.Jackson 1st (24th) 90 22 0.60% 31 259 1,146 1,014
Matt Forte 2nd (44th)
Michael Turner 5th (154th)
Frank Gore 3rd (65th)
Reggie Bush 1st (2nd)
Cedric Benson 1st (4th)
Ryan Grant UDFA
Cross fingers that the formatting works…
Whole lot of UDFAs on that list.
And a whole lot of first-rounders, too.
Of course it isn’t just production at the position,but how important is that position to a teams success. The Super Bowl champs the last three years have not had elite running backs, in fact you would have to go back to I don’t know when when a running back was vital to a Super Bowl teams success (probably the Rams with Marshall Faulk). The top five players on that list above, not one made it to the playoffs. Not until you get to Ray Rice is there an impact RB on a playoff team.
A whole lot of those first rounders were drafted in the 20s.
Apparently the 4th round is a terrible place to draft a RB.
Giants were last in rushing in the regular season, but 1st in yards and carries in the postseason, and 6th in yards per game. They were the only team to play four postseason games, but it’s clear that the run was a key component of their offense in the postseason.
A couple mocks have Ryan Tannehill going between 9-12. I would not be shocked to see the Browns panic and take him at 4. I hope they don’t, though. I just don’t know anything about him. Assuming they can’t trade down a few spots, I’d go with Claiborne or Blackmon. As has been noted above, you can get a good RB later.
Grey Ghost’s list is really interesting. You’d probably be able to deduce from that list that you should either draft a RB in the first 2 rounds or not at all. I’m not sure this is in any way conclusive, but it might call into question the conventional wisdom that you should draft RBs in the later rounds. It certainly doesn’t argue against drafting a RB in the top half of the first round.
That said, teams that have RBs who lead the league in rushing and/or get into the news via fantasy drafts might not accurately represent the way rushing works in the NFL these days. In other words, there’s probably a direct connection between teams who draft a RB high and ho steer away from the RB by committee approach. Teams that are elite rushing teams my not be on that list if the carries are evenly distributed, though admittedly about every team in the league is covered there.
Long story short, I still think it’s a bad idea to draft a RB early in the first but I might think twice about waiting until the 3rd round or later. You could make a case that every team should draft a RB in the late first or early second round every 4 years and never pay a guy a second contract.
Well, you could point to the last two Superbowl champs as evidence that you don’t need to draft one higher than the 4th round, or even just go with a 7th rounder/undrafted and call it a day. (Ahmad Bradshaw & Ryan Grant, who was orginally a Giant.)
At 22 or 37 the Browns will be able to pick up, if not Richardson, then Wilson or Martin or Miller from Miami. I just don’t think they need to go grab Richardson at 4.
Why stop there? You could include the Saints (Thomas, Bell), Steelers (Parker, Moore) and the Giants again. Sure you have to fudge a little on Bush with the Saints playing as a Slot mostly and the Steelers had a 1st round pick on IR but it works. Before that the Colts and Steelers had Bettis and Addai going but Parker and Rhodes were the defacto starters.
Of course I’d argue that none of this matters though since all that proves in that you need an elite QB and good WRs.
If you want a successful running game it’s wise to draft RBs in the first 2 rounds. That said, having a successful running game may or may not have much impact on winning any more.
Tiki Barber hasn’t played for the Giants since 2006. Since then, they’ve been mostly using 7th rounders and undrafted free agents to run the ball, with Brandon Jacobs being the only “name”, having been drafted in the 4th.
They were dead last in 2011, of course, but from 2007 to 2010 they were ranked 4th, 1st, 17th, and 6th. Not coincidentally, the offensive line was healthy for the 2007, 2008 and 2010 seasons, and riddled with injuries in the 2009 and 2011 seasons.
I don’t think a successful running game has much to do with running backs at all. I think it’s more about offensive linemen.
No one I want at #4. Force me to choose and I guess Claiborne. Wouldn’t mind trading down to the #10-15 area. Coples meets a big need, but high bust risk, don’t want him. Blackmon… will be a solid pro, but if you’re going to be drafted #5 overall, you need to be big, fast, strong, and hard working - you need to be Calvin Johnson/AJ Green/etc. And he’s not.
Claiborne would sort of piss me off because of how ridiculously bad the Cleveland offense is. On the other hand, I wouldn’t mind terribly if they just decided to forget the offense this year - Claiborne #4, RDE #22, LB #37… run an experiment and see how many 6-3 or 3-0 games we can win, the defense is actually pretty close to being good.
Richardson… you need to be a transcendent talent to be worth a top 5 pick. I’m not even sure if Peterson is worth that. Last guy that clearly was was Tomlinson.
Reiff… I’m not drafting a right tackle top 5.
There’s been talk of the Browns going after Pierre Garcon, but dude turned down 5 years, $35 million from the Colts. Who else is going to pay him that?
Randy Moss signs one year deal with 49ers. Shit, did I cut him in the dynasty league?
I don’t believe it for a second, but this would be ridiculous.
In Chicago, Bears viewed as favorites to land Mario Williams
I think landing Vincent Jackson would be more impactful in the wins column, but this would certainly be a hell of a consolation prize and is probably far less risky. If we were somehow able to get both…
God wants Mario Williams to come to Cleveland.
Yeah, so he can blow his knee on the first day of training camp.
No, what God wants is to continually kick Browns fans in the balls.
Were Cincinnati not completely allergic to spending money this year, I’d have thought he would have ended up there. Chicago seems as good a place as any, though I think Seattle might be a dark horse. Or Washington, if Snyder isn’t done trying to outbid the Bears et al for VJax.
In other news,the Texans just cut their starting RT Eric Winston, and I am not happy. If they keep Jacoby, or if they did this to make a run at either Peyton or resigning Mario, I will be pissed. Not that it will matter a whit. At least they cut Leinart.
It’s so weird. They’ve really no depth anyway—they were freaking out last year when Butler went on IR, because they had nobody—and they go and do this. After I get done bragging on their line in the 2008 draft retrospective thread too…