Both of you are intelligent posters, and so I refuse to believe that either you or Ellis Dee fail to understand the concept of “small sample size,” or the relevance of the concept in this context. Accordingly, I’m going to assume that you’re being disingenuous, which is my cue to drop out of the discussion altogether. I had been enjoying the conversation until now, but if you’re really going to argue that 19 carries spread over 16 games is evidence of anything, then the debate has become dishonest.
Going back to the Brady talk, ESPN claims he’s not even the best NFL quarterback to have worn #12.
It’s sort of an article of faith with me that NFL players (as well as MLB players, NHL players, etc.) are, on average, decidedly better than the players of yore. Players are better conditioned, better trained, better coached, and they’re drawn from a larger talent pool than ever before. So if Brady is the best quarterback of the moment – and I don’t know what NFL team would prefer another to him – doesn’t that make him the best of all time? After all, he’s competing against, and dominating, players who are better now than they ever have been before.
In theory. But it’s also possible that the ones that had nothing but amazing talent of yesteryear could have done similar things in the same circumstances.
Don’t be so dramatic.
No one is calling it definitive evidence, but it raises questions. It’s more than 19 carries, you can see if you look at the numbers across Barry’s career the other running backs were successful when they had the ball. That was rare because Barry was very healthy, but none the less it’s true.
Barry fans make a big deal that there were defenders on him before he even had the ball in his hands on most plays, they like to imply that Walter, Emmitt, Marshall, LDT and Terrell Davis would have been much worse than Barry if they’d had his line.
It’s certainly not definitive evidence of anything, but the fact that these no-name guys who never found consistent success did indeed run for a decent average (in multiple seasons) calls into question that presumption about Barry’s “awful” line.
I realize that this isn’t going to help much, but my opinion is that Barry Sanders was the greatest “pure runner” I ever saw, but not the greatest running back I ever saw. He was amazing to watch, and certainly among the best ever, but running back requires receiving and blocking skills in addition to running prowess. For my money (and I’m just opening up a whole 'nother can of worms here). the best running back (that I saw) was probably Thurman Thomas (who was Marshall Faulk before there was a Marshall Faulk; then again, I’m a long suffering Dolphin fan, so I realize my memory is tainted by the games of my youth.)
Getting lectured about small sample sizes by you is pretty funny.
There’s a simple way to discredit the Ron Rivers example. Show me another “relief” runner who averaged well over 4 yards a carry for three seasons behind a terrible OL.
I also find it interesting that you seem to be pretending I never even posted the Derrick Moore example.
I agree about Thurman Thomas. He is hugely under rated in my book. He’s since been surpassed by Faulk, and I’d have a tough time deciding between him and Roger Craig, but he was a great RB in a era where there were several.
I don’t like the term “pure runner”, I’m not sure just what it means. I would not argue against anyone calling Barry the “most elusive” back ever and I think a strong case can be made for “most exciting”, he was dynamic and accelerated like few ever. He was death in the open field for certain. However “pure runner” seems to me that it would include all tasks for a running back aside from pass catching and blocking, and as I’ve already argued, his shortcomings on short yardage/goal line situations seems to fall under the category of “runner”.
Is there a particular reason that you get so nasty when someone disagrees with you?
As I said, I’m not particularly interested in continuing this discussion with you. I don’t think you’re interested in an honest debate or in considering anyone’s ideas; I think you’d much rather play gotcha. That’s fine and you’re welcome to it, but I’d rather not. All the same, since you asked:
It’s obviously difficult to find a single “relief” runner who even played for the same team for three seasons - relief runners tend to be disposable. But in the spirit of the question:
The New Orleans Saints of the early 1980s were historically awful. In 1980 Mike Strachan managed 4.6 ypc; Chuck Muncie rushed to a 4.2 ypc; in 1981 Toussiant Tyler averaged 5.1 ypc. All three were backup runners (albeit with more carries than Rivers).
The Tampa Bay Bucs won 15 games between 1988 and 1990, and had no one’s idea of a Hall-of-Fame offensive line, but backup running backs averaged 4.2 or above in each year (Jeff Smith, Sylvester Stamps, Ron Harvey).
From 1985 through 1988 the Atlanta Falcons had at least one backup RB average 4.3 ypc or better (Cliff Austin - 5.5; Austin - 4.5; Kenny Flowers - 4.5; Gerald Riggs - 4.3). In the interest of full disclosure, Bill Fralic played for that Atlanta team.
One more, this one illustrative. In 1976 Roland Hooks carried the ball 25 times in relief of OJ Simpson for the Bills; he gained 4.6 ypc. In 1977 he carried a real load, as Simpson played only 7 games and started none; Hooks’ ypc dropped to 3.9. The following year, with a small sample size and back in a backup role, Hooks returned to 4.7 ypc.
This is actually pretty tedious to research, and you aren’t even listening anyway, so I’ll stop there.
Wow! A backup running back managed 4.6 yards per carry, once in his career, spread out over 80 whole carries. Clearly that proves your point. I apologize for not seeing it. Oy.
Obviously it has nothing to do with your incredibly respectful hugs-and-rainbows response of:
Isn’t there a famous saying about motes and eyes? Do us all a favor and climb down off the cross.
1980 Saints: While they were a truly pathetic team, their yards-per-rush average was in the top half of the league. That’s light-years better than the Barry supporters would have you believe the Lions OL was.
1988 Bucs: The relief guy had the same basic YPA (4.0 vs 3.9) as the starter, which would support the (my) position that the relief runner is a non-trivial indicator of the OL’s run-blocking ability.
1989 Bucs: Team as a whole had a low rushing average, the starters were in the mid-3 range, and the relief runner had a staggering 4.9. This one alone isn’t enough to disprove the idea that a relief runner is reflective of OL ability, but damn, toss in a couple more like this and the hypothesis is torpedoed. Of note, however, is that Stamps is listed as a RB-WR hybrid, so I’m wondering if his high YPA is due to running reverses.
1990 Bucs: Team YPA was #14, so an average rush OL. Again, this isn’t my original question: “If the Lions OL was so shitty, how did the relief runner have such a high average?” But I will concede that the relief runner’s 4.2 average is noticeably higher than the starter’s 3.9. Also of interest is that – as pathetic as this sounds – the team’s #14 YPA ranking was significantly boosted by Testeverde’s 38 7.5-yard scrambles. Without those, they drop to #27 at an embarassing 3.6 YPA. And that still includes Chris Chandler’s scrambles, which went for 5.5 a clip. Yeah, this OL is pretty fucking dreadful, and yet the relief runner did quite well at 4.2 a clip.
Combined with the 89 Bucs, this is enough to convince me that the relief runner isn’t particularly indicative of the OL’s run-blocking ability. I might later be persuaded back by a more rigorous analysis, but as you rightly noted this type of research is pretty tedious. (And I’m not even having to find them, so I sympathize.) And again, your martyr act is unbecoming.
When you’re dealing with a starting RB who gets almost all of his team’s carries, you just can’t get any useful information from the YPC of his backups. Not only is the sample size way too small, but the backups are probably being used in unusual ways. In general, either they’re short-yardage backs (running against 9-man fronts) or scat-backs (running draws against dime defenses). Either way, their role plays a larger role in their YPC than their effectiveness.
Just to clarify, who the relief runner is is irrelevant. It certainly doesn’t have to be the same guy for more than one season. The original assertion was that the relief runner’s YPA was an indicator of the OL’s run-blocking ability.
Think back over the last few years. Didn’t you think the Giants OL was severely underrated based on the fact that the runners around Tiki also tended to have high YPA? I sure did.
I am in fact interested by this specific question apart from the Barry Sanders debate. I have all the player stats from pro-football-reference and yahoo.com in a database, and soon I plan on adding the team stats as well, so maybe I’ll be able to do a more thorough analysis at a later date.
Probably true. Still, I’m interested in seeing what the actual numbers bear out, though there’s a fairly decent chance I’ll never get around to it.
It’s probably not authoritative information, but when there are anecdotes flying around about Barry’s superhuman ability to survive plays with multiple D-lineman deep in the backfield and every play, it’s worth noting that the other guys on the roster managed to get back to the line of scrimmage and beyond on occasion (something Barry often failed to do).
A backups YPC might be dubious when used as a measure of OL talent, but the assertions in this thread go farther than that by making it sound as if Barry had a uniquely inept line for 13 years. Were it true you’d assume lesser backs on the same team would be utterly helpless regardless of the circumstance. Perhaps it simply points out that Barry’s line was on par with everyone else’s on average.
That’s just not what’s been going on in this thread. Every reference to the offensive line in this thread has been in response to you pointing out how many negative plays he was involved in. If you start with the numbers, they indicate that he was really, really good. The burden shifts over to the “overrated” camp to explain why he doesn’t belong in the discussion. You and Trunk used his number of failed rushes and anecdotal references to him ignoring holes to do so.
And in response to that, you’ve gotten a few – a few – indications that he wasn’t running behind a great line, and was looking at a lot more difficult 1 yard gains than some other running backs might have been. And that’s the point the “anecdotes flying around about Barry’s superhuman ability to survive plays with multiple D-lineman deep in the backfield and every play” (a fair and evenhanded characterization, by the way) were attempting to make.
And in response to that, now we have Ron Rivers and Cedric Moore. And Varlos pointed out that those numbers are probably completely meaningless, even within the context of the discussion that’s taken shape here, because there’s not much to go on when you pick out two individual seasons by individual players in limited roles.
But anyway, even beside the philosophical point about sample size and different roles, let’s assume that those two examples mean something. What about 1988, when the Lions ran for a killer 3.2 yards per carry? What about ‘89, when Sanders’ backups ran for a full yard and a yard and a half-yard less per carry? Or '90 – a full half a yard? '91? '92? '94 (when Derrick Moore himself averaged a third of the yards Sanders did, '93 being the year already cited above)?
I mean, if you guys want to talk about how the other Lions running backs ran during the time Sanders was there, and rely on those results as indicative of whether his line was creating his high yards per carry based on how they compare to those other backs, I’m pretty comfortable with that, since, in fact, the other guys on the roster WERE pretty generally helpless, all things considered. Picking out one guy who cracked off a single 48 yard carry that raised his average more than half a yard, and another back who had one decent year that wasn’t even as good as Sanders’ average seems like pretty scant support for your position, even if there’s a position to be staked out in the first place. If there’s a trend there, it’s a trend toward the running game sucking without Sanders.
So now we’re back to square one. He had great numbers, and I submit again that there’s documentary evidence that he had to face a lot more pressure in the backfield than most great running backs did, which explains why he lost so many yards.
So, shall we sum up the question posed by the OP?
My response is this: Bwahahahaha! Are you kidding?
This thread is about Barry Sanders. Hush up.
And the cool thing is that Thurman Thomas and Barry Sanders were playing at Oklahoma State at the same time.
Barry backed up Thurman for years. And both were Heisman Contenders. Wish I had been able to see those games. But Tailback U is coming back to dominance. 1/60 odds of winning the BCS championship!