Opportunity Knocks

Opportunity

Knocks

Every year a new crop of runningbacks join the NFL and another group plays musical stadiums, leaving fantasy owners guessing about what to expect. Most recently in the Shark Tank at FantasySharks.com, my friend, compatriot, and glutton for abuse DynastyForce wondered aloud about

Felix Jones’ likely impact on Cowboys’ incumbent

Marion Barber. Now we can’t just take

Felix Jones’ college stats or a veteran’s performance on their last team and figure they’ll do the same in their new roles, but we can look at their situations. Instead of past performances, we’re going to focus on opportunity – how much time we expect to see them on the field – as our predictor of success.

 

Backfield Touches	Rookies (p=323)	New Veterans (p=238)
On the bench (under 5%)	58%	56%
Sniffing the field (5 – 20%)	26%	31%
Sharing the load (20%-40%)	11%	8%
Taking over (over 40%)	5%	5%

Incumbent with 50%+ of carries the previous year, from 1998 – 2007

 

Rashard Mendenhall,

Felix Jones, and

Chris Johnson join the NFL in an uphill battle for opportunity. As shown in the table above, rookies and veterans on a new team are faced with overwhelming odds when competing with an established runningback. A few will steal touches regularly, but just 5% each of rookies and acquired veterans will threaten to take over the starting job when there’s a clear starting job to take. Most hardly make an immediate impact, but we’ll focus our attention to the guys who have.

 

Rookie Impacts

The rookies who immediately take over come in four distinct flavors:

1. Hall of Fame candidates like

   Eddie George (1996) and

   Marshall Faulk (1994)

2. Injury fill-ins like

   Domenic Rhodes (2001)

3. “Step aside, gramps!” like

   Antowain Smith over

   Thurman Thomas (1997)

4. “Can he be any worse?” like

   Willie Green over

   James Jackson (2002)

If your guy doesn’t fit these categories, he’s probably not going to get much of an opportunity.

The guys who come in to share the backfield also roughly match these categories, but with an emphasis on age. Once we eliminate the incumbents who missed half the season, over 75% of the established top backs were in their 5^th or later season when the rookie stepped in, losing about 14% of their touches along the way. The rookies who were worked in include guys like

Lawrence Maroney,

Steven Jackson, and

Frank Gore, who we’ve watched take their place over the worn or the ineffective (yes, you,

Kevan Barlow), phasing the incumbent out.

 

Veteran Impacts

In the few cases a veteran has come in to take over there are two key features: Injury and underachievement. Their time on the field is much more straight-forward than with rookies, generally being directly proportional to the amount of injury and suckage on the team that nabbed them. More often, acquired vets fill out the bench and, even then, usually cede the top backup roles to the guys who were there before them.

Great Expectations

So far we’ve gotten a sense of the backfield competition in the NFL created by the draft and free agency. To put this to use, we’ll look at current draft trends, see what the average drafter seems to expect, and whether or not the value adds up.

 

Top rookie draft back

Darren McFadden has been going 19^th among runningbacks in redraft leagues at MyFantasyLeague.com. To live up to this pick in your fantasy draft, recent history says he’ll have to see about 60% of the touches out of that shaky but crowded Oakland backfield.

Michael Turner (17^th), on the other hand, has high expectations, but is competing against an inexperienced

Jerious Norwood who was still returning kicks last season.

 

Likewise, for

Rashard Mendenhall (25^th) to give you the RB2/3 performance so many seem to expect, he’ll have to take a bit over half of the action at the expense of

Willie Parker. Meanwhile, 

Michael Pittman (#73) finds himself in 

Denver

in an unremarkable stable, but is on the bottom of the draft heap.

 

Given these examples and what we’ve seen about runningbacks on new teams, you have to ask how these guys fit in their new situations. Can McFadden be any worse than the others in

Oakland

? Is it time for Willie Parker to step aside, and give half the game to a rookie? Is Marion Barber an underachiever?

 

The Answer: 42

I’ve given you the questions. To help with the answer, you’ll find a table of 42 upstarts at the end of this article. I’ve included their current competition, current average draft positions, and about how much field time they’ll need to live up to that draft pick. I’ve also thrown in some historical examples to put things in perspective.

 

When you make a pick in a redraft league, you’re usually making a statement: I expect this guy to perform better than everyone else after him at this position. Think about where they’re being drafted, who they’re competing with, and whether or not they’re going to get the opportunity your draft pick demands.

 

To join the discussion on any runningback with a pulse, dip into the Shark Tank at FantasySharks.com, send me any feedback in the Article Discussion forum, and if you happen to be Kevan Barlow, I know, it wasn’t all your fault.

Average Draft Position vs. Opportunity

Here’s an example of how to read the table below:

To be the 17th RB overall, Michael Turner must get around 62% of touches out of the backfield.

Team	Year	ADP	RB Draft Rank	New Runningback	Touches %	Incumbent / Competition as of June 15, 2008
ARI	2006			James, Edgerrin	84%	Shipp, Marcel
IND	1994			Faulk, Marshall (R)	72%	Potts, Roosevelt
HOU	2003			Davis, Domanick (R)	65%	Wells, Jonathan
ATL	2008	33.45	17	Turner, Michael	62%	Norwood, Jerious
OAK	2008	37.46	19	McFadden, Darren	61%	Fargas / Bush / Jordan
TB	2005			Williams, Cadillac (R)	61%	Pittman, Michael
CLE	2002			Green, William (R)	58%	Jackson, James
CAR	2008	57.92	23	Stewart, Jonathan	56%	Williams, DeAngelo
PIT	2008	61.8	25	Mendenhall, Rashard	51%	Parker, Willie
BUF	1997			Smith, Antowain (R)	50%	Thomas, Thurman
SEA	2008	62.6	27	Jones, Julius	49%	Morris / Duckett
CAR	2001			Huntley, Richard	47%	Biakabutuka, Tim
DET	2008	72.96	29	Smith, Kevin	46%	Bell / Calhoun
CHI	2008	73.75	30	Forte, Matt	41%	Peterson / Wolfe
NE	2006			Maroney, Laurence (R)	38%	Dillon, Corey
DAL	2008	92.88	33	Jones, Felix	37%	Barber, Marion III
STL	2004			Jackson, Steven (R)	35%	Faulk, Marshall
TEN	2008	101.61	36	Johnson, Chris	33%	White, LenDale
SF	2005			Gore, Frank (R)	32%	Barlow, Kevan
GB	2005			Gado, Samkon (R)	32%	Green, Ahman
F/A	2008	113.11	39	Henry, Travis	29%	TBD
BAL	2008	120.47	40	Rice, Ray	29%	McGahee, Willis
IND	2007			Keith, Kenton (R)	28%	Addai, Joseph
DEN	2008	137.37	44	Torain, Ryan	26%	Young / Pittman / Hall
KC	2008	152.59	46	Charles, Jamaal	22%	Johnson, Larry
F/A	2008	166.09	49	Alexander, Shaun	21%	TBD
HOU	2008	180.59	52	Brown, Chris	20%	Green, Ahman
HOU	2008	187.69	55	Slaton, Steve	19%	Green / Brown
TB	2008	196.58	60	Dunn, Warrick	18%	Graham, Ernest
F/A	2008	217	66	Jones, Kevin	18%	TBD
SFO	2008	223.66	68	Foster, DeShaun	18%	Gore, Frank
DEN	2008	238.95	73	Pittman, Michael	17%	Young / Hall
SD	2008	240.31	76	Hester, Jacob	17%	Tomlinson, LaDainian
ARI	2008	245	77	Hightower, Tim	14%	James, Edgerrin
IND	2008	247.63	79	Hart, Mike	12%	Addai, Joseph
DAL	2008	257.06	80	Choice, Tashard	10%	Barber, Marion III
MIA	2008	267.52	82	Parmele, Jalen	8%	Brown, Ronnie
SEA	2008	269.03	84	Duckett, T.J.	7%	Jones, Julius
BUF	2008	273.87	85	Omon, Xavier	7%	Lynch, Marshawn
SD	2008	283.86	90	Thomas, Marcus	6%	Tomlinson, LaDainian
SEA	2008	301.75	97	Forsett, Justin	5%	Jones, Julius
TB	2008	311.17	99	Boyd, Cory	4%	Graham, Earnest