101, 11/3 — Football Outsiders on Rams/Vikes + Clayton

i thought i’d put this post here because the football outsiders guy comments on how gurley has been getting stuffed a lot. and then over at the herd. there was some post about how balzer said gurley was 3 yards and a cloud of dust combined with the occasional long rip which inflated his stats. and while that may be true, i think it’s slightly exaggerated. i’d put him at about middle of the road in terms of getting consistent yards, and it’s definitely something he needs to improve on. he gets stuffed a lot. but he’s way more than just the long runs he gets.

i think freeman is one of the most consistent running backs in terms of churning out positive yards every carry. so i took his yards and subtracted the longest run from each game and calculated his yards per carry. i did the same with gurley – one including all 5 games and one including just his first four starts.

devonta freeman
571 yards 144 carries 3.97 yards per carry

todd gurley (5 games)
345 yards 89 carries 3.88 yards per carry

todd gurley (4 starts)
340 yards 84 carries 4.05 yards per carry

so again. he’s way more than just the insanely long run he pulls off once per game. shoot if you took those 4 starts without the long runs. he’s still having a heck of a rookie season! i mean people gotta realize he averages 6.1 yards per carry. there’s no one else averaging over 5 yards a carry until you get to the 15th ranked rusher gio bernard!

i know this isn’t the most sophisticated analysis. but my only point is this is one of the most impressive first four starts ever. especially when you consider he’s less than a year removed from acl surgery. and he’s doing it with no passing offense to speak of. now notice i said start. he’s still got 9 games to go. it means nothing if he falters after this. and he’s got a whole nfl career ahead of him. so in the grand scheme of things this means nothing. but i’m hopeful. that this is all real. because if it is, we’re all in for a treat, guys!

here’s another stat from football outsiders.

success rate. measures the running back’s consistency.

gio bernard ranks first with a success rate of 59%.

some others
devonta freeman – 54% 6th
le’veon bell – 50% 9th
jamaal charles – 48% 14th
melvin gordon – 48% 15th
todd gurley – 45% 24th
adrian peterson – 44% 26th
matt forte – 42% 28th

now having a high dvoa combined with a relatively low success rate means that the player is mixing explosive runs with a lot of stuffs. so the argument does hold some water. but still. i expect his success rate to go up as the oline continues to gel. interesting stuff.