Myths and Realities of Aging and
Wearing Running Backs
(page 2)
The other thing we often hear is
that running backs start struggling after a certain number of
touches in their career. In this chart we look at the number of
times a running back had 200 touches in a season and started the
following year with a certain number of career touches.
Example: 62 times a running back
had 200 touches in a season and before the next season started, had
between 1,000 and 1,249 touches in his career. (Note: Touches in a
season where a running back did not reach 250 rushing yards are not
accounted for).
|
Career touches before start of season |
Nb with 200 touches |
Nb that also had
200 touches one year later |
Percentage |
|
1000-1249 |
66 |
45 |
68.2% |
|
1250-1499 |
54 |
27 |
50.0% |
|
1500-1749 |
32 |
21 |
65.6% |
|
1750-1999 |
27 |
16 |
59.3% |
|
2000-2249 |
13 |
8 |
61.5% |
|
2250-2499 |
18 |
15 |
83.3% |
|
2500-2749 |
17 |
12 |
70.6% |
|
2750-2999 |
11 |
7 |
63.6% |
|
3000-3249 |
8 |
5 |
62.5% |
|
3250-3499 |
8 |
3 |
37.5% |
|
3500 and over |
8 |
4 |
50.0% |
We split them into two larger groups:
|
Career touches before start of season |
Nb with 200 touches |
Nb that also had
200 touches one year later |
Percentage |
|
1000-1499 |
120 |
72 |
60.0% |
|
1500 and over |
142 |
91 |
64.1% |
As you can see, running backs that have more career touches actually
have a better chance of receiving 200 touches in the following year
but the difference is nothing significant. Once again this means
that running backs reaching a certain number of career touches are
not more injury-prone.
As we did for age, we will now
look at whether or not there is a performance drop based on the
number of career touches. In this chart, we will look at the average
fantasy points for the running backs that had 200 touches or more in
two consecutive seasons:
|
Career touches before start of season |
Nb |
Fantasy pts |
Fantasy pts one
year later. |
Percentage change |
|
1000-1249 |
45 |
260 |
252 |
-2.9% |
|
1250-1499 |
27 |
287 |
277 |
-3.2% |
|
1500-1749 |
21 |
278 |
257 |
-7.7% |
|
1750-1999 |
16 |
274 |
270 |
-1.6% |
|
2000-2249 |
8 |
279 |
302 |
8.3% |
|
2250-2499 |
15 |
307 |
264 |
-14.1% |
|
2500-2749 |
12 |
273 |
234 |
-14.2% |
|
2750-2999 |
7 |
247 |
234 |
-5.1% |
|
3000-3249 |
5 |
269 |
192 |
-28.7% |
|
3250-3499 |
3 |
208 |
263 |
26.4% |
|
3500 and over |
4 |
239 |
175 |
-26.6% |
These are the most interesting
numbers we have seen so far. As expected, there is a very large
drop when running backs reach 3,000 career touches (the exception
was Curtis Martin) but there is also a drop when running backs reach
2,250 touches.
We have grouped the backs in
different categories in order to be able to see the drops more
clearly:
|
Career touches before start of season |
Nb |
Fantasy pts |
Fantasy pts one
year later. |
Percentage change |
|
1000-1499 |
72 |
270 |
262 |
-3.0% |
|
1500-2249 |
45 |
277 |
270 |
-2.7% |
|
2250-2999 |
34 |
283 |
247 |
-12.5% |
|
3000 and over |
12 |
244 |
204 |
-16.3% |
As you can see, running backs
that start a season with more than 2,250 career touches generally
see a performance drop. The difference between the two is about 10%
which is quite interesting but we need to be able to understand why
this drop happened.
|
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