2009 Breakout Running Backs
Every year there are running
backs that come out of nowhere and are amongst the best fantasy
performers. Although the performance of the offensive line has a big
impact on a running back’s statistics, I believe there are still
certain statistical criteria that can increase the chances of
finding a breakout running back. I decided to look at all running
backs in years two through five and find out which running backs are
most likely to breakout. Moreover I looked at the RBs that did
breakout and tried to find criteria that differentiate RBs that do
breakout from the ones that do not.
First of all I just want to
clarify that I am using the term breakout a little loosely and I
still include RBs who might have had a strong rookie season,
struggled in their second season and had a solid third season. The
two criteria that a running back had to respect to be considered a
breakout running back are:
-At least 150 points in a
point per reception scoring system
-An increase of at least 40 points per 16 games or a 25% increase in
points per 16 games.
Since 1990, there
have been 77 running backs that had a breakout season in their
second, third, fourth or fifth season out of a possible 348 which is
equal to 22.1% of them. To qualify amongst those 348, the only
criteria were that the player had to have at least 250 rushing yards
and play at least 10 games in two consecutive seasons. The following
chart has the breakdown of the breakout running backs by year:
|
Year |
Breakouts |
Number |
%Breakouts |
|
2 |
22 |
89 |
24.7% |
|
3 |
22 |
84 |
26.2% |
|
4 |
13 |
89 |
14.6% |
|
5 |
20 |
86 |
23.3% |
As expected the most likely breakout candidates are second and third
year running backs but there are still quite a few fourth and fifth
year backs that do breakout. However, even for third year running
backs, there are only 26.2% that do have breakout seasons so I
decided to look at criteria to attempt to increase these
percentages. The first criterion I applied to all the running backs
is that they must have had less than 12 total touchdowns in their
previous season. By applying this, no running backs who did not
respect this criterion were considered breakout running backs while
50 were not. This increased the percentage for running backs in
seasons two through five from 22.1% to 25.8%:
|
Year |
Breakouts |
Number |
%Breakouts |
|
2 |
22 |
80 |
27.5% |
|
3 |
22 |
67 |
32.8% |
|
4 |
13 |
75 |
17.3% |
|
5 |
20 |
76 |
26.3% |
I decided to take this one
step further and try to find more criteria individually for each
year to increase these percentages. Since we are dealing with
relatively small samples, this is a little tricky and I had to make
sure the percentages were real and not simply a random coincidence.
To make sure of this, when looking for more criteria, I made sure
that I used rounded numbers so that I would not have criteria such
as fewer than 233 carries or more than 567 yards. The other rule I
used is that I could remove players from my sample at both edges but
not in the middle such that I do not have a criterion that says a
running back must have fewer than 200 carries or more than 150.
Although some of the criteria I will find may still be a random
coincidence I think that by using these two rules I will limit that
chance.
|
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