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Breakout Running Backs As shown in the first part of this article, second year
running backs have about a one in five chance of having a breakout season. In 2007,
although many owners expected running backs such as Jerious Norwood, Laurence Maroney,
DeAngelo Williams and Reggie Bush to have real breakthrough seasons, all of them were
disappointing. However, second year Joseph Addai had a great season and joined the group
of elite running backs. In order to increase our chances of finding the one or two that
breakout every year, I added the following criterions that the running backs must have
respected in their previous season: These four additional criterions eliminate 70 second year
running backs while only losing nine that did breakout. This would have allowed us to find
19 breakout RBs out of 54 second year RBs for a 35.2% success rate, a solid improvement
over the initial 19.7%. Unfortunately, Kenton Keith is the only running back who
respects these criterions in 2008. It is hard to believe that Keith could have a breakout
season unless Joseph Addai were to suffer a serious injury but Keith did show signs that
he can succeed in the NFL so he could be worth a late pick. Marshawn Lynch is another
second year running back who respects every criterion except the 250 rushes or less. Lynch
had 280 rushes in 2007 and many managers expect him to breakout in 2008. You should
however be aware that amongst the nine running backs who respected every criterion but the
250 rushes or less one, none broke out. This is a small sample size but he is very likely
to be drafted much earlier than he should in drafts and you should be aware that
statistics are not on his side. Third year running backs are the most likely to breakout
with a 23.9% success rate if we apply the touchdowns criterion. In 2007, Brandon Jacobs
was the only running back who broke out in his third season while Cedric Benson was a
third year running back who was a big disappointment. Ronnie Brown would have also likely
been considered a breakout running back had he not suffered a season-ending injury halfway
through the season. In order to improve our success rate at finding breakout running
backs, I applied two additional criterions: These two additional criterions serve the purpose of
finding the running backs that showed they could perform at a high level in their first
two seasons but never had the opportunity to be the feature back in the offense. Although these criterions reduce the number of candidates
from 117 to 33, there are 16 running backs that respect these criterions that did breakout
for a very impressive success rate of 48.5%. In 2008, there are eight third year running backs that had
at least 250 rushing yards in 2007 and surprisingly four of them respect the criterions
identified above. Leon Washington, DeAngelo Williams, Jerious Norwood and Laurence Maroney
are all strong breakout candidates and if history holds true in 2008, two of them should
improve over their 2007 performance by at least 25%. Williams, Norwood and Maroney were
amongst the favorites to breakout in 2007 but they all had disappointing seasons. For that
reason, fantasy managers may choose to stay away from them in 2008 so they could be nice
bargains on draft day. In order to determine which of those are the most likely to
breakout, we will have to study their situations on their respective teams very carefully
but they are definitely four running backs to keep in mind as your draft approaches. |
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