Day to Deep Dive this week, heading into week five. Going to look at some next-gen stats for the running back position a month into the NFL season here. I am Chad Parsons. Hopefully you've been enjoying the content this week, talking about some of the biggest questions being answered or not coming out of week four. Also got some dynasty trading already in the in the coffer that for this week's shows with Ryan Morgan as usual, a really nice Wednesday show. Here we are on Thursday doing some deep dive on the running back position. So a lot of nuggets coming in this one. I wanted to start off with Bijon Robinson and his usage and also his production, a little bit screwy. When you look at the Atlanta Falcons, Tyler Algier has been highly involved, but two things stick out here for Bijon Robinson that I wanted to notate. This data goes back to the entire next-gen stats era. These percentiles, you're going to hear their ranks and yes, we are a month in, so every asterisk you want with the smaller sample size than the season long data we will ultimately have in three months applies here. But with Robinson, he's a 10th percentile yards after contact per attempt. He also is bouncing everything outside. He is a 3% in terms of his inside run percentage. And those two things, looking at those isolated traits, there's not a lot of successful guys in this sample. I would say the most successful was in his prime, Kevin Coleman, also a Falcons running back there. And so a little bit concerning about a guy bouncing outside that much and again, not winning versus contact. So that is notable here. And also, Tyler Algier, he's just good. I don't want folks to think that this means Robinson is not a good player. He absolutely is. But Tyler Algier over three years, he's got two seasons now over the 67th percentile in yards after contact per attempt. This year, he's absolutely rock solid. I mean, he's in the top 5% for 10 plus yard runs. He's actually 94th percentile for 15 plus mile per hour runs. He is top 6% or 7% total in success rate. So this is all good stuff. And you know what? He's playing to the outside as well. He's at 5% in terms of his inside run rate historically with where that ranks. So both of these running backs in Atlanta are not running inside, they're running outside. So we are seeing heads up, Tyler Algier has been performing better under the same premise. He's had more explosive runs. He's done better in rushing yards over expectation. He's also doing better versus contact. So this being a tighter mix in Atlanta should not be surprising because Algier is playing well and be John Robinson, who again is a really good player. But he is not playing all that well this year specifically. So that's one thing that really struck me that last year Robinson was much better than he is so far. We'll see about the next two, three months. But I think this is where you start thinking about breaking ties at the top of the position here at running back when you have someone like Jameer Gibbs, for example, who is in a full fledged committee, it's keeping him fresh, it's keeping him dynamic. But again, he has played very well when you look at across the board, someone like Jameer Gibbs, for example, is above average basically in everything. And I mean, he already has some explosive 20 plus mile per hour runs. He's 90th percentile and 15 plus mile per hour runs. So he is doing outstanding things here there. And again, when you're breaking ties at the top of the position with guys like Reese Hall, John Robinson, Jameer Gibbs, all younger players here that are and and Breece Hall is doing fine. And I wouldn't say explosively great like Jameer Gibbs in terms of the next gen stats data that pop young pedigree group. We have Jameer Gibbs would be number one based on this data, Breece Hall would be number two. And based on this season and a month sample size only, the John Robinson would be number three. Big divisional matchup for the Falcons and Bajon Robinson against Tampa Bay this week. And again, if you think Bajon Robinson is going to perform well this week, he's plus 199 over at Bet online AG to have at least 70 rushing yards. Bet online is the world's most trusted betting platform and your number one source for everything football. Bet online is every stat, every matchup, even live odds and spreads to bet on during the games. Thank you, know your stuff. How about you get in on the $200,000 mega contest and pick five games against the spread every week for your chance at weekly prizes and a share of $200,000. When the game's over, you can head on over to the online casino and get in on a game of Blackjack, poker, unwind with one of the 150 slot games. Head on over to the website today and get in on the action. Bet online. The game starts here. Other running backs are always a good litmus test and I've rarely found anyone that looks like a dramatic and next gen stats where they have a fall off, you know, in the 27, 28, 29 plus year old range and yet they end up doing anything of note once that fall off occurs. We saw it a year ago and actually a three year cycling with Ezekiel Elliott just as an example. This year we're actually seeing a resurgence and a lot of these older running backs holding on. That's a great example. He's above average across the board. Still see him as one of the more explosive backs in the NFL and he's in the top 30% of yards after contact per attempt. He's high up in success rate and he's also seeing plenty of stacked boxes. So when you look at all these factors, he's one that is, you know, holding on very well at 30 years old, a few of the other ones. Aaron Jones, you know, as he always is, you know, when healthy, he's been dynamic across the board. He basically looks like an elite running back this year. So again, it's all about holding on and yes, the fall can be swift, but a lot of times with running backs, it's going to take probably a couple of years of that erosion for them to stop seeing enough opportunities of being fantasy relevant. So I would say with Aaron Jones, this data is very encouraging here. Maybe the next injury is the thing that saps him, but explosive and even at his age, someone that you can buy into and have confidence. I acquired him in a, in a dynasty trade in the past couple of weeks to help my team that's light at running back right now, pretty good everywhere else. Someone like James Connor, I would say he's not quite fairing as well. He's average in yards after contact per attempt. He's a little above average in rushing yards over expectation per attempt, success rate. So he's hanging on. I would say really, we need to watch James Connor more closely than Aaron Jones more closely than someone like Tony Pollard, who still has some elite nature to some of his next gen data here. But I would say James Connor is going to be a little bit of a risk going into 2025 and Aaron Zones and these others, you should have a little more bullish mentality. Joe Mixon coming back from injury, fingers crossed, it's this week. But Joe Mixon is one that in the hierarchy, you know, could not quite as good as the elite stuff that we're seeing from Aaron Jones. But so far, this young season, and he has missed some time, he is ahead of James Connor. If we are putting a hierarchy here of where folks stand, one that I would be very concerned about and it's a low level fantasy or, or dynasty name, but it's Gus Edwards. You know, he's among the qualifying running backs, the top 50 or so in terms of having at least 20 carries this season. And he is anemic across the board. He's in the bottom 5% of yards after contact per attempt, almost invisible in terms of 10 plus yard run rate, rushing yards over expectation, success rate, you name it, he's not doing well. And so Gus Edwards is one that to be fair, I wouldn't be surprised if he's out of the league by next season. This is why, you know, if JK Dobbins gets injured, I've mentioned before, Kamani Vidal is one of those names that need to be on your roll index. He's getting dropped a little bit because bi-weeks are here. And if you're in rosters that are say 22 to 26 man rosters, Kamani Vidal is a guy that might be getting dropped and you can pick up a few free chairs, he was getting drafted in the third round, maybe the late second in a one quarterback league back in May, but he's been buried. He's done nothing. However, if JK Dobbins were to miss time, I don't think Gus Edwards is going to do much with that job. And I find it hard to believe if that gap and that opportunity without Dobbins would be a month or longer, that Vidal would not be the name that you want to have more so than Gus Edwards. So I would just keep that in mind. And again, this is where the data is instructive where you might look and yeah, right now Gus Edwards every single week is the running back to to Dobbins and Vidal is not playing, but Edwards is doing nothing to justify actually having that job or having any substantial upside. Heck, I would say with Gus Edwards that he's not even an auto roster player because I think that little of the upside that he offers also another situation is in Tampa Bay. We've talked about Rashad White as well as Bucky Irving and a lot of people are saying, hey, why isn't Bucky Irving, he's rising, but maybe not as quickly as other folks would have liked. And so just to do a comparison here of the two of them because Rashad White has not been very good in this career, he's been an aggregator. And this is actually black and white when it's next gen stats and you know, you have it all color coded Rashad White this year, again, almost across the board unilaterally, he is below average and you have an explosive rookie and Bucky Irving coming in, he's 92nd percentile and yards after contact per attempt. He's in the 70s, which is well above average in 10 plus yard run rate, 15 plus mile per hour runs, he's 90% success rate. That's higher than Rashad White's three seasons combined, just adding the numbers. It doesn't even work like that. So it's that much of a difference and it's that stark of saying, this should continue. If you're a Rashad White owner, you should be very worried here because he looks the part. Now, yes, he's not old, but he has never been all that great. When you look at the secondary analytics here, now he's in the context of how he's actually performing. And so Bucky Irving is thriving right now. He's offering an explosive element to the backfield that Rashad White, not just this year in 2024, in three years he never has. So it's one month, but with running backs, you can see it or not see it pretty easily in a smaller sample size. And we are seeing it with Bucky Irving, we are not seeing it with Rashad White. So just know with Rashad White, he's still the one A, but he's on very, very shaky ground where that workhorse role that we saw in previous seasons should be and it might be gone very soon. But the Dallas Cowboy backfield, Rico Dattle is the best they have. However, it hasn't been very good. His success rate has been good, but there's no explosive nature to his game at all. He's running a lot inside. He's facing a decent amount of stack boxes, meaning Dallas is pretty much showing their hand on when they're going to run the ball. And they're seeing a lot of stack boxes as a result. So this is not leading to explosive plays. It's not leading to any difference making element in the run game. And that's concerning. Unless you have Dak Prescott and CDLAM and Beck with Brandon Cooks going to set to miss some time with Jalen Tolbert, Jake Ferguson. So it's good news for the passing game. And frankly, I don't think they're going to be able to stick with the run game because their defense isn't very good and they're injured on that side of the ball as well. So Rico Dattle is one that, you know, for being a starter, I really don't have a lot of confidence in him any given week, even with bi-weeks going on some injuries. There's possibilities that you might start someone like Justice Hill, who is the number two on his depth chart over someone like Rico Dattle, who is technically the starter. One of the key names also this year is Braylon Allen. And so I wanted to go over Braylon Allen. This is another situation like Tampa Bay, where it's Breeze Hall, Braylon Allen is in hinging, especially in week four here, in pinching upon Breeze Hall. And let's do a heads up comparison in this episode. So again, Breeze Hall has been very good through his first two years in 2022, 2023 across the board. It hasn't quite been so good this year. It's still been above average, I would say he's not creating many explosives. And Braylon Allen is like, for example, the 10 plus yard run rate, 9% for Breeze Hall, 56% for Braylon Allen. And you would think for sure that those numbers would have been reversed based on the profile of Braylon Allen through the draft process. Oh, there's going to be a guy that he doesn't even want to run the 40 because, you know, maybe he's going to, he's going to fail in terms of that drill, but he's been explosive. He's obviously crude, typically sized. He's a 98th percentile success rate, where Breeze Hall is 4%. So with Breeze Hall, I mean, yes, he's a really good receiver. This is rushing only, but the optics point to this should be a committee. If we're just looking at this and we're not putting profiles under a bigger microscope of saying, one guy is a second round pick, one guy is a fourth round pick. This guy is the incumbent. He should play more. If we take all of those guardrails away, it is absolutely justified that Braylon Allen is seeing an increase in playing time in recent weeks, and it's also justified that this is more of a committee than a workhorse and strictly a, whenever you need a spell, I'm going to go in there, back up situation. So that, the descriptive element here of next-gen stats really supports what is going on there. Another player that I would say, be careful, is DeAndre Swift. DeAndre Swift is one that just popped off for about 30 points, and I'll tell you this. This looks, this season, and keep in mind, this is a player that's bounced around already in his career. He's in his fifth season and he's on his 13th, and this is for a higher pedigree running back that was pretty acclaimed coming out of college. And he fell off in 20, in 2023 with the Eagles, and this is despite having some fantasy success. These numbers were not good. And then the Eagles say, eh, no thanks, ass, we're going to let you walk, and they bring in Sekwan Barkley. Now Swift goes to the Bears, and he has been horrific. He has basically been the reincarnation of someone like Ezekiel Elliott last year, or just like there's nothing here. He's 1% yards after contact per attempt. He's 5% in 10 plus yard run rate. He's had minimal explosive runs, 4% rushing yards over expectation. If you want to superimpose this and say it's all the Chicago offensive line, fine. I would not. When I see these numbers, like I said, when you see low across the board, it means that they are done. And so I had not found an example of just like, oh yeah, they just ended up having a bad year, and then they popped right back, everything was fine. Narrator, it was not fine. And I don't think the Andre Swift is fine. He is one to be very, very worried about if you have shares. This listenership probably doesn't have that many. But if you do, beyond a redraft league, again, redraft is fine. But I think you need to be very worried with the lens of a keeper league or a dynasty league where ownership can be forever. Because the fall office here, he's coming off likely his best game of the season. And these underlying metrics point to that was a complete operation. And we should be very worried about him being able to hold a starting job. Let's not forget, one to two weeks ago, it was Roshan Johnson's coming for his job. Why is Swift not playing on the goal line? They still aren't going to go to Hilo offense, high leverage opportunities for the running back position. So I think all those things point to DeAndre Swift spend some time and attention if you have him trying to pivot another direction. Maybe you can pivot towards Isaiah Pacheco. Maybe you can pivot towards, you know, Bucky Irving and something else. Go after a player that we have more confidence in in the description of how are they playing. Shopify is the global commerce platform that helps you sell at every stage of your business. Shopify is there to help you grow. Shopify helps you sell everywhere from their all-in-one e-commerce platform to their in-person POS system. Shopify's got you covered. 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This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance, fiscally responsible, financial geniuses, monetary magicians. These are things people say about drivers who switch their car insurance to progressive and save hundreds because Progressive offers discounts for pain and full, owning a home and more. Plus, you can count on their great customer service to help you when you need it, so your dollar goes a long way. Visit progressive.com to see if you could save on-car insurance. Progressive casualty insurance company and affiliates, potential savings will vary, not available in all states or situations. One player that surprised me a little bit that I thought there obviously is a lot of hand-wringing, there was the mystical shoulder injury and he ended up not playing as much early in the game this past week was Travis ETN. Travis ETN has been very good, I would say excellent across the board this season. Now, there's plenty of questions about Jacksonville the offense, but it was a little concerning with ETN in 2023, again, not alarmingly so, like DeAndre Swift would have just described for Swift this season. But Travis ETN has bounced back this year. He's bounced back all the way to his 2022 levels, not that concerned. He is very good across the board, so Travis ETN is one that the situation is holding him back a little bit. Yeah, they're playing tank picks be more than a year ago, but they should be. He's a third round pick and he's playing better and earning some touches. But Travis ETN is one I'm actually not that worried about based on this information. Another backfield that we saw in week four, we had some, you know, more of a committee than we had in previous weeks. And that is in Cincinnati, Zach Moss and Chase Brown are fearing this backfield and the split was as close as ever in 20 in in week four. Now Zach Moss has never been a guy that's really going to pop out in a significant way through this next gen stats lens. I will say though, this is his worst season. His worst season since Buffalo for sure. And I could argue it's his worst season overall. So he's mainly an inside player and yes, he's seeing plenty of stacked boxes. But his numbers overall are very pedestrian compare that to fresher legs and a more dynamic athlete in Chase Brown. Chase Brown is a 98th percentile in yards after contact per attempt, 98th percentile and 10 plus yard run percentage, 92nd percentile in 15 plus mile per hour runs. And he's elite elsewhere out, 99% success rate. So he is absolutely unequivocally earning more touches and Chase Brown has actually lost a little bit of luster because Zach Moss came out of the, came out of the blocks. He was the clear cut starter. And so that was a bit of a surprise in the early weeks. Well, now it's morphing back to I think what we assumed in August, which is more of a committee. And frankly, Chase Brown, if you're even, you might be leaving. So that is absolutely something to monitor here. Another depth chart just like Tampa Bay of saying it's justified that the younger, more vibrant option, more athletically gifted option is getting more run. And that ramp up this mid season could be one with actual healthy changeover for who is the one A back in some of these step charts. So Chase Brown straight up has been the superior option to Zach Moss there in Cincinnati. One more I'd be a little worried about is Kieran Williams. So Kieran Williams last year and no one's going to ever, ever point to him and say that he's an elite apex athlete for the position. And that generally he's going to be a product of his situation and the ramp situation last year was ideal. They gave him a ton of run and he was a fantasy dynamo. However, he was generally slightly above average is what I would identify him across the board in these next gen stats categories. This year he's fallen off and again in the situation that much worse. He is still the unequivocal lead back. He got runny rivers as the two and you've got Blake Korm as the wild card. Blake Korm is one that I quietly want to get an extra few shares as we keep going through and he keeps staying buried. He basically got one stint of playing time in garbage time in one of the games. But Kieran Williams, substantial drop here. It's a month in. We'll see where we stand in another month. But he's substantially dropped in yards after contact per attempt. The 10 plus yard run percentage. He's dropped off in rushing yards over expectation per attempt. This is someone that rarely sees stacked boxes and that's the case from last year, this year. All that is the same. He's primarily an interior runner. But some of these ancillary data points could point towards, if this continues, we could see Blake Korm really be someone that takes over say next year. I think it could be instructive that down the stretch run of the season, if the Rams fall out of the race, we could see them seeing Blake Korm more and more. And again, just Kieran Williams has fallen off to where the situation is so vitally important if these numbers are dragging, you're not individually innately doing so much of the heavy lifting yourself as the running back. So just keep that in mind that he's on my watch list, my hot list, if you will, because of these numbers that are dropping. So it is a bit of a concern there. And then Zameer White is another one that again, his play is warranting the, warrants the fact that he's losing his grip on the lead job. He's actually dinged up right now and we might see Alexander Madison with a more pronounced role in week five, but Zameer White's numbers across the board are really dragging to the point of again, this is like, I think the biggest factor, we can look for breakout players. But one of the biggest things I think next-gen stats do well is predicting the decline and predicting the fall off. A player might still be getting plenty of opportunity. There's still the clear cut starter, but when you see these numbers erode, that is where you should be concerned, especially for the following season. But you might even be concerned in the closing weeks or a month out, depending on how long you still have, of the current season. And Zameer White has a pronounced fall off from last year when he popped late in the season for a good four or five weeks to this year, where he had a lot of expectations. And I know he hasn't done much with it, but that shouldn't be a surprise. And if anything, that his opportunities could be dwindling, even from the concerning amount, he's already not getting in that Raiders backfield. Two final players I would mention as doing well so far this season. One of them with a lead roll, one of them in a backup roll that we'll have to keep an eye on down the stretch run. So Jerome Ford has done outstanding. He's been above average across the board. I success rate elite versus contact elite in rushing yards over expectation per attempt. He's been doing very well despite plenty of questions with the Browns offense, with the Sean Watson, the passing game, all of this. Nick Chub is going to be in practicing and he could be back into the mix and or the starter within the month of October, which would be good for the Browns, but not so good for Jerome Ford, but Jerome Ford in that number two spot. If he ends up resetting to the backup roll, just remember, he's built quite the profile. He's been a proven entity in what he's been able to do as a starter. And that bodes well for him for our confidence for him as an injury away option down the stretch run of this season. If Nick Chub were to miss additional time or maybe you have a slow ramp up, there's a bigger macro opportunity there for Jerome Ford to see those opportunities and he's performed well this year specifically. The other one is Emmanuel Wilson with Green Bay. Marshawn Lloyd has not stayed healthy yet. He reminds me of Kendra Miller of just, can you get on the field? Can you show some some consistency of availability and he's not shown that yet from his round three pedigree? Well, Emmanuel Wilson in his steed, he's an 88th percentile in yards after contact for attempt. Some good numbers in terms of success rate above average, rushing yards over expectation above average. He's playing a lot inside and Emmanuel Wilson considering he has minimal pedigree has performed quite well. One name that might end up getting robbed when Marshawn Lloyd returns, but that's a nice stash name of just a player that we've seen perform well to some degree. Someone that when you fall out of the race, let's say you get to late November or December, that might be something for a dynasty team looking ahead to 2025. Even if Marshawn Lloyd is the unequivocal running back to at that point in time, Emmanuel Wilson can be someone worth stashing for the off season. So he's someone that might he get passed by by a healthy Marshawn Lloyd. He probably should based on the pedigree, but we've seen situations like this and I would harken back to last year with Jacksonville, where Deornis Johnson held off Tank Bigsby the entire year despite Bigsby being healthy. And I could see Emmanuel Wilson being like a Deornis Johnson where he's a pest, he's a roadblock to a younger player that just has been struggling with consistency because Emmanuel Wilson has been that consistent player for Green Bay in the opening month of this season behind and alongside at times Josh Jacobs. There you go. The data dive for the week looking at the opening month of next-gen stats for the running back position. Make sure you check all the premium shows out at uth dynasty.com. So much good content that comes out on a weekly basis. Ryan Morgan has a bonus show or two talking about dynasty trading. The two of us get together. We did 45 minutes on a deep dive on all things Kansas City Chiefs this week with our dynasty trading strategy session. Also you get film notes podcast, whether that's the Thursday game. You get Monday night game, you get the main show on Sunday. It's probably told about an hour and a half in a given week where you get it distilled down. It could be four to seven or eight minutes on every single game of what you need to know coming out of the game. And if you missed it, don't worry, you're going to get the cliff notes on what you did miss and what important to you as a fantasy and dynasty owner. You also get the running back round up on Monday every week. That was 40 minutes this past week. I go over every depth chart, the ins and outs, what you need to know with utilization where we're trendlining pickups, drops, high leverage opportunity scores, all of that included and that's just on the uth premium side every single week. I also do a final thoughts, which includes the practice reports where we get Friday night into Saturday with every single week. There's always one or two interesting pickups or stashes that we make, whether it's the running back position, maybe it's a tight end that's dinged up. Something to monitor that we can optimize our bench and those final reports, those final recommendations of the week beyond the waiver wire first come first surf. Those end up being very, very important for dynasty and fantasy leagues alike. I'm Chad Parsons. Until next time never settle refused to be average and keep building those capacities. Bingo. All right, Phil. We're recording now. So it's live. Go ahead. Pick on me the way that you want to. Did I say that? I would say that to my son and I mean, come on, man, just go. This isn't CBS. All right. Be quiet for a few seconds. I would. People want to listen to the Sims complete podcast. Well, a couple of things, one, if you like to see sons pick on their father, this might be the place. If you want to see a place where the father just kicks the out of his son, this would be the place. How what do you like about it, Matt? Ditto father, son dynamic duo talking about the game of football that we love and share and appreciate together and, you know, hey, it's an extension of what we did, right? Growing up. I was able to watch my father play football, then obviously watch him as a broadcaster and then he taught me the game of football and share the wisdom that he learned throughout his playing career and, you know, hey, sometimes we're full of it and sometimes we actually know a thing or two. Well, we do do a lot of research. At least I do. You, you little spotty, but you know, you're, you hang in there. It's fun. I love doing this and it's been awesome. Sims complete. Check us out wherever your podcasts are available on the Believe Network. Appreciate it. See you. a lot. Bye. (crowd cheering) [BLANK_AUDIO]
