Bruno Boys Fantasy Football

I’ve been spending some time lately looking at carries and yardage for top rushers so far this season – yesterday I tweeted about Michael Turner being on pace for 370+ carries with his 50 rushes in two games against Miami and Carolina. It started me thinking about those running backs that have had a lot of carries so far – has their yardage matched their carries? Have they played against weak run defenses? And what can this tell us about their future performances?

So let’s start by taking a look at the top 10 rushers based on yardage through Week 2:

Meanwhile, here are the top ten rushers based on carries through Week 2:

I compared the two lists to see which guys had a lot of carries but not a lot of yards. Now to some extent this could just say something about how strong of a runner the RB is, and how many yards he can – or can’t – muscle out, but I’d argue it also has something to do with the rush defenses the RB has faced in Weeks 1 and 2. If the player faced tough run defenses but still had plenty of carries, then perhaps we can expect better yardage in the future against weaker run Ds? It might still be a little early to run this analysis, but hey, why not give it a whirl? I took a look at the players with lots of carries and relatively low yardage and averaged the ranking of the two team rush defenses that they faced (ranking gathered from ESPN) and here’s what we find:

Smith, Forte, and Johnson all met teams with relatively decent rush defenses but Clinton Portis sticks out a bit here – he played against the Giants, whose rush defense is currently ranked 27th, and the Rams, whose rush defense is oddly slightly better but still only comes in at 26th overall. To me this says that Portis can probably be expected to put up about 70 rushing yards per game against mediocre to poor rush defenses and perhaps less when playing better run Ds if this 2-game pattern holds true. Good news for Portis owners though – he faces the Lions, Bucs, and Panthers over the next three weeks, all of which have pretty weak run defenses. Here’s hoping Portis can capitalize on his great schedule ahead.

In order to figure out what might happen with Smith, Forte, and Johnson though, let’s take a look at their opponents for the next three weeks (opponent listed with their rush defense ranking in parentheses):

Smith’s future opponents average a rush defense ranking of 12th, while Forte and Johnson have a much kinder schedule with their opponents’ rush defenses both averaging around 22nd. Of course this relies upon the 2-week trends staying true, but Forte and Johnson owners should expect to see an increase in yardage over the next three weeks as their schedules suddenly get a little easier on the rush defense front.

What about the flip side – which players had top 10 yardage but maybe not a relatively large number of carries to go along with the yards?

Now keep in mind the number of carries isn’t particularly low for these guys but relative to the amount of yards they have, it’s worth looking at the average ranking of their opponent’s rush defense. As you can see above, all faced fairly poor run defenses.

Johnson, Barber, and Jackson will see an average of the 16th, 19th, and 12th run defenses respectively over the course of the next three weeks, which clearly is a bit harder than what they have faced so far, but not by a large degree. Chris Johnson might have a tougher matchup against the Jets in Week 3, but he should pay out big time in Week 5 against the Colts. Steven Jackson should have relative ease in Weeks 3 and 5 while Week 4 against a surprisingly highly-ranked 49ers run defense could be more of a battle.

With Marion Barber out for 1-2 weeks with a quad injury, it makes his case even more interesting. Felix Jones has 118 yards (18th best) on a mere 13 carries (44th best). Expect a big week from Jones when they meet the Panthers in Week 3 and the Chiefs in Week 5. It’s hard to believe my beloved Broncos might actually be the 10th best run defense in the league but if that’s the case, Week 4 might be the toughest matchup in the next few weeks for the Cowboys’ RBs. 

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The Bruno Boys are pleased to once again welcome guest columnist, Sara Holladay, back for her feature,A Librarian’s Touch, for the 2009 season. The woman behind the web-site, Fantasy Football Librarian, Holladay is someone all fantasy owners should be well familiar with if they want to win their league’s title as she provides some of the best fantasy football insight and resources found around the web!