What I like to do every now and then is show how consistent or inconsistent players really are. As we all know, fantasy football is primarily a head to head matchup game and thus if your team isn't producing consistently high point totals, you are not going to win. Thus, digging deeper behind the scenes to uncover which players may not have the highest point totals at the end of the year but do post a good baseline of points every week can really help you out.
Today we focus on the running backs. We all know that the RB position can be your best friend or worst enemy. No position suffers the kind of devastating injuries and complete hollowing out of production than RB’s. But, as we’ve learned from the coaching systems breakdown, the right system will produce steady fantasy points regardless of who the player is that is carrying the ball. Thus, you can lock in that production by insuring yourself with handcuffs and late round RB’s who consistently touch the football.
That is the focus of this breakdown today. By knowing the systems, the tendencies of the head coach, offensive coordinator and ability of the offensive line we can properly gauge what a running back is capable of in a game or an entire season. The hard part though is knowing how often they are going to touch the football. Sure, we know that certain offenses will run the ball more and throw the ball more to the RB’s but many times that is heavily dependent on the flow of that particular ballgame. Touches are one of the most difficult thing to assess for RB’s. Yeah, I know that many of you out there will disagree with that but the sooner you realize that you are not nearly as good at predicting game flow as you think you are, the better you will allow yourself to become at fantasy football.
With that I present to you a recap of just how many touches each of the top 40 RB’s had last season. I’ve also broken them down into how many games they had within each tier of touches. What we are looking for here is consistency. We want to put a higher value on RB’s that saw a regular dose of touches while accumulating a good amount of fantasy points. We want to also identify those players who saw huge upswings in their touches which probably led to a massive amount of points coming in those games. Those players will give you false hope in believing you have a guy that scores 16 points per game when really he averaged just six with a couple huge days mixed in.
# | NAME | TEAM | GAMES | 0-5 | 6-10 | 11-15 | 16-20 | 20+ | TOTAL |
1 | Adrian Peterson | Vikings | 16 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 1 | 12 | 357 |
2 | Devonta Freeman | Falcons | 15 | 1 | 0 | 2 | 2 | 10 | 337 |
3 | Doug Martin | Bucs | 16 | 0 | 0 | 5 | 2 | 9 | 321 |
4 | Latavius Murray | Raiders | 16 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 8 | 6 | 308 |
5 | Frank Gore | Colts | 16 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 8 | 5 | 294 |
6 | Darren McFadden | Cowboys | 16 | 0 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 279 |
7 | Chris Ivory | Jaguars | 15 | 0 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 6 | 277 |
8 | Matt Forte | Jets | 13 | 0 | 0 | 4 | 4 | 5 | 262 |
9 | Jonathan Stewart | Panthers | 13 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 9 | 258 |
10 | Todd Gurley | Rams | 13 | 0 | 3 | 1 | 2 | 7 | 250 |
11 | Lamar Miller | Texans | 16 | 0 | 3 | 5 | 3 | 5 | 241 |
12 | DeAngelo Williams | Steelers | 10 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 6 | 240 |
13 | DeMarco Murray | Titans | 15 | 1 | 3 | 4 | 3 | 4 | 238 |
14 | Jeremy Hill | Bengals | 16 | 0 | 4 | 3 | 7 | 2 | 238 |
15 | LeSean McCoy | Bills | 12 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 5 | 5 | 235 |
16 | Rashad Jennings | Giants | 16 | 1 | 2 | 8 | 3 | 2 | 224 |
17 | Melvin Gordon | Chargers | 14 | 0 | 2 | 4 | 6 | 2 | 217 |
18 | Mark Ingram | Saints | 12 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 6 | 3 | 215 |
19 | Eddie Lacy | Packers | 15 | 2 | 2 | 6 | 1 | 4 | 207 |
20 | Giovani Bernard | Bengals | 16 | 1 | 3 | 7 | 4 | 1 | 203 |
21 | Chris Johnson | Cardinals | 11 | 0 | 1 | 3 | 4 | 3 | 202 |
22 | Justin Forsett | Ravens | 10 | 1 | 0 | 2 | 4 | 3 | 182 |
23 | Danny Woodhead | Chargers | 16 | 1 | 6 | 6 | 3 | 0 | 178 |
# | NAME | TEAM | GAMES | 0-5 | 6-10 | 11-15 | 16-20 | 20+ | Total |
24 | C.J. Anderson | Broncos | 15 | 2 | 4 | 5 | 4 | 0 | 177 |
25 | LeGarrette Blount | Patriots | 12 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 4 | 2 | 171 |
26 | Jeremy Langford | Bears | 10 | 1 | 0 | 4 | 3 | 2 | 170 |
27 | Ameer Abdullah | Lions | 16 | 1 | 6 | 7 | 2 | 0 | 168 |
28 | Duke Johnson | Browns | 16 | 2 | 6 | 7 | 1 | 0 | 165 |
29 | Matt Jones | Redskins | 13 | 0 | 4 | 6 | 2 | 1 | 163 |
30 | David Johnson | Cardinals | 16 | 7 | 4 | 2 | 0 | 3 | 161 |
31 | Charles Sims | Bucs | 16 | 0 | 10 | 5 | 1 | 0 | 158 |
32 | Thomas Rawls | Seahawks | 8 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 2 | 4 | 156 |
33 | Darren Sproles | Eagles | 16 | 3 | 9 | 3 | 1 | 0 | 138 |
34 | Le'Veon Bell | Steelers | 6 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 5 | 137 |
35 | Ryan Mathews | Eagles | 13 | 3 | 5 | 4 | 0 | 1 | 128 |
36 | Carlos Hyde | 49ers | 7 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 126 |
37 | Shane Vereen | Giants | 16 | 5 | 8 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 120 |
38 | Jamaal Charles | Chiefs | 5 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 2 | 92 |
39 | Arian Foster | Dolphins | 4 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 3 | 85 |
40 | Dion Lewis | Patriots | 7 | 0 | 2 | 4 | 1 | 0 | 85 |