Directional rushing update for Week 2

During the season we’re going to break down how different offenses are utilizing their running backs. As the year goes on, patterns begin to emerge that will allow us to anticipate and exploit mismatches between defense and an offense that we’re targeting in fantasy football.

Note: There was an issue with data from MNF, so Ravens and Raiders aren’t included in this version of the piece. When the issue is resolved, they’ll be added in.

Bird’s Eye View

Note: Red is left, gray is middle, blue is right.

The visual above shows the percentage breakdown of where runners were deployed in Week 1. As the season goes on, we’ll be able to analyze these trends a bit deeper. It’s important to remember that we’re at a sample size of 1 right now. The rushing preferences that are shown by play-callers with specific players can simply be a function of game planning or it can be something personnel-related.

Rushing – Left

These are the running backs (and one quarterback) that tallied at least 10 rushes in Week 1, sorted by the number of rushes left end and left tackle. Nick Chubb, Mark Ingram, and Chris Carson were heading left quite a bit to kick off the year. Both Chubb and Carson were successful on more than 60% of their rushes to the left.

Derrick Henry faced tough sledding in a game script that didn’t go his way. Henry saw his 17 rush attempts go for just 58 yards. Clyde Edwards-Helaire was the only rusher that saw 10+ attempts that didn’t go left a single time. *Insert Zoolander Can’t Turn Left gif here*

Rushing – Right

Judging by this graphic, you’d think that a majority of Joe Mixon’s touches went right but he was pretty evenly split. They trended towards the left a bit with about 40% of his rushes going that way. Nick Chubb spent less of his time running right but he still managed to be one of the more successful rushers in this direction, as well.

Rushing – Middle

Damien Harris was used early and often up the gut. Nearly 75% of his yards came from runs up the middle even though those carries only made up 58% of his rushing workload. David Montgomery saw similar usage. Over 90% of his rushing yards came from runs up from the 75% of carries that he was given up the middle.

Tony Jones is a name that people should keep an eye out for, as well. Two-thirds of his carries went up the middle or off of either guard spot. He obviously has a small piece of that team’s running back work, but he did enough to kick Latavius Murray to the curb and he’d be the direct beneficiary if anything happened to Alvin Kamara.