Fantasy Football Stat of the Day: The goal-line vulture

Tyler Loechner

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(Leading up to the 2021 NFL season, FTN’s Tyler Loechner will dive into the fantasy football numbers to bring you his Fantasy Stat of the Day, five days a week.)

Vultures are the worst. And I’m not talking about the birds that eat dead animals. You think that sounds bad? How about backup RBs that steal touchdowns from starting RBs? Sorry for not applying the NFSW tag.

Today’s Stat of the Day article will take a look at which RBs had the most touchdowns and touchdown opportunities “vultured” from them by backups last season.

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Will Myles Gaskin and Antonio Gibson be freed at the goal line, or will Malcolm Brown and Peyton Barber play spoiler?

The chart below shows the leading RB vultures from last season. We looked at every rusher who did not lead their team in rushing attempts and then sorted that group by attempts from inside the 5 to get this list.

The “Team’s RB1…” columns are there to compare each player’s inside-the-5 stats to their team’s leading rusher to see if they really were a “vulture.” Keep in mind that some backs (like Nick Chubb) did not lead their team in carries (despite being the RB1) for injury reasons.

player	Team	Attempts Inside 5	TDs Inside 5	Team’s RB1 Inside 5 Attempts	Team’s RB1 Inside 5 TDs
Benny Snell	PIT	14	3	10	5
Nick Chubb	CLV	12	5	9	4
Zack Moss	BUF	11	3	7	1
D’Andre Swift	DET	11	6	15	7
Darrell Henderson	LA	10	4	9	1
Gus Edwards	BLT	10	3	3	2
Jordan Howard	MIA	9	4	11	2
Peyton Barber	WAS	9	4	12	6
Malcolm Brown	LA	9	4	9	1
Leonard Fournette	TB	8	4	10	5
J.K. Dobbins	BLT	8	7	3	2
Kalen Ballage	NYJ	7	3	3	1
Nyheim Hines	IND	7	2	17	8
Joshua Kelley	LAC	7	2	2	0

Let’s dive into some of the interesting nuggets:

Despite not making a big impact in fantasy, Zack Moss was a big thorn in Devin Singletary’s side last season. He had four more attempts inside the 5 and three times as many TDs as Singletary. Moss could break out with a bigger role in Buffalo.
Myles Gaskin still saw more inside-the-5 attempts than Jordan Howard (11 vs. 9), despite Howard getting shipped out in November, but Howard was more productive on those attempts (4 TDs vs. 2). Gaskin won’t have to content with Howard in 2021, however, and he could skyrocket in fantasy value if he picks up the Howard’s goal line work. Except there’s only one problem…
…and that problem is that the Dolphins now have Malcolm Brown, who, like Howard, scored four TDs from inside the 5 and was more efficient than Gaskin on such rushes last season. Gaskin is unlikely to be handed goal-line duties.
Nobody wants to talk about it, but Peyton Barber has a good chance of being a nuisance to Antonio Gibson once again in 2021. Gibson will be “the guy,” but Barber was actually solid near the goal line as well, scoring four TDs on nine attempts.
In a weird way, Gus Edwards and J.K. Dobbins are both vultures to Lamar Jackson, who is actually Baltimore’s leading rusher by attempts. Near the goal line, however, Jackson cedes to Edwards and Dobbins.