How many receptions for more than 20 yards? How many total touches? What was his overall percentage of explosive plays to touches and how did that compare to others? TD’s to touches?
Jones clearly had a really good year by the eye test. Top 5 in the league? Maybe not.
Are other teams having more success in areas? Certainly. We had a pretty well rounded team last year and the 13-3 record reflected that. The narrative that it was a fluke is based on cherry picking selected stats.
One thing is for sure--yards per carry is a poor way to measure running backs. A 300 carry back will average 19 carries per game. In comparing the difference between a 4.6 yds per carry RB (Jones in 2019) vs. a 4.3 RB (Williams in 2019, frequently an afterthought in these parts) is about 6 yards over the course of an average game. In a 19 carry game a 4.6 RB vs. a 4.0 RB is 11 yards.
Advanced analytics are required. While I cannot vouch for the Football Outsiders' criteria, the accuracy of their counting, or the black box elements of the ratings, their advanced analytics touch on what is important.
https://www.footballoutsiders.com/stats/nfl/rb/2019
Consider their "Success Rate" rankings, a measure of consistency, where:
- In general, a play counts as a "hit" if it gains 40% of yards on first down, 60% of yards on second down, and 100% of yards on third down.
- If the team is behind by more than a touchdown in the fourth quarter, the benchmarks switch to 50%/65%/100%.
- If the team is ahead by any amount in the fourth quarter, the benchmarks switch to 30%/50%/100%.
Among the 45 RBs with 100 or more carries in 2019, Jones tied for 4th. in success rate at 56%. Williams tied for 7th. at 53%.
This is contrasted with DVOA (Defense Adjusted Value Over Average) which incorporates big play outcomes to get to a "value per play":
"A player with higher DVOA and a low success rate mixes long runs with downs getting stuffed at the line of scrimmage. A player with lower DVOA and a high success rate generally gets the yards needed, but doesn't often get more." If or how TDs factor into DVOA I'm not willing to dig any deeper if that's even explained since we're talking about black boxes here.
Jones ranked 7th. in DVOA, Williams 21st. with a negative number which makes sense. This makes sense given Jones' big play ability vs. Williams while, as the Captain pointed out, Jones' big play runs were not especially high--we've been conditioned over the last decade or more by RBs without big play ability resulting in seeing more than what's there.
On the receiving side, among the 50 RBs with 25 or more catches, Williams ranked 8th. in DVOA while Jones ranked 17th. They evidently have not come up with a way to measure a separate "success rate". There is some basis for the Jones/Williams disparity on a "success rate" basis that few might recognize:
Jones: 72% catch rate, 26% first downs per target, 4% TDs per target
Williams: 87% catch rate, 36% first downs per target, 11% TDs per target
These numbers appear to belie the yards per catch difference, Jones at 9.7 YPC vs. Williams 6.5 YPC. I think we collectively might be overrating Jones' overall contribution based on a few chunck plays whereas down-in-down-out Williams was in fact more productive last season. We remember Jones burning LBs for a couple of big plays and forget Williams diving catch in the corner of the end zone.
Football Outsiders evidently has not made an attempt to roll rushing and receiving into a set of rankings. Their inability to identify a separate "success rate" for RB receiving, though it is evidident it is somehow imbedded in DVOA is a curious question to be answered given how many of those throws are run substitions.
