In 4 years. How many elite rb's play 4 years these days? He comes out as a junior except he spends part of the year hurt and in a time share. Logged 1000 twice out of 4. For a guy recruited to be the next AP he fell short. He went in the 3 rd round for a reason. And it took a very nice senior season to get him there. He's fast and can catch. Nice 3 rd down back.
You may know some of these RB's playing in the NFL right now:I played all 4 years of college... I never had more than 684 yards rushing until my senior year.... I was an ok college pass catching RB
Signed Chris Johnson
or
-I played 4 years of college football, my total td total through 4 years of college football was 25 td's.... my senior year I had 570 yards rushing.... I started my NFL career on a practice roster.
Signed Arian Foster
or
I played all 4 years of college football. I never had more than 859 yards rushing until my senior year.... and never caught more than 32 balls in a season in college.
Signed Matt Forte
I played 4 years of college football gaining 46 total td's and having only 43 career receptions
signed Michael Turner
Lofl.....awesome. In 6 draft classes you found 3 mid conference players and a guy in Foster who went from borderline 1st round to undrafted by staying for year 4. All 4 clearly exceeded expectations. Odds are still on my side. Nice 3rd down back.
I did not go through all of the 6 draft classes, but simply searched up some of the RB's playing right now that have excelled at the NFL level by fitting the criteria of playing 4 college years.You can play the odds game all you want or you can evaluate a players measureables and his game and situation as you go forward. Your argument holds no water if you say he did not surpass AP's ability or finding fault in playing 4 years of college and being successful by doing so. AP is a once and a generation type of rb. There is no crime to not being AP. It does not mean that Murray is simply a 3rd down back because he is not AP or because he stayed in college for 4 years.
The stats game can be a slippery slope. Murray can very well be a 3rd down back in the NFL. But it is way to early to label him as anything but that. He has not even played a down in the NFL and his measureables don't seem to fit the criteria of only a 3rd down back both on a physical level and through his collegiate stats.
Stat's game can be slippery, but also insightful. Here's my analysis on Felix's workload over his college and NFL career comparatively to the other 2 RB's on his team at the time (McFadden/Hillis) and (Barber/Choice)..I had posted this in the Felix Jones forum and I guess people hated me for it but the facts are the facts, Felix is at his highest level of production as a spell back. His deceptiveness makes him an elite spell back. As a starter, he loses that deceptiveness because he has nobody to spell. Don't believe me?
Look at the numbers, message me if you want the spreadsheet and then you will absolutely understand what I am talking about
here's my comment from the other thread, it almost got me burned at the stake..
I did exactly what you just described, in anticipation that the McFadden and Hillis thing would be brought up. What did I do? I took the stats of McFadde, Jones and Hillis for 2005-2007 & also the stats of Barber, Jones and Choice from 2008-2010. I just wanted to see how Felix fit in and subsequently performed based on his workload. I found some interesting stuff to be honest..I wish I could post the sheet. The following parameters
-Carries
-Yards
-YPC per player
-Combined YPC that year for all 3 players
-% of Felix's carries Total Carries
Anyway, here is what I found out. (Keep in mind, I only compared 3 RB's per year/team, there were obviously other players that had rushing attempts but those stats were ignored)
Between Felix's 3 years in Arkansas with McFadden & Hillis and the 3 years in Dallas with Barber & Choice, this is what Felix has done:
1) He has averaged over 6 YPC 4 of the 6 years and averaged 5.91 in one of the other 2.
2) He has had 150+ carries in 2 of those 6 years ('06 & '10)
3) If you look at total rushing attempts for each of the 3 players combined (McFadden/Jones/Hillis & Barber/Jones/Choice), Felix has had more than 30% of the team's total rushing attempts, only twice.
4) Let's take the years where he had less that 30% of the carries and see what he averaged per carry and compare it to his YPC when he had over 30% of the carries.
Below 30% of teams carries: 378/2739 or 7.25/YPC ('05,'07,'08,'09)
More than 30% of teams carries: 339/1968 or 5.81 YPC ('06,'10)
Obviously, the more carries any player gets, the less their YPC will be so this stat is still very impressive, until you look deeper....
Next, I looked at how effective each team/year were at running the football. Considering that Felix has such a high YPC, you would think that a higher % of the workload for Felix would increase the YPC for the team. I found out that actually, the opposite is true. The 2 years in which Felix had more than 30% of the rushing attempts, the team's YPC totals were lower. Not only were their YPC lower but also their total yards were significantly lower. The 2 most efficient years, for both Felix and his respective team were in 2007 & 2009, where he had 25.58% & 29.44% of the total carries between the 3 backs.
Felix's 'sweet spot' seems to be right in that 25-30% range of carries, with him getting between 120-150 carries/year. Obviously there are many outliers to this such as injuries etc but these are just the stats and I believe these numbers support the notion that Felix is not cut out to be a Feature Back, either in the NFL or when he was in college. I would also say that this justifies his role as a change of pace or spell back. But then again, wtf do I know?
Probably the most significant and disturbing (for the sake of this thread) thing I found was when I compared Felix's 2010 numbers, and the teams subsequent performance, to the rest of the years. Why is 2010 so special? Because this was the only year in which of the 3 RB's he was a part of, Felix had over 35% of the carries. Not only did he have over 35%, he was significantly over 35%--50.82% of the carries between him, Barber & Choice in 2010. So basically, Felix goes from having over 30% of the carries only once, and never more than than 35% and suddenly he eclipses 50% of the carries in 2010. Most would consider this a prime cut for a breakout year Hmmmmmmmm, I wonder what happened???
Remember what I mentioned before about what were each of Felix's team's best, most efficient years? Where they had the most yards and most ypc? Well, 2010 is not one of those years. In 2010, when Felix had 50% of the workload (I guess you could call this being a feature back), Barber/Jones/Choice totaled 1417 rushing yards and 3.89 YPC between the 3 of them (compared to 4.99 & 4.51 in '09 and '08 respectfully). Pathetic. Felix took 50% of the 364 carries (185 carries is the highest ever in his career by more than 20%). From those 185 carries, he totaled 800 rushing yards and whoa whoa whoa Felix Jones avg only 4.32 YPC in 2010??? In 2009, he averaged 5.91 YPC and this was the only other year where he fell BELOW 6 YPC! Granted college vs. NFL, but still, it seems that the more carries Felix gets, he becomes exponentially less efficient and so does the team.
I also did an analysis on the 3 RB's in regards to their receptions and it really isn't worth noting right now until someone challenges me.
OK, so now can we please agree on the fact that the situation that DeMarco Murray has in Dallas is nowhere near the situations for most of, if not ALL of the other backup RB's in the NFL?
I didn't look this up but if I could guess, DeMarco Murray might be the only #2 back in the NFL who is behind a #1 who has never had more than 200 carries in one year---both in college and the NFL...
I wonder if that is true???
Anyway, here's my other comment's on Felix. Sorry it is so long but I think it justified that he is not cut out to be a starting RB, but is an elite spell back.
Until last year, Marion Barber was the lead back in Dallas. Felix spelled him and when healthy, he excelled. As far as opportunity goes, IMO, Felix had that last year. It doesn't mean he doesn't deserve another opportunity this year.
He led the Cowboys in carries and it was the first time he had led a team in carries in his entire NFL and college career. Not only had he never led his team in carries but he had always been the #2 back by a long shot. Excluding 2010 (which will be referred to as "his opportunity"), Felix never came within 85 carries of the lead back on his team, and was typically around 100 carries less than the lead back. Again, this problem goes beyond just Felix Jones and how many carries he gets. Without a lead back for him to spell, he looses his ability to play to his strengths. So for every carry that Felix Jones takes away from a non-existant lead back, he takes away his own ability to 'spell' that running back, and his deceptive running is compromised.
Having Felix Jones as a lead back, the Cowboys are wasting his talent as he is much more efficient and effective as a spell back-- something he has done his whole career. Having been given an opportunity to be lead back, he has proven to be mediocre in that role, if not worse. His track record as a spell back, however, is nothing short of brilliant. As a spell back, Felix Jones would be tops in the NFL. To put it in layman's terms, it's like asking your closer in baseball to leave the pen and join the rotation. I'm not saying it can't be done, but I will say that it would be ignorant to not expect growing pains and that none of them include any serious injuries. The difference between Felix Jones and some of the guys you mentioned above is that Felix is a true spell back. Most of those guys you mentioned were every down backs but had been behind other every down backs on the depth chart.
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I got ripped apart on the the "Is Felix Jones this year's Arian Foster" because of the lack of confidence I have in Felix becoming an every down back and that I was intrigued by DeMarco Murray, to say the least. I should have just came to this topic because you guys actually know what you are talking about.Felix is a spell back, that's his game. There is no evidence to prove otherwise. This was a big topic of conversation and here's the thread if you want to see..http://forums.footballguys.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=609327&st=0&p=13519841&hl=+felix%20+jones%20+arian%20+foster&fromsearch=1entry13519841
Cry about something else. If that is the only thing you noticed then you are missing the point. His competition was not SEC caliber. It wasn't bad, but he should've done better against the lesser opponents than he did. Instead he put up pedestrian to slightly above average NFL ypc numbers on a team that was better than the teams he faced.
