CJ Spiller (1 Viewer)

[Aaron Rudnicki]

Because age is more important than workload.

can you provide evidence of this?also, if you're going to apply this blindly to every player, why didn't it limit Fred Jackson in 2011? his career to this point doesn't appear to correlate very well with the idea that RBs peak in their mid to late 20's.

 

[Ilov80s]

I don't think the football league that paid $200 a week was quite as demanding on his body as the NFL is. Also, I know the Rhein Fire seasons are shorter than actual NFL seasons, I am assuming the $200 league is also. His workload and physical demands were not equivalent to 4 years in the NFL. Rice has more a career left than Fred Jackson which isn't really a question that proves anything about how FJax will do this year.

It stands to reason then that we should have a bunch of backs with low mileage playing into their 30's. But we don't.Because age is more important than workload. When backs hit 30, they decline, and it happens quick.

Tiki Barber and Thomas Jones posted the 2 of the best fantasy seasons of their careers at 30 and 31. Priest Holmes ran for 27 TDs at 30 and was on pace for even more before being injured at 31. From 30-33, Emmitt posted 3935 yards and 25 TDs. Emmitt from age 28-32, his ypc decreased by 0.2 yards. Fred Taylor at 31? 5.4 YPC, best of his career, 1200 yards and 5 TDs. Hitting 30 is no guarantee of decline for a RB. Fred Jackson was 30 last year and had his best season as a back. If any player is able to escape the decline, it is Fred Jackson. I don't think there has ever been a starting RB that was 31 with so few football carries in his career. It is just a very odd case.

 

[moderated]

I don't think the football league that paid $200 a week was quite as demanding on his body as the NFL is. Also, I know the Rhein Fire seasons are shorter than actual NFL seasons, I am assuming the $200 league is also. His workload and physical demands were not equivalent to 4 years in the NFL. Rice has more a career left than Fred Jackson which isn't really a question that proves anything about how FJax will do this year.

It stands to reason then that we should have a bunch of backs with low mileage playing into their 30's. But we don't.Because age is more important than workload. When backs hit 30, they decline, and it happens quick.

Tiki Barber and Thomas Jones posted the 2 of the best fantasy seasons of their careers at 30 and 31. Priest Holmes ran for 27 TDs at 30 and was on pace for even more before being injured at 31. From 30-33, Emmitt posted 3935 yards and 25 TDs. Emmitt from age 28-32, his ypc decreased by 0.2 yards. Fred Taylor at 31? 5.4 YPC, best of his career, 1200 yards and 5 TDs. Hitting 30 is no guarantee of decline for a RB. Fred Jackson was 30 last year and had his best season as a back. If any player is able to escape the decline, it is Fred Jackson. I don't think there has ever been a starting RB that was 31 with so few football carries in his career. It is just a very odd case.

Fred Jackson could very well buck the trend and have a great season, but pulling out exceptions doesn't really make a case for him. The list of rb's who declined in their 30's is much much longer.

 

[Ilov80s]

I don't think the football league that paid $200 a week was quite as demanding on his body as the NFL is. Also, I know the Rhein Fire seasons are shorter than actual NFL seasons, I am assuming the $200 league is also. His workload and physical demands were not equivalent to 4 years in the NFL. Rice has more a career left than Fred Jackson which isn't really a question that proves anything about how FJax will do this year.

It stands to reason then that we should have a bunch of backs with low mileage playing into their 30's. But we don't.Because age is more important than workload. When backs hit 30, they decline, and it happens quick.

Tiki Barber and Thomas Jones posted the 2 of the best fantasy seasons of their careers at 30 and 31. Priest Holmes ran for 27 TDs at 30 and was on pace for even more before being injured at 31. From 30-33, Emmitt posted 3935 yards and 25 TDs. Emmitt from age 28-32, his ypc decreased by 0.2 yards. Fred Taylor at 31? 5.4 YPC, best of his career, 1200 yards and 5 TDs. Hitting 30 is no guarantee of decline for a RB. Fred Jackson was 30 last year and had his best season as a back. If any player is able to escape the decline, it is Fred Jackson. I don't think there has ever been a starting RB that was 31 with so few football carries in his career. It is just a very odd case.

Fred Jackson could very well buck the trend and have a great season, but pulling out exceptions doesn't really make a case for him. The list of rb's who declined in their 30's is much much longer.

Is it longer or shorter than the list of starting RBs that have less than 900 career rushes and are coming off a career year at 30?

 

[moderated]

I don't think the football league that paid $200 a week was quite as demanding on his body as the NFL is. Also, I know the Rhein Fire seasons are shorter than actual NFL seasons, I am assuming the $200 league is also. His workload and physical demands were not equivalent to 4 years in the NFL. Rice has more a career left than Fred Jackson which isn't really a question that proves anything about how FJax will do this year.

It stands to reason then that we should have a bunch of backs with low mileage playing into their 30's. But we don't.Because age is more important than workload. When backs hit 30, they decline, and it happens quick.

Tiki Barber and Thomas Jones posted the 2 of the best fantasy seasons of their careers at 30 and 31. Priest Holmes ran for 27 TDs at 30 and was on pace for even more before being injured at 31. From 30-33, Emmitt posted 3935 yards and 25 TDs. Emmitt from age 28-32, his ypc decreased by 0.2 yards. Fred Taylor at 31? 5.4 YPC, best of his career, 1200 yards and 5 TDs. Hitting 30 is no guarantee of decline for a RB. Fred Jackson was 30 last year and had his best season as a back. If any player is able to escape the decline, it is Fred Jackson. I don't think there has ever been a starting RB that was 31 with so few football carries in his career. It is just a very odd case.

Fred Jackson could very well buck the trend and have a great season, but pulling out exceptions doesn't really make a case for him. The list of rb's who declined in their 30's is much much longer.

Is it longer or shorter than the list of starting RBs that have less than 900 career rushes and are coming off a career year at 30?

It's about the same as guys who had blue jerseys through age 30 and then changed to green ones.You're adding in a bunch of qualifiers that there is no meaningful sample for.

 

[Ilov80s]

I don't think the football league that paid $200 a week was quite as demanding on his body as the NFL is. Also, I know the Rhein Fire seasons are shorter than actual NFL seasons, I am assuming the $200 league is also. His workload and physical demands were not equivalent to 4 years in the NFL. Rice has more a career left than Fred Jackson which isn't really a question that proves anything about how FJax will do this year.

It stands to reason then that we should have a bunch of backs with low mileage playing into their 30's. But we don't.Because age is more important than workload. When backs hit 30, they decline, and it happens quick.

Tiki Barber and Thomas Jones posted the 2 of the best fantasy seasons of their careers at 30 and 31. Priest Holmes ran for 27 TDs at 30 and was on pace for even more before being injured at 31. From 30-33, Emmitt posted 3935 yards and 25 TDs. Emmitt from age 28-32, his ypc decreased by 0.2 yards. Fred Taylor at 31? 5.4 YPC, best of his career, 1200 yards and 5 TDs. Hitting 30 is no guarantee of decline for a RB. Fred Jackson was 30 last year and had his best season as a back. If any player is able to escape the decline, it is Fred Jackson. I don't think there has ever been a starting RB that was 31 with so few football carries in his career. It is just a very odd case.

Fred Jackson could very well buck the trend and have a great season, but pulling out exceptions doesn't really make a case for him. The list of rb's who declined in their 30's is much much longer.

Is it longer or shorter than the list of starting RBs that have less than 900 career rushes and are coming off a career year at 30?

It's about the same as guys who had blue jerseys through age 30 and then changed to green ones.You're adding in a bunch of qualifiers that there is no meaningful sample for.

That is my whole point.

 

[Aaron Rudnicki]

I don't think the football league that paid $200 a week was quite as demanding on his body as the NFL is. Also, I know the Rhein Fire seasons are shorter than actual NFL seasons, I am assuming the $200 league is also. His workload and physical demands were not equivalent to 4 years in the NFL. Rice has more a career left than Fred Jackson which isn't really a question that proves anything about how FJax will do this year.

It stands to reason then that we should have a bunch of backs with low mileage playing into their 30's. But we don't.Because age is more important than workload. When backs hit 30, they decline, and it happens quick.

Tiki Barber and Thomas Jones posted the 2 of the best fantasy seasons of their careers at 30 and 31. Priest Holmes ran for 27 TDs at 30 and was on pace for even more before being injured at 31. From 30-33, Emmitt posted 3935 yards and 25 TDs. Emmitt from age 28-32, his ypc decreased by 0.2 yards. Fred Taylor at 31? 5.4 YPC, best of his career, 1200 yards and 5 TDs. Hitting 30 is no guarantee of decline for a RB. Fred Jackson was 30 last year and had his best season as a back. If any player is able to escape the decline, it is Fred Jackson. I don't think there has ever been a starting RB that was 31 with so few football carries in his career. It is just a very odd case.

Fred Jackson could very well buck the trend and have a great season, but pulling out exceptions doesn't really make a case for him. The list of rb's who declined in their 30's is much much longer.

Is it longer or shorter than the list of starting RBs that have less than 900 career rushes and are coming off a career year at 30?

It's about the same as guys who had blue jerseys through age 30 and then changed to green ones.You're adding in a bunch of qualifiers that there is no meaningful sample for.

That is my whole point.

exactly.there's very little about Fred Jackson's career to this point that matches up well with any of the comparisons being used.Regardless of whether age or workload is the driving factor which causes RBs to decline once they hit age 30, there are exceptions and very few of those comparable players have (a) gotten as few touches in the years leading up to their age 30 or age 31 seasons as Fred has, and (b) had the best production of their careers at age 30.There are certainly valid reasons to expect him to decline from what he did last year, but he could fall off a bit and still be better than Spiller and produce like a lower-end RB1 or high-end RB2.Bottom line is I think the expected decline for him in 2012 is overstated by many, and I expect the move to Spiller as the feature back or even a 50/50 split is likely a year away at least. Obviously, a serious injury changes things and I would not disagree that Fred is more of an injury risk at this point than he has been in the past. But, he's also the type of back who does a great job of avoiding taking big hits so I think expecting him to get injured is unwise.

 

[moderated]

I don't think the football league that paid $200 a week was quite as demanding on his body as the NFL is. Also, I know the Rhein Fire seasons are shorter than actual NFL seasons, I am assuming the $200 league is also. His workload and physical demands were not equivalent to 4 years in the NFL. Rice has more a career left than Fred Jackson which isn't really a question that proves anything about how FJax will do this year.

It stands to reason then that we should have a bunch of backs with low mileage playing into their 30's. But we don't.Because age is more important than workload. When backs hit 30, they decline, and it happens quick.

Tiki Barber and Thomas Jones posted the 2 of the best fantasy seasons of their careers at 30 and 31. Priest Holmes ran for 27 TDs at 30 and was on pace for even more before being injured at 31. From 30-33, Emmitt posted 3935 yards and 25 TDs. Emmitt from age 28-32, his ypc decreased by 0.2 yards. Fred Taylor at 31? 5.4 YPC, best of his career, 1200 yards and 5 TDs. Hitting 30 is no guarantee of decline for a RB. Fred Jackson was 30 last year and had his best season as a back. If any player is able to escape the decline, it is Fred Jackson. I don't think there has ever been a starting RB that was 31 with so few football carries in his career. It is just a very odd case.

Fred Jackson could very well buck the trend and have a great season, but pulling out exceptions doesn't really make a case for him. The list of rb's who declined in their 30's is much much longer.

Is it longer or shorter than the list of starting RBs that have less than 900 career rushes and are coming off a career year at 30?

It's about the same as guys who had blue jerseys through age 30 and then changed to green ones.You're adding in a bunch of qualifiers that there is no meaningful sample for.

That is my whole point.

You can add qualifiers to make every player unique, that's why it's better to use metrics where there is a larger sample to predict the future.Either way I'm completely fine with where Fred Jackson is being drafted (in the 13-16 RB range). I just see too many red flags to jump on board and think Spiller will be more involved then he was early last season.

 

[jagchief]

I don't think the football league that paid $200 a week was quite as demanding on his body as the NFL is. Also, I know the Rhein Fire seasons are shorter than actual NFL seasons, I am assuming the $200 league is also. His workload and physical demands were not equivalent to 4 years in the NFL. Rice has more a career left than Fred Jackson which isn't really a question that proves anything about how FJax will do this year.

It stands to reason then that we should have a bunch of backs with low mileage playing into their 30's. But we don't.Because age is more important than workload. When backs hit 30, they decline, and it happens quick.

This based off a study Doug Drinen did several years back. Search for "Running back deterioration: age or mileage?"

 

[Aaron Rudnicki]

I don't think the football league that paid $200 a week was quite as demanding on his body as the NFL is. Also, I know the Rhein Fire seasons are shorter than actual NFL seasons, I am assuming the $200 league is also. His workload and physical demands were not equivalent to 4 years in the NFL.

Rice has more a career left than Fred Jackson which isn't really a question that proves anything about how FJax will do this year.

It stands to reason then that we should have a bunch of backs with low mileage playing into their 30's. But we don't.Because age is more important than workload. When backs hit 30, they decline, and it happens quick.

This based off a study Doug Drinen did several years back. Search for "Running back deterioration: age or mileage?"

Conclusions

[*]Trying to separate the effects of chronological age from the effects of workload-related age is very, very difficult.

[*]The reason it's so difficult is because workload is such a good marker of quality. If a running back has a very high workload, that probably means he's a very good running back.

So back to the question that started the article: Should a 27-year-old running back with 1700 previous career rushes be considered "older" than a 28-year-old running back with only 1000?

After all this, my answer is: I don't know and don't really care which one is "older," but I'm confident that the 27-year-old with the higher workload will have a longer career from here on out. The workload difference tells me that that the 27-year-old is probably better. Not definitely --- there are always exceptions --- but probably.

Or, if you phrased it another way, the question might be: given two backs of equal quality and age, but significantly different past workloads, do you expect them to have different career lengths from here forward? The past data seems to be telling us that there are very, very few examples of backs of truly equal quality having signficantly different workloads at the same age. Any back who is good enough to compile a scary high workload at a young age is probably just flat out better than the low-mileage alternative you're considering. Sure, he might blow out a knee like Terrell Davis did. Or he might hit a wall like Eddie George did. But I see no evidence that he's a higher risk to do so than his low-mileage counterpart.

http://www.footballguys.com/06drinen-agework.phpnot sure how this relates to the current discussion as we know that Fred Jackson is better than Spiller right now. Will that still be the case 3 months from now?

Fred Jackson just doesn't fit the mold of the backs here. He's very good but he had a very nontraditional route to get a chance in the NFL.

 

[Ilov80s]

Here is abstract from someone named Chase Kennedy that analyzed both of Drinen's studies:http://thesis.haverford.edu/dspace/handle/10066/6074

The results seem to indicate that the marginal effect of having at least 1750 career touches is slightly greater than the marginal effect of being at least 31 years old.

 

[Mortimer Ichabod]

Situation is so huge in fantasy. I'm convinced if Spiller was in Philly and McCoy played for the Bills, Fred Jackson would be keeping Mr 20 TD Shady on the bench. Whereas Spiller would BE shady on the eagles, he's arguably even more explosive.

 

[cstu]

I don't think the football league that paid $200 a week was quite as demanding on his body as the NFL is. Also, I know the Rhein Fire seasons are shorter than actual NFL seasons, I am assuming the $200 league is also. His workload and physical demands were not equivalent to 4 years in the NFL. Rice has more a career left than Fred Jackson which isn't really a question that proves anything about how FJax will do this year.

It stands to reason then that we should have a bunch of backs with low mileage playing into their 30's. But we don't.Because age is more important than workload. When backs hit 30, they decline, and it happens quick.

Tiki Barber and Thomas Jones posted the 2 of the best fantasy seasons of their careers at 30 and 31. Priest Holmes ran for 27 TDs at 30 and was on pace for even more before being injured at 31. From 30-33, Emmitt posted 3935 yards and 25 TDs. Emmitt from age 28-32, his ypc decreased by 0.2 yards. Fred Taylor at 31? 5.4 YPC, best of his career, 1200 yards and 5 TDs. Hitting 30 is no guarantee of decline for a RB. Fred Jackson was 30 last year and had his best season as a back. If any player is able to escape the decline, it is Fred Jackson. I don't think there has ever been a starting RB that was 31 with so few football carries in his career. It is just a very odd case.

Fred Jackson could very well buck the trend and have a great season, but pulling out exceptions doesn't really make a case for him. The list of rb's who declined in their 30's is much much longer.

Is it longer or shorter than the list of starting RBs that have less than 900 career rushes and are coming off a career year at 30?

It's about the same as guys who had blue jerseys through age 30 and then changed to green ones.You're adding in a bunch of qualifiers that there is no meaningful sample for.

That is my whole point.

exactly.there's very little about Fred Jackson's career to this point that matches up well with any of the comparisons being used.Regardless of whether age or workload is the driving factor which causes RBs to decline once they hit age 30, there are exceptions and very few of those comparable players have (a) gotten as few touches in the years leading up to their age 30 or age 31 seasons as Fred has, and (b) had the best production of their careers at age 30.There are certainly valid reasons to expect him to decline from what he did last year, but he could fall off a bit and still be better than Spiller and produce like a lower-end RB1 or high-end RB2.Bottom line is I think the expected decline for him in 2012 is overstated by many, and I expect the move to Spiller as the feature back or even a 50/50 split is likely a year away at least. Obviously, a serious injury changes things and I would not disagree that Fred is more of an injury risk at this point than he has been in the past. But, he's also the type of back who does a great job of avoiding taking big hits so I think expecting him to get injured is unwise.

The nearest comparison I have to Jackson is Mike Anderson. It's not quite the same since Anderson had problems staying healthy but he did put up 1000/12 at age 32. IMO, Jackson is a much better runner so if he can avoid injuries I don't see why he can't have two more 1000 yard seasons. Splitting time with Spiller helps him quite a bit since he only has to carry the ball 15 times a game instead of 25. As for the age thing, it's the injuries that hurt guys more than simply hitting the magical number of 30 or 1750 carries. RB is an especially tough position and getting back to full strength after injuries at 30 is much more difficult than at 22. Some guys 'lose it' due to age but generally it's because of injuries. For example, Tomlinson seemed to have fell off a cliff at 30 but really he was never the same after tearing his MCL.

 

[Ray_T]

Hey, just to put into perspective.

Not all RB's production declines at 30. I will agree. Lots of top RB's yards per carry remain high to the end of their careers.

what does decline is the health of the player. Most of these guys break down physically and get hurt, giving someone a chance to take the #1 job.

This has just happened to Spillers benefit.

I'm not a mindreader and cant tell you if the Bills will let him keep the #1 spot or will return it to Jackson upon his return, but If Spiller performs well, I'd be surprised if they didnt let him remain the starter.

 

[Coeur de Lion]

Recovery time certainly increases with age; of that much I am 100% sure. I played D3 college football (I know, LOOK AT ME) and in my early 20s I was usually fine a day or two after the games. Now, at 39, I'm sore as hell all week after a low intensity pickup hoops game at the Y.

I'm guessing that between Jackson's injury and Spiller's performance, this is a 50/50 split if and when Freddy is fully healthy.