After Martin's rookie year the big debate was how much to consider his monster game - 25 carries for 251 yards and 4 touchdowns. The words cherry pick were used a lot. I'm going to cherry pick a little differently, now that we have a slightly larger body of work.
In the 10 games where Doug Martin averaged 4.5 per carry, they fed him the rock, to the tune of 225 carries for 1403 yards and 8 tds. Very, very good.
The problem is the other 23 games, when he's had 345 carries for 1001 yards and 6 tds. That's terrible. 44 yards and .25 touchdowns per game. And it's not for lack of volume - he's still getting 15 carries per game during this stretch. Not quite the 22.5/game he gets when he's running well, but still a pace for 240 on the year.
So the question with Doug Martin isn't whether he capable of having a good game, like he was last night. It's how likely he is to do it. His rookie season he had seven good games in 16 games played. Since then, he's had three of 17.
At best, you're getting a lot of volatility. He had eight games last year alone with 83 carries for 230 yards. That's so, so bad. How do you put a guy like that in your starting lineup to get his 14/96 and 19/108 games?
What you really need is for him to raise his floor, not his ceiling. Seeing him break a tackle and turn a 3 yard run into 30 speaks more to his ceiling than his floor. Him getting hit early is more meaningful in that sense than him breaking the tackle. It's like a microcosm of his career - a play that usually stinks but turned out really good.
I'd take a flier late - he's still a young 3 down back in his contract year - but I'm not drafting him planning to put him in my starting lineup each week. Pass.