That collective sigh you just heard was from the entire fantasy football community. "Another Lamar Miller hype piece?!"
Over the last two years in Houston, Lamar Miller has been a boring fantasy RB2 and has significantly underwhelmed as a runner In his career as a Texan, Miller finished 11th in total touches and 16th in PPR points last season after finishing 11th in touches and 19th in fantasy points in his opening season in H-Town. That's a lot of empty calories for a sizable workload.
Not only has Miller failed to crack the top-12 fantasy backs, but he's also really struggled to generate yards after contact, missed tackles, and explosive runs.
Over the past two seasons, Miller has averaged a lowly 2.16 yards after contact (average is 2.50), he's forced at least one missed tackle on just 8.4% of his carries (per PFF; average is 14.5%), and only 27.9% of his career totes in Houston have gained five or more yards (average is 33%).
So, why in the world is Lamar Miller undervalued?
Early best ball drafters are sick of Lamar Miller. His DRAFT cost is a mere RB25 (mid-fifth round) while he's My Fantasy League's RB29 in average draft position (late-fifth/early-sixth round).
While Miller has supremely struggled as a bell-cow... he still is a bell-cow. D'Onta Foreman is coming off of a mid-season Achilles' tear and could start the year on the PUP (physically unable to perform) list. The Texans did not draft a running back from the 2018 crop while tiny Tyler Ervin and JAG Alfred Blue fill the rest of Houston's running back depth chart.
Miller's poor efficiency as a runner could eventually impact his snaps if he continues to struggle, but at least for now, the Texans appear to be fine rolling into 2018 with Miller as their unquestioned starter.
While Miller's 2.16 yards after contact over the past two years is worse than now 35-year-old Frank Gore (2.29) in that same timeframe, he has two enormous positive pieces in his corner: Volume and QB Deshaun Watson. You see, Miller hasn't been a very good running back for NFL standards, but he's dominated the Texans backfield.
Over the past two combined seasons, Lamar Miller is top-ten in both snaps and touches per game among all running backs
Not only is Miller seventh in both touches (19.1) and snaps played (45.8) per game among all rushers in 2016-17, he was a far more effective player with Deshaun Watson starting last season. Granted, it's a small sample of just six starts and Houston's offense is bound for touchdown regression (we'll save that for another article) -- but perhaps the single-most encouraging data point in Miller's corner is how useful he was with Watson under center in 2017.
In Watson's starts last year, Lamar Miller averaged 15.4 PPR FPG, which would have been good enough for the RB12 finish on the season. In fact, Miller finished as a top-24 weekly scorer in five of Watson's six full contests, including two top-5 finishes. For reference, Miller has averaged a paltry 12.3 FPG (RB19) and had only one other top-five weekly finish in 24 non-Watson starts in his Texans' career.
Last year alone, Lamar Miller averaged 20.2 opportunities (attempts plus targets) and 87.3 yards from scrimmage per game in Watson's six starts versus 16.2 opportunities and 69.1 YSM in ten games when the rookie QB was out. Not only was Miller more productive with Watson under center, he saw four more attempts and targets per game, too.
Miller's jump in output makes perfect sense once you consider Houston's team-level data spiked with Watson at the helm as a rookie. Last year, the Texans averaged 2.20 offensive points per drive with Deshaun Watson (seventh-best) and a putrid 1.10 points per series without him, the worst scoring clip in the league. In Weeks 2-8, Houston averaged 5.97 yards per play (fourth-best) while averaging just 4.39 yards per snap without Watson (last in the league).
