New stuff is coming at PFF all the time. Because we didn’t have enough to do with 16 games a week needing to be analyzed by a Wednesday evening, we’ve also been hard at work adding to the Signature Stats section for PFF Premium users.
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We know you don’t all have access to PFF Premium (though you really should, it’s awesome!), and so we’ll give all of you something of a free look each week by reviewing one of our signature stats in article form.
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We took a look at QB Accuracy Percentage last week, but now with two weeks of games in the bag it’s time for a glance at the Elusive Rating.
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So what is it?
The running game is a tricky old goat. If a runner gets 1,800 yards in a season he was a beast, a fantasy workhorse, and had a fantastic season. But what if his O-line was just that damn good, and he really didn’t do much beyond just following his holes? Denver for years was able to produce 1,000 yard rushers out of anybody they felt like it, simply by employing a zone blocking scheme and letting their backs choose their own hole. The definition of one-cut runner, move one direction with the line, pick your hole, then cut.
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The Elusive Rating is an attempt to distill down the play of just the ball-carrier, away from the blockers in front of him. We’re trying to look not at how good somebody’s blocking was, but how hard to tackle that ball-carrier was, how much yardage he made himself, after contact.
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We combine a runner’s carries and receptions to give a total ball handling opportunities figure. We then combine the number of missed tackles that player forced against both the run and the pass to get a total missed tackles forced figure, which is then divided by the ball-handling opportunities. This figure then gets multiplied by a player’s yards after contact per carry average (*100) to get the final Elusive Rating. In essence the rating is a combination of how often players force missed tackles and how much yardage they generate after contact on a per carry basis.
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Obviously, no stat is perfect, but after three seasons of data and counting, the Elusive Rating has shown to be an extremely good indicator of running back form, and even shown the ability to predict trends in rushing with a little context.
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Put into practice
We have been running the numbers for the Elusive Rating for more than three seasons now and the highest individual score for a single season has been the 89.8 that Tampa Bay’s LeGarrette Blount recorded in his rookie season in 2010. The other high scores have been in the 70s and 80s, with low scores plunging to single digits. I say this to give you a little bit of context before discussing the scores after two weeks of the 2011 season.
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Fred Jackson currently leads the 2011 Elusive Rating with a mind-bending score of 137.1, with Adrian Peterson second with an impressive 93.0. Jackson and Peterson have already forced more than 10 missed tackles each (Jackson 12, and Peterson 11) and both players are averaging more than 3.8 yards per carry after contact. Jackson’s 4.34 yards per carry after contact mark wouldn’t be a particularly poor yards per carry average on its own, let alone just counting what he’s gained after the first defender reached him.
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Obviously, after two games we’re dealing with an extremely small sample size, but Jackson in particular has looked incredibly good so far this season, and is making a very strong case to be seen as a legitimate elite HB in the NFL after an entire career as the overlooked underdog.
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At the other end of the scale, Mark Ingram ended Week 1 with the lowest Elusive Rating I had seen (a 0.0), but has since moved up to a 16.5 after his week two performance. That leaves three runners (with qualifying attempts) with an Elusive Rating in single digits: Rashard Mendenhall, Cedric Benson, and Cadillac Williams. Rather ominous is that two of those players are the lead back for their particular teams, one of whom does not have a strong O-line in front of him and that could spell some major trouble for Pittsburgh running the ball this season.
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Follow Sam on Twitter: @SamMonson … and give our main Twitter feed a follow too: @ProFootbalFocus
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