I am ranking the top 12 starting RBs based on their schedules

[averagejoe]

Actually kind of shocked Alf is on top, seemed like everyone we turned around last year someone was complaining about how often Helu was on the field.

Thought the number was high for Morris too. So I double-checked. My apologies. Not sure what happened? (I extracted the numbers from Pro Football Reference? Here's the corrected rushing percentages:


72% Forte
66% AP
65% Murray
63% McCoy
62% Lacy, LeVeon & MJD
61% Morris
60% CJ1K
59% Charles, Lynch, Stacy, & Mathews
55% Gore

BTW, Helu was 14%.

 

[averagejoe]

The one that jumps out at me is Stacey. He really didn't start playing until game 5 - and he still ended up with 62% of the Rams' carries. So if you take his average attempt-per-game and spread that out over a full season, he would have had 332 carries, or 78% of the Rams' rushing attempts!

 

[Brees#1]

I love how some defenses are listed as both an easy match up and a tough match up.
Which is it?!?!?

Usually if the same defense is listed as easy, it is because of the likelihood of being a blowout or being too far from home. Like with Ball, Denver is on a bye before that game. I think Denver is going to destroy the cardinals week 5 and that will allow for Ball to get lots of PT in the 4th.

Week 8, eagles usually can stop the run but they have been inconsistent with it as well. I think in games they don't play well in they tend to let off against the run. Thats why week 8 at Zona and given the eagles recent lack of success against them it bodes well for Ellington that game. I know we can't predict blowouts but usually the best indications are recent matchups and how that team does against the run or pass. McCoy didnt do much on the ground against the cardinals at home last year so with that game in Zona and Maclin likely to not outdo Peterson, I think cards are going to wear them out.

 

[wilwhite]

I'm coming back over here to prop up Brees. Looks like he isn't just blindly basing on last year's defensive stats, but trying to project into next year and run a little mental simulation game-by-game. Which is the only way to go (last year's ff-pts-gainst are worthless).

He doesn't include his reasoning for every single match-up, so it's hard to tell what he's basing his judgments on... but I think it's the right track.