The NFL Rushers And Receivers Who Are Carrying Their Teams

More than in any other sport, in football, individual statistics reflect a player’s environment as well as that player’s individual talent. A running back can be hamstrung by a poor offensive line, and a wide receiver can’t do much if his quarterback can’t get him the ball. While there’s no one advanced stat that can perfectly contextualize individual performance within a team environment, there are a few that do a pretty good job. Today, we’ll look at four stats that help demonstrate a player’s contribution to his team.

Yards from scrimmage … as a percentage of team yards

David Johnson has been remarkable this season: He was my midseason choice for Offensive Player of the Year, in part because he had gained at least 100 yards from scrimmage in every game to that point. He has maintained that streak since then and is now just the second player since at least 1950 to hit the century mark in each of his team’s first 11 games.

Johnson leads the league in yards from scrimmage with 1,534, but he also leads the league in percentage of team scrimmage yards. He’s gained 35.8 percent of all Cardinals yards this year, making him one of only three players to gain at least 30 percent of his team’s yards:

Players with the highest share of team scrimmage yards, 2016
	PLAYER	TEAM	TEAM YARDS	PLAYER YARDS	PLAYER SHARE
1	David Johnson	Cardinals	4,290	1,534	35.8%
2	Ezekiel Elliott	Cowboys	4,573	1,502	32.8
3	Melvin Gordon	Chargers	4,225	1,273	30.1
4	DeMarco Murray	Titans	4,716	1,352	28.7
5	Spencer Ware	Chiefs	3,769	1,077	28.6
6	Lamar Miller	Texans	3,638	1,032	28.4
7	Le’Veon Bell	Steelers	4,136	1,136	27.5
8	Todd Gurley	Rams	3,431	882	25.7
9	LeSean McCoy	Bills	3,877	994	25.6
10	Matt Forte	Jets	3,784	961	25.4
11	Jordan Howard	Bears	3,984	1,008	25.3
12	Mike Evans	Buccaneers	4,153	1,020	24.6

Some other players stand out here despite less impressive raw totals. Kansas City’s Spencer Ware plays on a low-octane Chiefs offense, but he’s a big driver behind any success the offense has. Ware is averaging 4.7 yards per carry; all other Kansas City backs are averaging just 3.5 yards per rush. And Ware has averaged 12.4 yards per target, compared to just 6.5 on passes to all other players.

Also note the presence of Steelers running back Le’Veon Bell high on the list, despite the fact that he missed the first three games of the season. Since returning from suspension in Week 4, Bell has gained an impressive 37.6 percent of all Steelers yards from scrimmage. When he’s active, no team relies on one player like the Steelers do with Bell, who’s been used heavily in both running and passing plays — he ranks third in the league in receptions per game and second in rushing yards per game.

Percentage of team carries

How many yards a player averages per carry is subject to a lot of random variation, making yards per carry one of the most overrated stats in football. And the number of carries a team has in a game is often the result of what’s happening on the scoreboard. But how often a team chooses to hand off to a particular running back — as a percentage of all handoffs to running backs — says a lot about how much his team trusts him relative to the other backs on the team.

While L.A.’s Todd Gurley has had a frustrating year, he leads the league in this metric. Rams running backs have rushed 227 times this year, and 200 of those carries were given to Gurley. The Rams aren’t a good team, so they can’t afford to run as frequently as teams like the Cowboys, but the Los Angeles coaches still have a ton of faith in Gurley (or perhaps they just have very little faith in the other Rams backs):

Running backs handed the highest share of team rushes, 2016
			TEAM RUSHES
	PLAYER	TEAM	HANDED TO PLAYER	HANDED TO ANY RUNNING BACK	PLAYER SHARE
1	Todd Gurley	Rams	200	227	88.1%
2	Melvin Gordon	Chargers	234	273	85.7
3	Frank Gore	Colts	178	211	84.4
4	LeGarrette Blount	Patriots	212	259	81.9
5	David Johnson	Cardinals	210	261	80.5
6	Matt Forte	Jets	202	252	80.2
7	Ezekiel Elliott	Cowboys	243	311	78.1
8	DeMarco Murray	Titans	229	301	76.1
9	Lamar Miller	Texans	211	284	74.3
10	Christine Michael	Packers	118	163	72.4
11	Isaiah Crowell	Browns	145	202	71.8
12	Jay Ajayi	Dolphins	161	233	69.1

The Colts’ Frank Gore and Patriots’ LeGarrette Blount are overshadowed by playing alongside star quarterbacks in Andrew Luck and Tom Brady, but don’t overlook how important those players are to their teams. Indianapolis has only given three carries per game to other running backs, while the Patriots are calling Blount’s number 81.9 percent of the time when handing off to a back. And Chargers second-year back Melvin Gordon ranks second in this category, after ranking third in our first metric. He’s having a remarkable bounce-back year after struggling as a rookie.

Receiving share of targets

Antonio Brown and Julio Jones are the two biggest stars at the wide receiver position. Brown leads the league in receptions, and Jones ranks first in receiving yards, a year after the duo far outpaced the rest of the league in those same two categories. But the Steelers’ Brown and the Falcons’ Jones also benefit from playing with a pair of star quarterbacks in, respectively, Ben Roethlisberger and Matt Ryan.

The passing games in Pittsburgh and Atlanta revolve around their star receivers, of course: Brown has accounted for 28.8 percent of all Steelers targets this season, and Jones is at 27.6 percent for the Falcons. Those are great numbers, but not quite good enough for No. 1.

Receivers with the highest share of team targets, 2016
	PLAYER	TEAM	TEAM TARGETS	PLAYER TARGETS	PLAYER SHARE
1	Mike Evans	Buccaneers	410	132	32.2%
2	Antonio Brown	Steelers	417	120	28.8
3	Emmanuel Sanders	Broncos	362	104	28.7
4	Julio Jones	Falcons	370	102	27.6
5	Jarvis Landry	Dolphins	321	88	27.4
6	Julian Edelman	Patriots	364	99	27.2
7	DeAndre Hopkins	Texans	386	102	26.4
8	Odell Beckham	Giants	407	107	26.3
9	Terrelle Pryor	Browns	415	109	26.3
10	Brandon Marshall	Jets	371	97	26.1
11	T.Y. Hilton	Colts	402	103	25.6
12	Demaryius Thomas	Broncos	362	92	25.4
13	A.J. Green	Bengals	382	95	24.9
14	Larry Fitzgerald	Cardinals	442	109	24.7
15	Jordy Nelson	Packers	432	105	24.3
16	Michael Crabtree	Raiders	408	99	24.3
17	Allen Robinson	Jaguars	430	104	24.2
18	Amari Cooper	Raiders	408	98	24.0
19	Greg Olsen	Panthers	370	88	23.8
20	Stefon Diggs	Vikings	371	87	23.5
21	Jeremy Kerley	49ers	345	78	22.6
22	Golden Tate	Lions	377	84	22.3
23	Jordan Matthews	Eagles	382	85	22.3
24	Kelvin Benjamin	Panthers	370	81	21.9
25	Kenny Britt	Rams	367	80	21.8

No wide receiver is a bigger part of his team’s passing offense than Mike Evans is for the Buccaneers. And you may have noticed his name on the first table too — he was the only wide receiver to rank in the top 12 in percentage of team yards (all the others are running backs). Evans had a dominant game in Week 12 against Seattle, helping Tampa Bay pull off the upset: He was targeted on 39.3 percent of Tampa Bay’s 28 pass attempts and caught eight passes for 104 yards and two touchdowns.

The Broncos’ Emmanuel Sanders beat out Jones for third on this list, despite playing with an inexperienced passer in Trevor Siemian, the 250th pick in last year’s draft. Denver doesn’t pass very often, but when they do, Siemian tends to look toward Sanders, who is quietly having a phenomenal year. Sanders, like Evans, was one of the stars of Week 12: In a losing effort, he caught seven of 10 targets for 162 yards and a touchdown.

First downs per route run

Gaining a first down is one of the most important things a wide receiver can do, and he has a chance at it whenever he runs a route. Yards per route run is the wide receiver version of yards per pass, but by replacing yards with first downs in the numerator, we can focus on a less-popular (but very important) statistic that shows us which guys move the chains.

Evans ranks first in this category¹: He has picked up a first down on a remarkable 15.3 percent of his routes. One reason for that is that Evans runs deeper routes, and he easily leads the league with 62 first-down receptions (no other player has more than 50).

Receivers with the most first-down receptions per route run, 2016
	PLAYER	TEAM	FIRST-DOWN RECEPTIONS	ROUTES RUN	RECEPTIONS PER ROUTE RUN
1	Mike Evans	Buccaneers	62	406	15.3%
2	Cole Beasley	Cowboys	39	281	13.9
3	Julio Jones	Falcons	49	361	13.6
4	Tyreek Hill	Chiefs	23	171	13.5
5	Jordan Reed	Redskins	38	298	12.8
6	A.J. Green	Bengals	41	337	12.2
7	Stefon Diggs	Vikings	39	321	12.1
8	Antonio Brown	Steelers	50	428	11.7
9	Greg Olsen	Panthers	41	362	11.3
10	Kelvin Benjamin	Panthers	37	328	11.3
11	C.J. Fiedorowicz	Texans	23	204	11.3
12	Michael Thomas	Saints	43	383	11.2

But a few other players are worth mentioning. Cole Beasley plays on a run-heavy offense, but when the Cowboys pass, the team is extremely efficient. One reason for that is Beasley, who is adept at getting first downs.

Jordan Reed and Stefon Diggs have each missed two games this season, depressing their raw numbers, but both players fare well in this metric. Reed leads all tight ends, while Diggs ranks seventh overall despite suffering from poor quarterback play.

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Footnotes

Among players with at least 20 receiving first downs.

FiveThirtyEight