Shaun Alexander carried the ball 370 times in the 2005
regular season, and another 60 times in the postseason. In the Seattle chapter of Pro Football
Prospectus 2006, I looked into our theory that running backs generally break
down after 370 carries, and expanded it to 370 carries in the regular season OR
390 carries including the postseason.
So of course, Alexander signs a huge contract and then comes
out and is the least valuable player in football his first week according to
our PAR (Points Above Replacement) stats from the Quick Reads column. So I
wanted to know: is this a sign that Alexander has broken down due to last
year's workload?
I went back to all the running backs who went over 370
carries or 390 (postseason included) since 1997, to see how they did in the
first week of the following season. Was
a bad Week 1 a sign that the player had broken down?
Curtis Martin 2005: 20 carries, 57 yards, -2.7 PAR vs. Kansas City. This was
just one of a lot of bad first-week rushing performances last year. Travis
Henry, Tatum Bell, and Kevan Barlow were all below -4.0 PAR rushing in Week 1.
Corey Dillon 2005: 23 carries, 63 yards, 1.2 PAR vs. Oakland.
Jamal Lewis 2004: 20 carries, 57 yards, -1.0 PAR vs. Cleveland. The Browns had
one of the worst run defenses in the league that year, 28th in DVOA, so this
was even lower once we had enough info to do opponent adjustments.
Ahman Green 2004: 33 carries, 119 yards, 2.0 PAR vs. Carolina. Just to show
that not everybody who has a bad Week 1 ends up with a bad season, Rudi Johnson
had -3.1 PAR that week and ended up sixth in the league with 1,454 rushing
yards.
Ricky Williams 2003: 17 carries, 69 yards, -2.2 PAR vs. Houston. This was the
infamous Miami
loss that got tons of people tossed from their suicide pools, and definitely a
warning that something was wrong with Ricky.
LaDainian Tomlinson 2003: 13 carries, 34 yards, -2.1 PAR vs.
Kansas City.
Was this a sign that LT was worn down from 372 carries in 2002? Actually, it
wasn't. Tomlinson is one of the few players to actually improve the year after
breaking 370 carries -- despite starting the season with this terrible game
against one of the league's worst run defenses.
Eddie George 2001: 18 carries, 49 yards, -2.6 PAR vs. Cincinnati. A bad game,
but seven other running backs had worse games in Week 1 of 2001. The worst of
all was Stephen Davis: 14 carries, 35 yards, three fumbles, -10.0 PAR. Once
again, this was a fluke game, not a sign of things to come. Davis finished the season third in the league
with 1,432 total yards.
Edgerrin James 2001: 28 carries, 135 yards, 4.3 PAR vs. the
Jets. That was the best rushing performance of the week, but Edge's problem
wasn't decline after 387 carries in 2000, it was a catastrophic injury in Week 7.
Eddie George 2000: 17 carries, 37 yards, -1.6 PAR vs. Buffalo.
Jamal Anderson 1999: 16
carries, 50 yards, -0.1 PAR vs. Minnesota.
Curtis Martin 1999: 19 carries, 85 yards, -2.0 PAR vs. New England.
Terrell Davis 1999: 19 carries, 61 yards, -0.9 PAR vs. Miami.
Terrell Davis 1998: 22 carries, 75 yards, 2.8 PAR vs. New England. Davis
holds the all-time record with 481 carries in 1997, including the postseason. A
year later, suffice it to say, he did not decline. Two years later is a
different story.
Dorsey Levens 1998: 25 carries, 59 yards, -1.6 PAR vs. Detroit.
Average, not including Alexander: 22 carries, 73 yards, -0.5
PAR.
That doesn't look good for Alexander. All of the players who
were coming off heavy-workload seasons and had bad Week 1 games ended up with
major decline seasons, injuries, or both. Most of the "fluke" bad games in Week 1 come from players who were not overworked the year before. There's one huge exception: LaDainian
Tomlinson in 2003. But he was 24 years old with just one season in the NFL.
Alexander is 29 and has gone over 325 carries for three straight years.
Postscript: From the comments, I can see I didn't make it clear: I'm not passing judgment here. You can't pass judgment based on one game. I'm simply presenting information because I was curious about the past history of 370-carry backs in Week 1.
That is the most rediculous thing I have read. Did you watch the game. Did you listen to what the experts are saying. Did you notice Matt got sacked 5 times, hit 7 more times, and hurried 12 times. This was not an Alexander breakdown, this was a o-line breakdown. He had a bad 1 st game last yesar as did the o-line. Normally I would try to talk you off your ledge, but frankly if this is what you are writing after one game please jump.
After correctly blasting Mike Tanier last year regarding his idiotic suggestions about the Seahawks (and history shows he was wrong about everything, except Sea vs Car. in the NFC Champ game, BUT he gave the win to the Panthers [hey, Mike, GOOD CALL STOOPIT], allow me to continue my all out assault on the jackasses at F.O. Why dont you guys use this talent for analyzing numbers towards something useful. I agree with dadc43. The O-Line had a bad day, they have new guys (DONT blame this all on Hutch leaving either you nincom####s), and that accounted for BOTH Shauns bad day AND Matts bad day. Lets revisit this assessment after the game vs. the Cards. If Shaun has another bad game, well, you guys are still a*holes.
And by the way, this "Madden Curse" business is the most re-god-damn-diculous thing I've ever heard. I bet the guy above me believes in 9/11 conspiracies and that Elvis lives in Bermuda. Do the world a favor and go drink some anti-freeze. ####.
Shaun only ran for 70 yards last year in the opening game.....I seem to recall that he rebounded nicely. What a ridiculous over-reaction. Ronnie Brown and Cadilac Williams COMBINED for 52 yards this week. Are they broken down too?
i call it steve hutchison. they still have a good o line, but loosing a pro bowl line men will not help. Personelly i thought the seahawks were not that good last yes they made it to the sb. but remember who they played in the playoffs - the worts offesive team in the nfl last year in my opionon. and a 5th string rb in the carolina game.
Sean is still a good rb, but wont have the same numbers. is it me or does it look like he gained some weight.
FO is clearly hatin on my boy Alexander because their jelus the patriots didn't make the superbowl. They stink wurse than Dubya's furrin policy. Seahawks Rule!
FACTS... FACTS ... FACTS ... QUIT THE CEREBIAL ALREADY .. HE AINT GOT NO LINE AND THE NFL WANTS NOTHING TO DO WITH SEATTLE.. SECONDED BY THE MEDIA AND REFEREES...THE FIX IS ON FUGET ABOUT IT ...SORRY ... T. V.
Wow one game and everybody is throwin in the towel this is funny. First point they won and a win is a win allready they are starting off better then last year. I watched the game and i tell u what detroits D is gonna play hell through this league so saying omg they almost lost to detroit then you didnt watch the game. If you beleive in Voodo then you have no brains its all just circumstance. its not like they go on the cover then get gunned down at the mall ITS FOOTBALL. Even if Alexander does get injured Mo Morris will fill in fine look at the Playoffs last year. The O-line will get it together.Losing one guy will not kill a team I dont care who it is.
This makes quite a lot of sense, Shaun Alexander has been riden hard by the Seahawks and sooner or later he will become less effective. Running backs rarely have long and effective careers so it wouldn't be a surprise at all for Alexander's performance to decline to pedestrian levels. Those that seem to disagree with that assumption do so because they believe that past performance is the only measure of whether a player is good or not. These are the same people that argue that Brett Favre isn't actually playing poorly, he just has bad receivers. They are also the people who think that Michael Vick is the reason the Falcons win games. To all you previous commenters, NFL players have a very short window of effectiveness. Most, especially at bruising positions such as running back, break down around the age of 30. Shaun Alexander may break down, he may not, but it would not surprise me in the least if he did.
With the loss of Hutchinson things are going to be extremely difficult for Alexander. Hutchinson with his blocking was the constant that cleared the path for him with his blocking. But we'll have to see how the season goes for Alexander and whether or not he can adapt to playing without Hutchinson.
It takes 13 paragraphs (or so...are you counting the bullet-points?) to explain in full. The description is rather shorter - it calculates the number of points the player was responsible for compared to what a generic, off-the-bench replacement player would do in the same situations. Gives positive credit for only performance that could possibly contribute to scoring (so, nothing that led to a punt or a turnover on downs, no matter how many yards he picks up on third-and-20).
Look, Aaron's mistake here was assuming the readers had 1) some knowledge of football greater than your average game announcing conventional wisdom ####, and 2) the ability to read what he wrote objectively.
He's making a very simple observation here. Running backs who get more than 370 carries in a season (390 including playoffs) tend to break down the next year, and a bad first game is a strong indicator of that. By any measurement, Alexander was overworked, and he had a bad first game.
If you dislike that fact, criticize Holmgren for overworking the guy last season. Aaron's just the messenger. And as Aaron pointed out, there are exceptions to this rule, and one game's clearly not enough to pass final judgment on the issue.
Holy mother of God. Never has my opinion that people who use "internet chat-speak" should be forcibly sterilized as to not contaminate the human gene pool further been stronger. Did one of you actually complain about the use of facts?!?
Football Outsiders is the Internet's #1 home for intelligent NFL analysis. Our NFL articles for FOX include Quick Reads, DVOA ratings, Too Deep Zone, the Wednesday rundown, and many others.
