A comment from reader "underthebus1":

Aaron, regarding Alexander being pushed out of bounds, shouldn't you also account for td's scored untouched? Shaun had 28 td's in 2005 and 20 in 2004. I know from watching the games last year a good percentage of those were 'untouched' td's.

This is a good point. Now, we can't tell from the play-by-play what was an "untouched" touchdown, but think about it -- a touchdown is really no different from going out of bounds, because you don't get smacked and tackled at the end of it. There are exceptions, of course: goal-line plunges. So let's re-run the numbers on which players had the most "untackled" runs. This represents all runs listed as ending out of bounds, plus touchdowns, minus touchdowns from the one- or two-yard line. Again, this is carries only, not catches.

37-S.Alexander 42
21-L.Tomlinson 34
39-S.Jackson 25
26-C.Portis 24
27-L.Johnson 23
21-T.Barber 22
28-C.Dillon 19
32-E.James 18
21-W.McGahee 18
20-T.Jones 18

Now we're really starting to see a difference between Alexander/Tomlinson and everybody else. Alexander scored 15 of his 27 touchdowns from more than two yards out. Edgerrin James, on the other hand, scored only four of his 13 touchdowns from more than two yards out. The percentages are stronger also. Alexander finished 11.4% of his runs "untackled." LT was untackled on 10.0%, Steven Jackson on 9.8%. Every other back with over 200 carries last year was under 7%.

To look at this a little differently, here's the list of the top 10 running backs in carries that ended with tackles (estimated off the PBP, of course), along with their actual number of carries:

32-E.James / 342 / 360
21-T.Barber / 335 / 357
37-S.Alexander / 328 / 370
26-C.Portis / 328 / 352
32-R.Johnson / 324 / 337
27-L.Johnson / 313 / 336
21-W.McGahee / 307 / 325
21-L.Tomlinson / 305 / 339
34-R.Droughns / 302 / 309
20-T.Jones / 296 / 314

One more note on this from reader "Skrest":

Based on a search for OB in the PBP, which I'm assuming is complete, Reggie Bush ran out of bounds 9 times on Sunday. That's out of 25 touches.

The next highest OB for a player (not counting MNF) was 5 (Coles, Holt & Westbrook). Only two TEAMS ran out of bounds more than Reggie Bush.

Just thought that was interesting....Looks like he's trying to avoid the big hits.

Post by Aaron Schatz

Let's continue the discussion of Shaun Alexander and the Curse of 370 Carries. Before we do, I should note that yes, the Seattle offensive line played badly against Detroit, and this was a big reason why Alexander had a bad day -- and why Hasselbeck was sacked five times. As Mike Sando points out, Hasselbeck was never sacked five times in a game last year. His last game with five sacks came in September 2004 against the Bucs -- whose line was coached, of course, by Rod Marinelli.

Anyway, at the Seattle book signing for Pro Football Prospectus 2006, Zachary Geballe (a.k.a. Sportszilla) brought up an interesting point about Alexander and 370 carries. The knock on Alexander in the past was that he avoids contact and runs out of bounds too much. The negative implication of this is that he's a wuss. Here's the thing Geballe noted: 20 years ago, people made this same complaint about Eric Dickerson, who is the only running back to carry the ball 370 times season after season without breaking down. Does Alexander, in fact, get out of bounds more than other running backs? If so, this may be a positive thing, making it less likely that he will succumb to the Curse of 370 Carries.

(By the way, anyone who thinks Shaun Alexander is a wuss is an idiot. Every running back in the NFL is hit over and over again all year, out of bounds or no out of bounds. They're all pretty tough individuals compared to the rest of us.)

I went into the 2005 regular season play-by-play and counted the number of rushing attempts where a running back was listed as "pushed ob" or "ran ob." This includes plays cancelled by penalties, which aren't counted in the actual total carries. Here are your leaders:

37-S.Alexander 27
21-L.Tomlinson 24
39-S.Jackson 20
26-C.Portis 19
21-W.McGahee 17
20-T.Jones 15
32-E.James 14
28-C.Dillon 14
30-M.Moore 14
21-T.Barber 13

So Alexander did end a run out of bounds more often than any running back (the actual number one was Michael Vick, with 33 runs that ended out of bounds). He also had a higher percentage of runs end out of bounds than most other running backs. Here are the numbers for the 10 running backs who had more than 300 carries last year:

37-S.Alexander: 27 of 370 (7%)
32-E.James: 14 of 360 (4%)
21-T.Barber: 13 of 357 (4%)
26-C.Portis: 19 of 356 (5%)
21-L.Tomlinson: 24 of 339 (7%)
32-R.Johnson: 7 of 337 (2%)
27-L.Johnson: 10 of 336 (3%)
21-W.McGahee: 17 of 325 (5%)
20-T.Jones: 15 of 314 (5%)
34-R.Droughns: 5 of 309 (2%)

This leads to two other questions that I'll need to explore in the future. First, is this constant from year to year? Was Alexander the leader in this stat in 2003 and 2004 also? Second, what does this stat look like for past 370-carry running backs? Did Tomlinson not decline in 2003 because he got out of bounds on a lot of his runs in 2002?

Post by Aaron Schatz

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.

Post by Aaron Schatz

I suppose that if we're going to start this thing today, the first thing we have to talk about is the Deion Branch trade.

The whole Branch affair revolved around the question of how much Branch is worth. New England

Well, everybody else is doing it, why shouldn't we? Welcome to the Football Outsiders blog on FOXSports.com. For those who are unfamiliar with Football Outsiders, we do both statistical and game tape analysis, and we write a number of different features for FOX during the NFL season, including the weekly power rankings and the Wednesday rundown.

We're going to be using this blog for all the assorted thoughts that we don't fit into our articles during the week. Every so often I come across a fun little statistical tidbit, and I don't have anywhere to put it. That stuff will go here. I'll also answer mailbag e-mails in this space, and give my thoughts when I have something to say about a big story. Mike Tanier will be contributing to the blog as well, and down the line we may add some of the other FO writers. Eventually, we would also like to use the blog to share interesting comments from the volunteers in our game charting project.

We're not just going to be linking to any story we feel like without saying something substantial. We already have a blog like that on Football Outsiders, known as Extra Points. This is going to be more of a content blog than a link-heavy blog.

Any comments about this blog, or questions you want answered on it, please feel free to send e-mail to mailbag@footballoutsiders.com.

Post by Aaron Schatz