Anomaly or New Norm? What to Make of RB Outliers for 2024 (Fantasy Football)
In this article series, I’m taking a look back at outlier statistics from the 2023 season and attempting to answer the question, “Was it an anomaly, or is this the new norm for the player moving forward?” In the first edition, I took a look at quarterback stats. This time, I’ll be examining running backs, arguably the most important position to research in fantasy football.
The Stats
I’m primarily using efficiency stats in this series. Looking at per-game or per-attempt stats gives us a better understanding of a player’s talent instead of pure volume. Given a running back’s dependence on blocking, game flow, checkdowns, and other team-level attributes, they can be more difficult to isolate, but the stats can still be revealing.
Running backs rack up fantasy points with yardage and touchdowns, both on the ground and through the air. While not perfect, the stats I’m examining in this article are yards/attempt, attempts/TD, yards/TD, opportunities/TD, and targets/game. The table below shows the league average in those metrics among the 49 running backs who carried the ball at least 100 times in 2023.
| Statistic | 2023 Average |
| Yards/Att | 4.2 |
| Att/TD | 46.7 |
| Yards/TD | 189.0 |
| Opp/TD | 48.3 |
| Tgt/Gm | 3.1 |
Another great stat is expected fantasy points. I won’t be covering it here because Marvin Elequin already did an awesome job covering it for running backs in his article series on the topic.
Let’s dive into the extreme running back stats.
De’Von Achane: 7.8 Yards/Attempt
Achane was the poster boy of outlier efficiency in his rookie campaign. His 7.8 yards/attempt was the highest ever for a running back with at least 100 carries, and while he barely hit the minimum carry count, you can’t take that away from him. No other running back has ever topped 7.0 yards/attempt. The table below shows all the running backs to top 6.0 yards/attempt over the past 50 seasons.
| Player | Year | Attempts | Yards/Att |
| Jamaal Charles | 2010 | 230 | 6.4 |
| Rashaad Penny | 2021 | 119 | 6.3 |
| Alvin Kamara | 2017 | 120 | 6.1 |
| Adrian Peterson | 2012 | 348 | 6.0 |
| C.J. Spiller | 2012 | 207 | 6.0 |
| J.K. Dobbins | 2020 | 134 | 6.0 |
| Jerious Norwood | 2007 | 103 | 6.0 |
Before moving on, let’s pause to reflect on how insane it is that Adrian Peterson averaged 6.0 yards/attempt on 348 carries after tearing his ACL in Week 16 of the previous season!
Yards/attempt isn’t the most advanced stat, but Achane also ran away from the field in other metrics. According to PFF, he led the league with a 54% breakaway run rate and 5.12 yards after contact/attempt. The next closest in those categories were Breece Hall with a 40.5% breakaway run rate and James Conner at 3.93 yards after contact/attempt.
Anomaly or New Norm?
We cannot expect Achane to set a new record for yards/attempt next season, especially if he sees an increase in volume. Let’s use Jamaal Charles as the gold standard. Over his first eight seasons, he averaged a 17-game pace of 224 carries at 5.5 yards/attempt. That kind of season would still be impressive, considering only six running backs, including Achane, topped 5.0 yards/carry in 2023. Topping 200 carries will be difficult while sharing the backfield with Raheem Mostert, but Achane’s work in the receiving game and ability to score every time he touches the ball allows him to retain one of the highest fantasy ceilings at the position.
Raheem Mostert: 11.6 Att/TD, 56.2 Yards/TD
Speaking of Mostert, he was also wildly efficient in Miami’s 2023 backfield. While Mostert didn’t rack up yardage at the same rate, he found the end zone four times more frequently than the league average on a per-attempt basis. But Mostert didn’t just score 18 times on the ground, he also caught three TD receptions. If we include his work through the air, he averaged a TD for every 11.6 opportunities. He scored as many TDs as Christian McCaffrey on 124 fewer opportunities.
Anomaly or New Norm?
Calling Mostert’s 2023 scoring prowess an outlier feels like an understatement. His 21 total TDs were more than he scored in his previous eight seasons combined. Of course, he has dealt with numerous injuries throughout his career, so let’s look at it from an efficiency standpoint. Over his first eight seasons in the NFL, Mostert averaged a TD on every 33.2 attempts. That’s an above-average number, but still nearly three times worse than his 2023 season. Mostert is a speedy and talented back on a high-powered offense, but last season was more anomalous than normal.
Josh Jacobs: 3.5 Yards/Attempt
Jacobs won the rushing title in 2022 on the back of volume and a career-high 4.9 yards/attempt. That efficiency fell off a cliff last season. In 2023, his 3.5 yards/attempt ranked 43rd out of 49 backs with at least 100 attempts and dead last among those with at least 200, just behind Javonte Williams and Rachaad White (3.6). The lack of efficiency, combined with a career-low six TDs and just 13 games played, led to the worst fantasy output of his five-year career.
Anomaly or New Norm?
Jacobs has had plenty of ups and downs throughout his five-year career, especially with his yards/attempt, as shown in the table below.
| Season | Yards/Att |
| 2019 | 4.8 |
| 2020 | 3.9 |
| 2021 | 4.0 |
| 2022 | 4.9 |
| 2023 | 3.5 |
As most analytics experts would be quick to point out, yards/attempt can be a flawed stat. It is heavily reliant on a team’s offensive environment. The fact that Zamir White averaged 4.3 yards/attempt in the same offense is a bit concerning. However, White saw the majority of his work after the firing of lame-duck head coach, Josh McDaniels. Jacobs averaged a more respectable 4.2 yards/attempt in four games under Antonio Pierce before suffering a quad injury that ultimately ended his season in Week 14.
Of course, Jacobs now finds himself in a totally different offensive environment in Green Bay. The Packers are widely considered an ascending offense and they went out of their way to add Jacobs in free agency. He’s also brought up by Marvin Elequin as a positive regression candidate. Jacobs doesn’t profile to be a game-breaker like De’Von Achane but if things go as planned in Green Bay, he should be primed for a bounce-back season.
James Cook: 561 Yards/TD, 118.5 Attempts/TD
Did you know James Cook finished as the RB11 last season? If you didn’t, it may be because he finished outside of RB45 in both Weeks 16 and 17, the pinnacle of the fantasy football playoffs. He trailed only Christian McCaffrey and Breece Hall among RBs in total yards from scrimmage but scored just six TDs on the season. Only two of those came on the ground. He rushed for TDs at more than half of the NFL average rate from both a yardage and attempts perspective. His four receiving TDs saved his season, giving him a rate of 49.8 opportunities/TD, right on pace with the league average of 48.3.
Anomaly or New Norm?
Cook more than doubled his rushing attempts and rushing yards from year one to year two, but saw the same number of rushing TDs (two). His 561 yards/TD on the ground was easily the highest among all running backs with at least 100 carriers. Zach Charbonnet was next at 462 yards/TD, nearly a full 100-yard difference. Given his below-average size as an NFL RB and the fact that Josh Allen is Buffalo’s best goal-line runner, it’s unlikely that Cook will crack double-digit TDs on the ground. However, as long as he retains the lead-back role as expected, some positive TD variance should be coming his way on the ground in 2024.
Alvin Kamara: 6.6 Targets/Game
Kamara was a full target/game ahead of Breece Hall in the category last season. His number could have been even higher if he hadn’t been limited to just two targets on 33% of the snaps when hampered by an illness in Week 17. He finished second on the Saints with 86 targets, despite playing in just 13 games. He finished as the only RB on the season with at least a 20% target share.
Anomaly or New Norm?
Kamara’s work through the air seems like an outlier when compared to the rest of the league, but it’s the fifth time in his seven-year career that he’s averaged at least 6.3 targets/game. That may be easy to forget, as the last time he did was back in 2020. The only significant, and I use that term lightly, additions New Orleans made at pass catchers this offseason were Equanimeous St. Brown, Cedrick Wilson, and fifth-round rookie Bub Means. Meanwhile, tight end Juwan Johnson heads into training camp dealing with a foot injury that required offseason surgery. There’s a very realistic chance that Kamara sees north of 6.0 targets/game again in 2024.