by Chase Stuart
on October 21, 2018
Todd Gurley is now 50 games into his NFL career, and he is only getting better. He is averaging an impressive 109.4 yards from scrimmage per game, but he’s been noticeably better since Sean McVay arrived.
As a rookie in 2015, Gurley averaged about 100 yards from scrimmage per game but faded down the stretch, topping the century mark just once in his last seven games. In 2016, in an ugly Jeff Fisher offense, Gurley was extremely consistent, but not in a good way: he did not pick up 109 yards in a single game that season. But since McVay arrived, Gurley has topped his current career average in 16 of 21 games.
The graph below shows the yards from scrimmage gained by Gurley in every regular season game of his career, color-coded by year. [continue reading…]
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Rams,
Todd Gurley
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by Chase Stuart
on October 4, 2018
The table below shows the main statistics for the top running backs from week 5 of the 2017 season through week 4 of the 2018 season:
[continue reading…]
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Alvin Kamara,
Todd Gurley
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by Chase Stuart
on December 28, 2017
I saw an interesting tweet yesterday:
My first thought was, “No way!” But then again, the leading RB in receiving touchdowns is a pretty obscure category, so who knows. Well, it turns out McDowell is correct (at least back to 1970, which is as far as I checked; before 1970 you are dealing with much smaller leagues, anyway).
So yes, Todd Gurley really does have a running back quadruple crown: he leads all running backs in rushing yards (1,305; Kareem Hunt is second with 1,292); rushing TDs (13; Mark Ingram is second with 12); receiving yards (Alvin Kamara has 742) and receiving TDs (6; Kamara and Christian McCaffrey each have 5). That is not going to hold up, as Gurley will rest this weekend as the Rams have clinched the NFC West but can not get the 1 or the 2 seed in the NFC. But for now, it is pretty remarkable, if from nothing else than from a trivia perspective.
In fact, since 1970, only two running backs — Jamaal Charles in 2010 and Arian Foster in 2013 — have led all running backs in three out of those four carries. Charles ranked 3rd in rushing yards that year, Foster ranked 7th in this receiving TDs.
The table below shows all running backs since 1970 whose average rank in these four categories was 5.0 or lower. [continue reading…]
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Todd Gurley
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by Chase Stuart
on August 14, 2016
Here’s a good article by Matt Harmon presenting the contrarian case against Todd Gurley as a fantasy player. One of Matt’s arguments against Gurley’s fantasy value is that he’s on a bad offense, and his numbers last year were only strong because he scored such a high percentage of St. Louis offensive touchdowns.
That math checks out: Gurley ran for 10 TDs (with no receiving touchdowns), while the Rams scored 27 total offensive touchdowns. That means that Gurley rushing touchdowns made up 37% of all Rams offensive touchdowns, which was the highest rate in the NFL last year, and the highest rate in the NFL in three years. The only other players in shouting range of that number were Adrian Peterson (11/32, or 34% of all Vikings offensive touchdowns) and Devonta Freeman (11/34, of 32% of Falcons touchdowns).
Another rookie from the SEC holds the modern record in this category. In 1981, South Carolina’s George Rogers was drafted by the Saints, and he led the NFL in rushing yards as a rookie. He also rushed for 13 touchdowns, despite the Saints finishing last in the league in scoring. Rogers rushed for 13 of the team’s 24 offensive touchdowns, or 54%. The table below shows the top 100 seasons by this metric since 1960: [continue reading…]
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Todd Gurley
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by Chase Stuart
on October 27, 2015
This week at the New York Times: Todd Gurley is awesome; the AFC South is not.
Incredibly, Gurley turned 21 in August: He is now the youngest player to rush for 125 or more yards in three consecutive games since at least 1960. Despite not getting his first N.F.L. start until Week 4, Gurley is already making history. He is the first rookie in the N.F.L. since Eric Dickerson in 1983, a Hall of Famer and another Rams player, to rush for 125 yards and average at least 5 yards per carry three times in his team’s first eight games.
..
But this year, the division may reach a new low. Through seven weeks, the four teams in the A.F.C. South have won just four of 19 games outside the division. That puts the division 11 games below .500 in interdivision games. That is the second worst performance in the last 30 years and the worst by any division through seven weeks since the N.F.C. East began the season 4-17 in 1998.>.
You can read the full post here
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Todd Gurley
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