How small is too small for a running back?
When coaches, coordinators, and general managers speak in the offseason, their default setting is hope. They glow with it, and spew it everywhere.
Hope is an addictive drug in the months of May and June, with the seed of self-delusion planted during the draft. Then Sugarplum visions are reinforced when coaches begin to publicly apply the polish on rookies, or already rostered players now expected to ascend.
But know this about Andre Ellington, and what’s being said about his expected workload for 2014: there are still half truths in some NFL lies, and that may be all he’ll need.
With Rashard Mendenhall deciding that football isn’t his thing anymore, the diminutive Ellington is is set to rise up the Arizona Cardinals running back depth chart. That likely would have happened anyway, because giving a fast guy the ball more often seems like a good idea when he does this…
It’s not difficult to see why Cardinals head coach Bruce Arians wants to feature Ellington more prominently after he had 652 rushing yards at a pace of 5.5 per carry during his rookie season, and 1,023 total yards when we toss in the chunks gained on his 39 receptions. Even if he’s a wee little man at 5’9”, and weighing 199 pounds, fears of him crumbling can be overlooked because of his explosiveness. Despite a moderate 157 touches (topping out at 17 in a game twice, and averaging 10.5 weekly), Ellington’s breakaway speed still showed with his 11 plays that gained 20 yards or more.
But let’s talk about those touches. Try to spot the lie here: Arians said earlier this week he expects Ellington to get 25-30 touches per game. Nothing about those numbers and that range is based in reality. The math on the low end is 400 total touches, and the high end is 480.
James Wilder leads the all-time single-season touch list with 492 in a season, but that came during a much different time way back in 1984. Over the past 10 years only three running backs have topped 430 touches: Steven Jackson (436 in 2006), Ricky Williams (442 in 2003), and Larry Johnson (457 in 2006).
Concentrate less on the touch range, then, and more generally on high volume usage for Ellington. The common concern is that at his small stature, absorbing even average pummeling will be difficult, making a higher workload even harder to sustain. But when exactly does small become too small? When we look back on recent years and the body types that took on the heaviest burdens, the question becomes cloudy.
Over the past five years the average total for the running back with the most touches is 388.8. Of the five names who make up that average, three of them are carrying around a lack of bulk compared to many of their peers, just like Ellington:
LeSean McCoy (5’11”, 208 pounds) had 366 touches in 2013
Maurice Jones-Drew (5’7”, 210 pounds) had 386 touches in 2011
Chris Johnson (5’11”, 203) had 408 touches in 2009
Both McCoy and Johnson are only marginally larger than Ellington, yet they’ve survived repeated and heavy pounding. Johnson may be slowing now as running backs do with the passing of time, but he’s had two +300 carry seasons and six with at least 1,000 rushing yards, all without missing a single game due to injury (80 consecutive starts).
McCoy will pass the 1,500 career touch plateau early this fall at the ripe age of 25, yet he’s missed only six of a possible 80 starts. Going back a little bit further to 2005, Tiki Barber wasn’t exactly a gargantuan human either (5’10”, 200 pounds) when he led the league with 411 touches. The following season he still rushed for 1,662 yards.
Jamaal Charles also isn’t a big green hulk on the weight scale where it matters most (6’1”, 200 pounds), and he’s had 649 touches over the past two years. Jones-Drew is even smaller than Ellington, and he was able to sustain a workload of 361.3 touches per season over three years (2009-2011) before finally beginning to break down at the age of 27. Ellington still has age on his side at a spry 25, and only those 157 touches logged so far through one season.
Ellington is small, to be sure, but so is every other running back discussed above. Sportchart recently documented the average height and weight at different positions across all the sports you know and love, and found the typical height of a running back is about 5’11”, and the weight is a little over 220 pounds. The height difference there between Ellington and Average Running Back X is negligible, but the weight gap is significant.
Yet there are enough recent examples to have faith in the little guy, and his ability to get whacked repeatedly and keep running. In this era of rosters constantly churning through running backs, Arians could care so very little about Ellington’s long-term health, and instead wants high-level production for a short-period, physical costs be damned.