The first ever article I wrote for Yards Per Fantasy back in last year’s offseason was about the Philadelphia Eagles backfield, the myth of Doug Pederson’s penchant for RBBC (Running Back By Committee) and the outlook for Miles Sanders in 2020.
The conclusion of the article was to trust in Miles Sanders, with a predicted overall rushing share of 57-percent of the Eagles rush attempts. Before Hurts took over the reigns, Sanders was averaging 56-percent of the rush attempts in games he’d played, so the process was sound. But with injury and a change in Quarterback, there are variables that are worth considering separately.
And potentially the biggest variable of all is also now in play, the coaching staff. Pederson (the man who brought us the Philly Special…wait, hang on, that was Nick Foles’ idea…) is gone and, subject to finding out his replacement, the popular opinion will be that this frees up Sanders to take more of the backfield touches. If you read my previous article on this, you’ll know my view is that Pederson doesn’t actually favour RBBC and as you make your way through this article, you’ll see that Sanders isn’t in a heavy backfield split.
Rushing Share
Let’s start with the big picture of all rush attempts and how they were distributed through weeks 1 to 16:
44-percent of attempts for Sanders isn’t a great start but there’s three games missed through injury in there so let’s take those out:
We’re up to 54-percent. Now this is all rushing attempts remember, not just running back touches. So the impact of the Quarterback and some rush attempts from wide receivers is all built in to this number.
How about a quick look at how much of the Running Back rushing volume Sanders received:
That’s better. 79-percent overall (excluding games missed), with five games above 80-percent and only two games below 70-percent. That looks like an RB1 share to me.
The Quarterback
As I noted in my introduction, one of the big variables for Sanders in 2020 was the quarterback change. A change in QB can often have an impact on a running back’s volume and production, and that impact is even bigger when the incoming QB is as mobile as Jalen Hurts.
There are many facets to the change in production and it was noticeable that Hurts’ presence opened up lanes for Sanders. I’m not going to dive in to that side of things here, I’m going to stick to volume for now.
Here’s how the rush attempts were divvied up when Wentz was under centre:
and here’s how they looked with Hurts:
It’s a dip, from 58-percent to 47-percent. That makes sense given the mobility of Hurts, as the Quarterback share of rush attempts jumped from 25-percent to 39-percent.
But when you look at Sanders’ pure numbers, his rush attempts didn’t really take a hit after Hurts took over. Why is that? Overall rushing volume.
Team Volume
Through week 12, with Wentz at the helm, Philadelphia had a 16 game pace of 989 offensive plays at a 63-percent pass rate, leading to a pace of only 371 rush attempts. For comparison, they had 454 rush attempts in 2019. That’s a significant drop and one that, despite a healthy market share, impacted Sanders volume.
After Hurts took over, that 16 game pace was 1,027 offensive plays and 474 rush attempts. That’s an extra 6 rush attempts per game.
What does it all mean?
That’s a lot of different variables and moving parts, so what does it all mean?
- Sanders is not in a split backfield and hasn’t been all season;
- His volume through the first 12 weeks was an issue with team volume, not Sanders’ portion of it;
- If Hurts is going to be under centre in 2021 then Sanders portion of the pie is going to be smaller. The size of that pie isn’t likely to be higher than the pace during Hurts’ tenure so Sanders’ volume from weeks 13 onwards should be a reliable benchmark;
- If Wentz is going to be under centre then Sanders portion of the pie is going to be bigger. But the size of that pie is unknown. Through the first 12 weeks of 2020, the pie size wasn’t the best for Sanders. If new coaching staff changes that up then that leaves room to grow for Sanders.
I wouldn’t dare make a prediction about 2021 at this stage, at least not until we know who is going to be on the coaching staff in Philadelphia. But unless something crazy happens then I have to think that his 2020 rushing volume is his floor.
All eyes on the coaching hires now. Adam Gase is available you know? No? You don’t want to see Sanders sharing carries with Frank Gore next season?! Boring…
