Three running backs last year scored on all of their carries at the 1-yard line: Mike Tolbert, Mikel Leshoure and Andre Brown. But does that mean anything? Or is it just a statistical aberration?
When a player has a good year at the goal line, is that a sign that he as a "nose for the goal line" or that the team's offensive line is unstoppable? Or (given the number of attempts we're looking at) are we just over-valuing statistical outliers.
In the case of All Leshoure That's Coming Leshoure (as one Fantasy Index reader labeled him last fall), he went 6 for 6 on goal-line carries, but he went only 2 of 8 when trying to gain 1-2 yards to keep a drive alive elsewhere on the field. Some short-yardage master.
So here's a look at some historical numbers. Let's expand our scope and look at every running back in the last 10 or so years who's scored on all of his carries from the 1-yard line. These are all guys who carried the ball either 4, 5 or 6 times and scored on all of those attempts. How did those guys do the next year?
As a whole, they did just a little better than average in their follow-up seasons. They converted 59 percent of their carries (52 of 88). The NFL average for all backs over the last five years is 55 percent.
These goal-line Jedis (again, in the next season) averaged 5.9 attempts from the 1 and scored on 3.5 of those carries. I will concede that 6 is a healthy number of carries, and anybody scoring 3-4 touchdowns from the 1-yard line will rank near the leaders in the league.
To circle back to our running backs in question. I think Leshoure will be the goal-line guy in Detroit; I'm confident of that. In New York, I expect Brown will get those carries - I think they'll use him more than David Wilson on those plays. And with Carolina, I think Tolbert will score just a fraction of Carolina's short rushing touchdowns. (The Panthers also have Cam Newton, Jonathan Stewart and DeAngelo Williams.
"PERFECT" GOAL-LINE BACKS -- THE NEXT YEAR
TD Att Pct Year
2 5 40% 2001 Ricky Williams (N.O.)
5 9 56% 2001 Zack Crockett (Oak.)
6 6 100% 2002 Priest Holmes (K.C.)
4 7 57% 2003 Priest Holmes (K.C.)
6 11 55% 2003 Jerome Bettis (Pitt.)
2 3 67% 2003 T.J. Duckett (Atl.)
4 4 100% 2004 Thomas Jones (Chi.)
1 1 100% 2005 T.J. Duckett (Atl.)
1 3 33% 2005 Thomas Jones (Chi.)
3 4 75% 2005 Rudi Johnson (Cin.)
6 8 75% 2005 Corey Dillon (N.E.)
2 4 50% 2005 Mike Alstott (T.B.)
1 2 50% 2008 DeAngelo Williams (Car.)
3 10 30% 2008 Maurice Jones-Drew (Jac.)
6 11 55% 2011 Arian Foster (Hou.)
? ? ??? 2012 Andre Brown (NYG)
? ? ??? 2012 Mikel Leshoure (Det.)
? ? ??? 2012 Mike Tolbert (Car.)
^aEUR"Ian Allan
March 25, 2013