The departure of Derrick Henry heightened the interest in Tennessee's second-year back Tyjae Spears. That was quickly taken away by the signing of Tony Pollard in free agency, at least somewhat. But I remain very interested in Spears, who seems to have a lot more breakout potential.
Talking about the backfield this week, Titans offensive coordinator Nick Holz referred to the two backs as "interchangeable," saying both would get a ton of carries. Not ideal. But running backs get hurt, and seems a lot more likely that Spears will be the ascendant player, while Pollard has already done his best work. There's some evidence that Spears will be more effective.
As a runner, Spears was half a yard per attempt better last season, 4.5 on his 100 attempts to Pollard's 4.0 on his 252. That's a metric which can be a function of the offensive system and blocking, but I don't think Tennessee's line was better than Dallas' last year, and its passing game definitely wasn't better at keeping opposing defenses honest. Pollard's average seems a lot more indicative of a guy who was a lot better as a secondary back when Ezekiel Elliott was around than as a featured guy.
Spears was also better, and more explosive, in the passing game. Pollard's 55 catches averaged 5.7 yards per catch and just 4.6 yards per target; Spears' 52 went for 7.4 yards per catch and 5.5 per target. And more big plays: 5 of those receptions (7.7 percent) went for over 20 yards. Pollard had 3 such plays (3.6 percent). Not a huge difference, but looks a little more compelling.
Table shows percent of those big plays among all running backs who caught at least 30 balls a year ago.
| RUNNING BACK RECEIVING, 2023 (MINIMUM 30 CATCHES) | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Player | Rec | Yds | Avg | TD | 20+ | 40+ | Pct |
| Brian Robinson, Was. | 36 | 368 | 10.2 | 4 | 8 | 2 | 22.2% |
| James Cook, Buff. | 44 | 445 | 10.1 | 4 | 7 | 1 | 15.9% |
| Rachaad White, T.B. | 64 | 549 | 8.6 | 3 | 10 | 1 | 15.6% |
| Austin Ekeler, LAC | 51 | 436 | 8.5 | 1 | 5 | 0 | 9.8% |
| Saquon Barkley, NYG | 41 | 280 | 6.8 | 4 | 4 | 1 | 9.8% |
| Breece Hall, NYJ | 76 | 591 | 7.8 | 4 | 7 | 1 | 9.2% |
| Bijan Robinson, Atl. | 58 | 487 | 8.4 | 4 | 5 | 1 | 8.6% |
| Tyjae Spears, Ten. | 52 | 385 | 7.4 | 1 | 4 | 1 | 7.7% |
| Joe Mixon, Cin. | 52 | 376 | 7.2 | 3 | 4 | 1 | 7.7% |
| Aaron Jones, G.B. | 30 | 233 | 7.8 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 6.7% |
| Devin Singletary, Hou. | 30 | 193 | 6.4 | 0 | 2 | 1 | 6.7% |
| Antonio Gibson, Was. | 48 | 389 | 8.1 | 2 | 3 | 1 | 6.3% |
| Kyren Williams, LAR | 32 | 206 | 6.4 | 3 | 2 | 0 | 6.3% |
| Samaje Perine, Den. | 50 | 455 | 9.1 | 0 | 3 | 0 | 6.0% |
| Christian McCaffrey, S.F. | 67 | 564 | 8.4 | 7 | 4 | 1 | 6.0% |
| Roschon Johnson, Chi. | 34 | 209 | 6.1 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 5.9% |
| Rhamondre Stevenson, N.E. | 38 | 238 | 6.3 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 5.3% |
| D'Andre Swift, Phil. | 39 | 214 | 5.5 | 1 | 2 | 0 | 5.1% |
| Jerome Ford, Cle. | 44 | 319 | 7.3 | 5 | 2 | 1 | 4.5% |
| Isiah Pacheco, K.C. | 44 | 244 | 5.5 | 2 | 2 | 0 | 4.5% |
| Alvin Kamara, N.O. | 75 | 466 | 6.2 | 1 | 3 | 0 | 4.0% |
| Jahmyr Gibbs, Det. | 52 | 316 | 6.1 | 1 | 2 | 0 | 3.8% |
| Tony Pollard, Dall. | 55 | 311 | 5.7 | 0 | 2 | 1 | 3.6% |
| Travis Etienne, Jac. | 58 | 476 | 8.2 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 3.4% |
| Alexander Mattison, Min. | 30 | 192 | 6.4 | 3 | 1 | 1 | 3.3% |
| Jaylen Warren, Pitt. | 61 | 370 | 6.1 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 3.3% |
| Jaleel McLaughlin, Den. | 31 | 160 | 5.2 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 3.2% |
| Zach Charbonnet, Sea. | 33 | 209 | 6.3 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 3.0% |
| Josh Jacobs, L.V. | 37 | 296 | 8.0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 2.7% |
| Chuba Hubbard, Car. | 39 | 233 | 6.0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 2.6% |
| Ezekiel Elliott, N.E. | 51 | 313 | 6.1 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 2.0% |
| Javonte Williams, Den. | 47 | 228 | 4.9 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0.0% |
| Kenneth Gainwell, Phil. | 30 | 183 | 6.1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0.0% |
A surprising guy at the top of the table: Brian Robinson, who is probably going to cede passing down work (at a minimum) to newcomer Austin Ekeler. I have no idea how that anomaly happened; no one really thinks of Robinson as explosive. But clearly, he did some good things last year, and maybe we should all have a higher opinion of him. Ekeler, for that matter, also shows well in this regard. Interesting for whoever starts at quarterback for Washington this year.
As for the Titans, we don't have a huge body of work to go on with Spears. But I'm not sure there's any area where Pollard is necessarily better. It may start out as an even committee, but I think there's a lot more upside with Spears. If Pollard's presence keeps his price down in drafts, all the better.
--Andy Richardson