Matt Forte still produced RB1 numbers this year despite his backup’s emergence

For the 2015 season, FantasyPros gave me the opportunity to examine running back snap counts and look into the productivity and efficiency of NFL backfields to determine where your running back points went. Most people used a first- or second-round pick on a “can’t-miss” RB1. In some cases, drafters used both.

With the amount of attrition and injury at the position, it’s hard to justify that most years, and this season was no different. Injury, production, performance, and game flow made it one of the most frustrating seasons for so-called RB1s.

Below is the list of the PPR average draft position (MyFantasyLeague.com) for the first 20 running backs in 2015 redraft leagues and where they finished in for the season (Weeks 1-16).

Downright frustrating for fantasy owners. Only two top-10 picks finished with top-10 numbers, and that’s with Forte edging Chris Ivory (ADP 29) by 0.1 points for RB11.

Only eight of the top 20 finished as RB20 or better. Five of the top six finished RB31 or worse.

While injuries and production play a part in where a player ends up on the final list, there are always things out of their control from week to week that may lead to some discouraging numbers for your RB1. This is why we looked at snap counts this season to take a deeper look at what running backs did with the time they were on the field, hoping to get a better idea based on touches and snaps, rather than just the final product.

So who did finish at the top? Where did they come from, how did they do it and with how many opportunities to do so?

Let’s look below at the top-32 scoring running backs to get a snapshot of the players that were started by the majority of leagues. .

Top-32 scoring running backs:

Breaking it Down

Most Offensive Snaps

Only 16 backs this season played in at least half of their team’s snaps. All of them finished RB23 or better.

Fantasy Points Per Snap

Who did the most with their time on the field? Below is the list of the top-32 running backs, in order of points per snap. Rookies Johnson and Gurley lead the way here, ending up in the top 10 in fantasy points by being as efficient with their time on the field as possible.

Langford and Allen finished in the top 10 in points per snap, making the bst of their time with the injuries to Forte and Forsett. Plodding running backs in the top 32 such as Stewart, Yeldon and Gore, made the least of their 600+ snaps on the field.

Touch Per Snap

Being on the field means very little if you’re not getting the ball. Below, we sort the top 32 by touch per snap, seeing who was productive with the ball in their hands, breaking down time on the field even deeper. Only six players touched the ball at least half the time they were on the field, whether it was through the air or on the ground. Out of the bottom 10, eight are considered change-of-pace backs, and if they weren’t getting a pass in the flat, their usage on the field was most likely accounted for as pass protection.

Only Pittsburgh’s Williams and Jacksonville’s Yeldon find themselves on that part of the list; both are in pass-first offenses, even in the red zone. Both had 200+ touches and 600+ snaps and may also be victims of snap volume.

Fantasy Points Per Touch

Looking at it one step further, a touch is great, if you could do something with it. The chart below is in order of point per touch. Only eight players in the top 32 put up more than a point per touch.

Of the eight, only Miller could be considered an every-down back. Remember the change of pace guys from the last section? Sims, Vereen, Sproles, Riddick, Woodhead and Powell are six of the eight.

When they did touch the ball, they were doing something with it. David Johnson became the every-down back at the end of the season but started off as a situational running back and returner. While Woodhead’s conventional role was that of a change-of-pace back, he was on the field for more than half of the team’s snaps, compared to Melvin Gordon’s 36%.

This may be skewed in PPR leagues as their usage in the passing game automatically garners them a point, literally, per reception. As PPR is becoming the new standard, this research will follow that lineage and logic.

For those who were primarily runners, towards the bottom of the list, their average will be worse as their reliance on 10 yards for a point, or a touchdown for six, led to volume-burning production. Top scorers who were used in both the passing and running game found themselves at the top of this board as well.

Final Rank vs. 2015 ADP

Only Forte and Miller repeated top-10 numbers from 2014.

This year’s top 10 scorers, along with Forte and Miller, featured two rookies (Johnson, Gurley), a player coming off suspension (Peterson), a second-year workhorse (Freeman), a veteran who took advantage of a suspension and injury (Williams), an PPR machine (Woodhead) and Ingram and Martin, who finished RB15 and RB52 in 2014, respectively. Next year will most likely look exactly the same in terms of turnover. This shouldn’t be a guide about who to draft and where to draft them, as much as it should serve as a report that would hopefully sway you, the owner and drafter, away from tying your fantasy championship hopes to last year’s production and running backs.

Combining those, along with the amount of empirical data out there pertaining to running backs falling off after a certain number of touches, age and usage, can be a lethal combination. No one is predicting the future, but a guide like this one may help you think twice before salivating over another first-round pick wasted on past production.

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Michael Vincent is a correspondent at FantasyPros. To read more from Michael, check out his archive and follow him @MVtweetshere.