Two-year extension for Jaylen Warren

Najee never hit home runs and he had a bad on base percentage. Especially in his last year.

His YPC is low (no home runs) and his succ% is low (also bad OB% in your baseball analogy). I know you said you don't think YPC is about how frequently a guy has big runs and you said that you don't like succ%. But these are the stats that we have. And they refute arguments like Wizards that Najee only had low YPC because he had a lot of "and short" type carries.

I'd love some evidence for your claim that Najee wore down defenses last year. And presumably that we were better at doing this last year vs. this year. I could see this being plausible as Najee is a bigger back than Warren (although Warren isn't some small scat back).

Do you have any evidence that (1) this happened and (2) it was better last season than this season?

It's an interesting idea. But I don't know how we'd test it.

Bettis used to talk about how he'd wear down defenses. That he'd pound them through the first three quarters (or whatever). But then he'd "get skinny" late in the game. My recollection of what he meant here was that defenders wouldn't really want contact by the end of the game. But they'd go in it. And Jerome would put some kind of move on them and then run by them for bigger gains because they were too worn down to catch him. Or maybe just that they were too beat down to fill the holes that "skinny" Jerome could get through.

 

No I picked Cmac and Henry because they both had alot of carries and yet their 20+ yard runs were on opposite sides of the spectrum. Both had over 300 carries but Henry had 17 and Cmac had 3. The point being even among the best backs, more carries dont result in more 20+ yard runs.

 

Success rate is a subjective statistic that measures circumstances beyond the player's control as much as it measures what they actually do, so no, it is not the same as on-base percentage.

It's not that I dislike success percentage. I see its flaws more clearly than you do.

One bit of evidence would be that the running game was better last year despite defenses being able to focus on it more because the passing game was weaker.

 

Warren contract extension playing for team SUCCESS

the other guy 1 yr show me deal closer to home. success

 

It seems to me like you don't like success rate because it clearly shows that your argument here is incorrect.

FWIW, I think people think more of people who admit they're wrong on the internet because it happens so rarely.

Notice how in this thread, I: (1) made a guess about something (Najee having a higher rate of carries for loss than Warren), (2) then looked for and found the data showed that they were about the same, then (3) I said "I was wrong". I could have argued about being "technically correct" because he (1) does have more carries for loss (because he got more carries) or that (2) he does have a higher rate (because it is higher by some insignificant amount). But doing either of those things would be silly.

I think that's a good process of what to do when you find out you were wrong. And while I'm sure I don't bat 1.00 here, I generally try to admit when I'm wrong when the data shows that I'm wrong (as I did up thread).

And it's OK that you're wrong about Najee being better at short yardage or being more consistent or whatever before we had easily accessible data that showed the opposite. It was a reasonably hypothesis. And data like succ% was mostly proprietary until recently. But now we know that it's not the case.

Re: the claim you made about Najee wearing down defenses.

In your previous post, you said: Like many here, you are too focused on the handful of home runs to understand the value of the steady stream of singles and doubles that can wear down a defense.

I asked if there was any support for that because I think it's at least plausible (even though Najee didn't seem to benefit from this himself).

The evidence you're offering for your claim is: One bit of evidence would be that the running game was better last year despite defenses being able to focus on it more because the passing game was weaker.

Can you walk me through the logic here? I assume you mean that the passing game was weaker last year? How does that show that Najee wore defenses down more? Or that it helped us more this year than last year?

Maybe the argument makes sense. But I don't understand what it is.

 

So you're argument seems to be: Guys with different rates of getting 20+ yard carries end up with a different number of 20+ yard carried even if they have the same number of carries.

Again, I think that's true. But it doesn't really have anything to do with the argument I was making.

My argument was: Najee and Warren have essentially the same rate of getting 20+ yard carries when they are in a similar role. So (1) if you gave them a similar number of carries, they'll likely end up with a similar number of 20+ yard carries AND (2) talking about how Najee had more 20+ yard carries doesn't really differentiate him from Warren because the different is almost entirely driven by the difference in the number of carries.

Note how that's different than talking about 40+ yard carries. This year, Warren literally delivered infinitely more 40+ yard carries than Najee did in 2024 (and across Najee's entire career). And since Najee has a very large sample size (he's something like 14th in career carries of active RBs IIRC...data is up thread), it's pretty reasonable to assume that Warren will always deliver more 40+ yard carries than Najee. Even though it's not something Warren is good at. This is like how when Mason outplayed Kenny, it wasn't a sign that Mason was good. It was a sign that Kenny was bad.

 

My friend, I hate this whole argument because Warren is here, and Najee isn't, and I don't like downing the guys we have, and praising the guys we don't. I don't know why, but it makes me feel funny, but I don't give a (how do I say this nice) crap about comparing one RB against another when one has never had to carry the load like the other. I don't care how many stats , charts, or averages people show its not the same for more reasons than I care to type out.
I said I wouldn't be drawn back to this debate, and I keep breaking my own promises to myself.
With all that said.
Go Warren, Gainwell, and KJ.

 

That's certainly fair.

FWIW, I think we kept the correct guy.

If it matters to you, this isn't me dumping on a guy because he left. I was saying most of these things re: Najee when he was here too (although it was harder to get succ%, so that part was speculation based on watching the games...that turned out to be supported by the data).

Strongly agree with the last sentence here. And it's really all that matters now.

I'd especially love to see KJ do something. I really wanted him to emerge as the RB1 for us this year. But on the bright side, we got way, way more than I though we'd get out of Gainwell (maybe the biggest thing I got wrong about this team in the preseason). ETA: Although I also thought that adding Ramsey as a CB would help us solve the issue of teams throwing on us so quickly and get our sack numbers up. So that's (at least) two things I got really wrong this year. I also thought the decline from Watt would be slower than it appears to be.

If Warren is really sick, maybe KJ gets a chance to come in an make a difference. But my guess is that Warren plays and Johnson doesn't get a helmet.

 

Thats also not true, last Season Warren had 120 carries and 1 run over 20 yards. There are too many factors that you cant compare 1 to 1 to make that case. Different o-lines, coordinators, opponents, roles.

 

Preachin it:

 

Please don't falsely claim I don't understand something simply because I see it more clearly than you do.

Success rate is subjective. It is based on circumstances beyond the individual player's control. That makes it a poor statistic that people like you rely on to prop up your flawed arguments.

Speaking of focusing too much on home runs, Warren's numbers this season are propped up by two of them. Sure, the two 45-yard touchdown runs against the Lions were impactful. They don't win that game without them, but they also came against a defense with horrendous safeties (because the starters were both injured). Without those two runs, Warren had 868 yards and averaged 4.15 yards per carry this season.

By the way, Warren was a non-factor when it mattered most last night. The Steelers gave up on using him. Throw out his five meaningless carries for 19 even more meaningless yards when the Steelers waved the white flag and ran out the clock on their final possession. Before that, Warren carried seven times for 24 yards, far less than four per carry, and caught one pass for four yards. But a few of his runs got first downs, so I'm sure you will start babbling about his success rate.

 

I agree with you that without the big runs his YPC goes down.

This is why I told you up thread that YPC was a proxy for how frequently a player gets big runs. This is something you didn't agree with then. But you do now. I'm glad that I helped you learn something about how YPC works in this thread!

YPC tells us how frequently a RB gets big carries. Succ% tells us how often they keep us on schedule.

Note also that Warren's YPC without the big carries that drive it up is still higher than Najee's YPC in his final year with us (4.0) and his career average (3.9). This supports the argument I've consistently been making in this thread: Warren isn't good RB1, but he's an improvement over Najee.

Knowing that it was better for the team to let Najee go doesn't mean his replacement was great. Just like how letting Kenny go was good for the team. Wilson/Fields were better. But still not that good and worth trying to improve.

 

Two runs is frequently? No, two plays is a fluke.

Average per carry measures what a back actually does. Success percentage is a subjective measure based on things beyond the control of the player.

The running game got worse without Harris, but you think that was the right call. Sure.

 

How frequently something happens == (number of times it happens) / (number of attempts)

The running game did not get worse. The only metric that shows that it total yards. Which wasn't much different despite having significantly more carries last year.