Dowdle is a High Variance Rusher

Actually...I just did the math.

The difference in their YPCs last year is actually a lot tighter than the 0.1 YPC reported on PFR (because Dowdle got rounded up and Warren got rounded down).

Dowdle's YPC is 1076/236 = 4.559 YPC.
Warren's YPC is 958/211 = 4.540 YPC.

The difference is about 0.02 YPC. Assumes I didn't screw up the math here.

So if Dowdle had 4.7 yards less across his 236 carries, he'd have Warren's YPC.

And if Warren had 4.2 yards more across his 211 carries, he'd have Dowdle's YPC.

So while it is technically true that Dowdle had a higher YPC in 2025, I think this tells us the difference is negligible.

Warren (54.5%) had a significantly higher success rate than Dowdle (47.9%). But dowdle did have a good success rate in 2024 (53.6%).

Hopefully the drop was more schematic and coming back to MM helps.

 

Hope Dowdle doesn't make me miss Gainwell. Gainwell was one of the few players who showed up every week in 2025. Dude was a true Steeler. Sucks that Bucs have him now. Wouldn't surprise me if Gainwell ripped off 150+ yards, ground and air.... on October 18th at Tampa.

 

Maybe this is being silly, but can you also post this with a log scale on the y-axis?

I think that would help us see the long tail better.

It will flatten out the differences around the mode though.

 

I really liked Gainwell's performance last year too.

And I agree re: consistent performance.

But I hope that it's Pittman that helps us forget about Gainwell (and the TEs). I don't think having a RB act as WR2 was a good way to run the offense last year.

 

It's available if you want to have a go at it:

https://nflreadpy.nflverse.com/

 

The last time our team MVP left and went to another team the following season was in 1970. Roy Jefferson was the 1969 MVP but being a vocal voice for the NFL players union had Chuck Noll ship him to the Colts after the season.

 

Aargh, you left me hanging. How did he do the following year?

 

Awesome!

Thanks

 

You are correct but that doesn’t fit a narrative so it may be dismissed

We are talking 3/4” different

The only place that would be significant is in KtCP’s hands

 

This just made me feel old

A cut and paste from your site:

A Python package for downloading NFL data from nflverse repositories. This is a Python port of the popular R package nflreadr, designed to provide easy access to NFL data with caching, progress tracking, and modern Python conventions.

 

I like the pretty colors

 

Only if the Steelers like him best

 

The second video is football in shorts so meh

What really jumped out at me in the first video is the downfield people who kept blocking no matter what

George please see above

 

In shorts

 

44 receptions, 749 yards and 7 TD's. And the Colts won the Superbowl that season. So Jefferson went from the 1-13 Steelers to winning it all with the Colts the next year.
Just to add we sent Jefferson to the Colts for Willie Richardson and a fourth round pick. Richardson didn't do much with the Steelers but the fourth round pick turned out to be Dwight White.