Week 7 kicked off with D’Ernest Johnson smashing on Thursday night. According to the Advanced Stats Explorer, Johnson averaged 4.05 yards after contact with a 23% evasion rate. Sure, that’ll regress with more attempts, but the Broncos’ defense stuffed Johnson on only 5% of his runs in Week 7. He likely won weeks for fantasy managers.
Last week’s theme involved rookies and second-year backs popping atop the leaders in the running back advanced stats. That theme continued after Week 7 with a couple of rising rookies in Khalil Herbert and Michael Carter. After we look through the leaders, we’ll also discuss players to acquire.
Metrics like yards before and after contact, evasion rate, stuff rate, and designed gap rate tell you a lot about how an RB is using his blockers, how effective that blocking is, and how effective that RB is at making would-be tacklers miss — all skills that translate into future production. In this way, the advanced RB stats can help us find waiver wire gems and trade targets before the rest of our league mates.
