XFL Season Recap - Running Backs Report

March 30, 2020

Antonio Losada evaluates the running back position at the end of the XFL's first season in 2020 now that it has been declared to be over.

When everything was feeling absolutely right. When we had already reached the halfway point of the season and the worst-case scenario had been cleared from the potential endings. When we all had agreed that the XFL was indeed fun, Coronavirus stroke big-time and wipe every single sport from the face of Earth. Nothing to like about it, but a more-than-necessary measure to take.

Perhaps when the XFL comes back next year--and it will, be sure of it--the fact that we were left wondering what could have happened and removed from its playoff fireworks would find us anxious for the 2021 season to start. Until that moment arrives, though, we can only look back at what the first season of this new XFL iteration has been. While it hasn't lasted a lot, a month-and-change of games is more than enough to take a look at the best and worst players of the league and try to reach some fantasy takeaways from the inaugural 2020 XFL season.

This column is a continuation of the weekly Risers/Fallers series, only with a twist to cover the full season instead of just a new batch of weekend games. Today I'll be taking a look at running backs and how they have performed on the season in terms of their receiving and rushing stats. Let's get to it!

XFL Season Recap: Opportunities

When it comes to wide receivers, targets are key. For running backs, not only do you have to account for receiving targets but also for rushing attempts. That is what opportunities put together, and how we count RB-volume and usage of the players at the position. All in all, during the five weeks of playing time the XFL lasted, up to 29 running backs logged at least a rushing attempt or a target, and a grand total of 1,044 opportunities that yielded an average of 36 per player on the year.

Those numbers are far from reality, though, as only 14 of the 29 players reached 35 opportunities through five weeks. This is how individual players have done in terms of cumulative opportunities.

See what I mean? Only 14 players topped 35 opportunities. Of those 14, just nine surpassed the 50-opportunity mark, and just two of them reached more than 75 opportunities (at least 15 per game) on the full season. The difference between those two, though, was staggering. Tampa Bay's DeVeon Smith's 103 opportunities were almost 20 more than those of St. Louis' Matt Jones (84), meaning that Smith had 22% more chances than Jones of racking up points.

That was, in fact, the case with DeVeon Smith. Although he finished the year with the most chances to finish as the RB1, he could only be the RB4 of the year in total PPR behind Cameron Artis-Payne, James Butler, and Lance Dunbar. All of them were more efficient, with Butler posting the highest PPR/OPP of the trio with an average of 1.22 on his 57 opportunities. Dunbar (1.03) was the only other rusher with a PPR/OPP over 1.0 in more than 21 opportunities.

XFL Season Recap: Total Yardage

No wonder the most-used rusher finished the season with the most yardages to his name, receiving- and rushing-numbers combined. The race for the lead wasn't close, and in fact, DeVeon Smith could have stayed out of the field entirely during the last game of the season and still led the league in total yards among RBs. Such was his superiority--and his surplus in opportunities, truth be told.

As is often the case, high volume is not entirely related to high efficiency. The most chances a player has to rack up stats, the harder it is to maintain a high average while doing so. That's why Smith sits just ninth in the yards per opportunity leaderboard while leading the league in opportunities and yardage.

I can concede Martez Carter being a little bit of a "false-positive" in this category given he only played three games and logged 21 opportunities, but both Lance Dunbar and Jhurell Pressley put on tremendously efficient seasons by averaging 5.1 and 4.7 yards per opportunity respectively on the season while getting 59 and 59 chances each.

XFL Season Recap: Rushing vs Receiving

Although a league like the NFL has a much wider population of players and runs a longer 16-game full schedule, that doesn't mean the XFL doesn't call for a breakdown of running backs in terms of rushing and receiving chances. Obviously, having such a small sample as that of only five games played from 29 players is going to limit the outcomes a lot, but that's what we have to work with.

The data can't be made clearer in the chart above. Virtually no running backlogged more targets than rushing attempts, and all who did were just low-usage backs on pitch counts. One player stands out, though: Lance Dunbar.

Dunbar was the only true pass-catching back in the XFL this past season. He only had one more rush than he had targets (30 to 29), and just one other player (Cameron Artis-Payne) had such a balanced usage (47 to 27, still a distant 1.74:1 ratio) when given at least 10 opportunities. This usage-profile, along with the no. 1 mark in yards per opportunity, made possible for Dunbar to finish the year as the RB3 even while ranking just seventh in total opportunities.

Always remember: catching passes is much more valuable than rushing the ball.

XFL Season Recap: Touchdowns

They don't matter a lot given their volatility, but nobody is ever going to say anything negative about touchdowns and their high fantasy value. There was a clear leader at the position in the XFL this season in James Butler, and it is a shame that we could only enjoy two games of Martez Carter because he couldn't have looked much better in the low number of opportunities he had in LA.

I guess the main takeaway of the first XFL season, all things considered, is that Houston was just too good for the league. They had the best quarterback, the best wideout, and the best rusher. They were undefeated on the year and dropping fantasy points all over the place. Kudos to Butler for averaging a score per game and for doing so in just the eighth-most opportunities among all league rushers!

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