I was curious about running back touchdowns this season since my player was getting yards but not touchdowns, so I was curious to see how much rushing touchdowns have to do with just getting carries near the goal line or if some running backs are more skilled than others at getting into the end zone. For this article I looked at red zone touchdown rates for the top 9 running backs (the 7 starting backs and the 2 in the Otters’ committee). I was planning to look at red zone carries, but since 20 yard runs are pretty rare, I decided to cut it down to 10 yards. This ended up being a good choice because none of the running backs I tracked had a touchdown longer than 10 yards. However, from the running backs I tracked, 56 of their 60 touchdowns (93%) were from within the 5 yard line, so I decided to just look at stats from within the 5 yard line since I didn’t think it was fair to bring down running backs’ percentages because they had more carries outside of the 5 yard line where touchdowns were not very common (Also when I say red zone in this article, I’ll be referring to within the 5 yard line rather than the 20 yard line as it usually is). Here are the stats:
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It looks like my theory that Tweed’s lack of touchdowns came from a lack of red zone carries was right as Tweed had the lowest number of carries from within the 5 yard but the highest conversion percentage. However, Tweed’s percentage is probably skewed somewhat from having a lot less carries within the 5 yard line than other running backs so I think the difference is not as big as it appears. The next best running back from within the 5 yard line was Bubba Nuck who received the next lowest number of carries. Interestingly the two best red zone running backs were the only two who received less than 10 carries within the 5 yard line. Some of this is probably due to a lower amount of carries skewing the percentage a bit, but the numbers make sense as these are two of the best running backs in the league. One stat that surprised me was that Reg Mackworthy’s low touchdown rate since he is the second highest TPE running back in the league and had the second highest amount of touchdowns. Erlich Burnsman was the other double digit touchdown running back but he was a more efficient red zone rusher with the third best conversion rate from within 5 yards. I would have expected Mackworthy to be the more efficient of the two double digit touchdown running backs since he has a lot more TPE, but Burnsman has done a great job as a rookie. Another interesting trend was that all of Ardie Savea’s 11 carries from within the 5 yard line were on the two yard line or closer, which may be part of the reason he had such a high percentage although he is also one of the better running backs in the league. Overall, I would say I think the main factor in rushing touchdowns comes down to the number of carries a running back gets near the goal line but it looks like running backs can improve their goal line efficiency with more TPE.
It looks like my theory that Tweed’s lack of touchdowns came from a lack of red zone carries was right as Tweed had the lowest number of carries from within the 5 yard but the highest conversion percentage. However, Tweed’s percentage is probably skewed somewhat from having a lot less carries within the 5 yard line than other running backs so I think the difference is not as big as it appears. The next best running back from within the 5 yard line was Bubba Nuck who received the next lowest number of carries. Interestingly the two best red zone running backs were the only two who received less than 10 carries within the 5 yard line. Some of this is probably due to a lower amount of carries skewing the percentage a bit, but the numbers make sense as these are two of the best running backs in the league. One stat that surprised me was that Reg Mackworthy’s low touchdown rate since he is the second highest TPE running back in the league and had the second highest amount of touchdowns. Erlich Burnsman was the other double digit touchdown running back but he was a more efficient red zone rusher with the third best conversion rate from within 5 yards. I would have expected Mackworthy to be the more efficient of the two double digit touchdown running backs since he has a lot more TPE, but Burnsman has done a great job as a rookie. Another interesting trend was that all of Ardie Savea’s 11 carries from within the 5 yard line were on the two yard line or closer, which may be part of the reason he had such a high percentage although he is also one of the better running backs in the league. Overall, I would say I think the main factor in rushing touchdowns comes down to the number of carries a running back gets near the goal line but it looks like running backs can improve their goal line efficiency with more TPE.
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