Thread by @DFBeanCounter

Lets talk about everyone's favorite draft day winner: Austin Ekeler.

I had him ranked considerably lower than DLF adp had him before the draft and I will after he won draft day.

The patrons demand answers and I thought you guys might be interested too

(Thread)

First lets talk about his incredible 2019.

I get the excitement. He finished with a 46% opportunity share (#33) and scored 19.3 (#6) fantasy points per game.

That is pretty incredible.

Without Melvin Gordon he rolled up 26.75 ppg. That is Christian McCaffrey level...

It should be noted that huge 26.75 ppg in MG3's absence was fueled by a ridiculous touchdown rate.

Ekeler scored 6 TD's in the first 4 games. 1.5 td's per game.

That pace easily would have put him among the league leaders. 1.5*16 = 24 touchdowns.

That would have put him 5 touchdowns up on CMC and AAJ for the league lead.

If knock that TD rate to a more reasonable .75 rate (12 td's for the season) that would have knocked 18 total points off those first four games or 4.5 ppg.

That would have still given him a stellar 22.25 ppg.

We'll revisit this later.

the bulk of Ekeler's production on the season came through the passing game.

He was #2 in receiving yards with 993 despite only #33 opp share.

On the ground he only had 557 yards (#33).

Before we talk about his piece of the pie lets talk about how big that pie will be compared to 2019.

Phillip Rivers passed for 4,615 yards last season.

That is not insignificant. He was #4 in passing yards.

That's a pretty enormous pie.

Because not all rookie QB's start all 16 games lets look at their yards per game instead.

This is the most productive 1st round rookie passers since 2000.

The top 10 average 250.86 yards per game

The top 20 average 234.83

Extrapolating that over 16 games and we have:

Top 10 - 4,013.76
Top 20 - 3,757.28

That is a far cry from the 4,615 yards that Rivers put up in 2019

Keep in mind this assumes that Herbert will be one of the most productive rookie passers of the past 20 years.

Lets look at if he's just an average passer in terms of yardage...

This is every rookie 1st round QB since 2010.

The average is 194.04 yards per game.

But you'll notice there are some truly atrocious numbers at the bottom and some really good numbers at the top.

Lets just eliminate the top 5 and bottom 5. When we do that we get to 202.67 yards per game.

Extrapolated we would get:

All - 3,104.64
Eliminate top/bottom - 3,242.72

This is where things start getting really concerning.

The change in the pie from year to year could be terrifying.

That represents about a 30% loss on overall passing game volume. Because the bulk of Ekeler's points come via the passing game lets just blanket it at

70% * 19.3 ppg = 13.51 ppg.

That would slot him nicely into the RB21...

This is obvioulsy riddled with assumptions and averages and is completely devoid of the situation and the offense. I get that.

Its just showing that Ekeler isnt walking into the same situation he was thriving in last season.

So what can we expect for his piece of the pie this year?

I honestly have no idea... 😂🤣

My best guess would be more opportunity share this year than last but less than the 4 game sample with no MG3.

2019 full season opp share was 46%
Just the first four games was 64.8%

It should be noted that in the first four games Hunter Henry missed three of them and Mike Williams missed one.

It should also be noted that we all breathed a sigh of relief when LAC did not select a RB in round 1 and that they didnt have their 2nd or 3rd round picks anymore.

And then the first opportunity they had to show us that they also had faith Ekeler could handle the job, they went directly to the RB well and selected Joshua Kelley at 4.06.

Now, I dont normally worry about competition from day 3 picks and I am not in this case either per se

But at the end of the day I think Kelley > Justin Jackson and where as Jackson's skill set is redundant with Ekeler's, Kelley brings a different tool kit.

Kelley will cut into those carries a bit more than Jackson did imo.

So in summary, the pie is likely quite a bit smaller (30% smaller if Herbert has an average season), his pre-MG3 td rate will stabilize, and his opp share probably wont be quite at the 65% pre-mg3 rate.

Somewhere around 22.25*.70 = 15.575 ppg is if he holds his opp share. I think that is his ceiling. I do not think he has the same opp share fwiw

That would have put him in RB12 range.

I suspect Ekeler will produce a decent fantasy RB2 season in 2020.

Prior to the NFL draft his ADP at @DLFootball was RB14. I will be curious to see where he falls in next months now that he has won the draft.

That means that if I am drafting him there I would want to feel confident that he holds that 60-65% role for more than just 2020

I am not of the opinion that he does.

Even after he won the draft I still have him ranked well lower than the pre-draft consensus.

He is my RB19. A player with short term fantasy RB2 potential.