I think what he was saying is that outside of one good game the others
combined have been mediocre. When looked at from that perspective Jones is getting like 3.8 per carry which is ok but nothing special.
Looking at his game by game YPC it looks like he has way to high a variance to be reliable, which is what I would rather have in a back. Also it's interesting to note that in his one stellar game 1/3 of his yards came on a single carry. So without that one single run in which it appears the line was stacked and he broke through his overall YPC would probably dip below 3.5, which is not very good.
I don't really see how this matters at all. When comparing two players all that matters is what they do with the opprtunity they are given. Despite the fact Smith had one more game than Jones prior to this week they were only
five rushing attempts apart. Smith cannot be held responsible for getting less rushes per five games than Jones, especially when far more than the backs skill goes into determining how many attempts they get.
You could just as easily say that comparing Smith and Jones
now, after this week is unfair because now Jones has like 20 more attempts. Obviously Jones is going to have more yards in five games when Smith is getting 80% of the carries Jones is. All that proves is that as carries goes up so does yardage.
By your definition, a back that carries it 370 times in a season for 1400 yards is better than a back that carries it 310 for 1275 yards because the first back "Has more yards in the same number of games (16)" even though the second back is clearly superior averaging over 4 YPC while the first one is running a league average 3.7 and got his yards through attrition. And just for reference, 370 to 310 is pretty much the same ratio as Jones carries to smith carries.
Now I know you'd take back #2 in my example above I'm just trying to illustrate that just because games played is not equal doesn't mean you can't compare the backs. Either way, I think stats like YPC mean jack for some of the reasons I said above. It's way too prone to big plays and big plays are as much a function of field position as they are the player.
I instead like the methods at footballoutsiders.com.
Looking at their ratings (not updated for today) Smith is league average in effcieny while Jones is 8.8% above league average. That's in DVOA which is a good measure of "who does what with the opportunity given". The stat which factors in stuff like getting more carries cause your the main guy is PAR. Jones win here as well being 11th in the league while Smith is 16th. I think Smith is doing quite well considering how much older he is than Jones. I don't expect Smith to stay as productive as he is but that's not the point of my post.
couldnt agree more
