True Player Values - Running Backs, Week 3

After a lot of work to our database program (there were some errors in the matrix solving algorithm), we finally came up with True Player Values through the first 3 weeks of the season. For those of you that don't want to read down to find out what True Player Values are, they basically adjust a player's stats for the defense that he faced.

One thing that I found out after the program spat out the results is that at this point in the season, the meaning of True Player Values is hard to interpret. The reason for this is that one outstanding performance in three games can tilt the overall rankings way too much. My first inclination to fix this problem was to average this year's defensive ratings with last year's, to get some stability in the ratings, or to use the last few weeks of last season to get more games in the equation. The problem is, I don't know exactly how many weeks of games I need to use until the numbers start to be reliable. So, for this season, I am just going to publish the numbers from this year's games, and we will hopefully see when the numbers start to make sense. My guess is that this will occur around week 8. Using this information, we can have a better idea of how to adjust these numbers for next season.

Of course, we could find that these calculations are correct and the guys on the top of the list this week will wind up being the statistical leaders for the year, but I doubt it.

Since these numbers right now are just "for fun," I will only post them sporadically, on slow fantasy news days.

So here are the league's top rushers, using True Player Values:

Name	Rush	Ru Yards	Ru TDs
Jamal Lewis	44	456	0
Marion Barber	62	411	2.9
Chris Perry	59	398	1.8
Willie Parker	66	375	1.1
Ryan Grant	40	326	0
Steven Jackson	50	320	0
Clinton Portis	65	318	2.1
Chris Johnson	50	286	0
Frank Gore	60	279	2
Steve Slaton	31	267	0.8
Adrian Peterson	65	264	0.6
Michael Turner	59	262	1.8
Matt Forte	73	254	0.7
Marshawn Lynch	60	254	2.5
Julius Jones	61	223	1
Jonathon Stewart	31	222	2.3
Darren McFadden	44	214	0.3
DeAngelo Williams	39	210	0
Joseph Addai	43	203	1.6
Ladanian Tomlinson	57	202	0.9
Brian Westbrook	42	195	1.6
Selvin Young	26	190	0.6
Brandon Jacobs	50	179	0.5
Edgerin James	62	177	0
Earnest Graham	37	174	0.3
Fred Taylor	49	165	0
Thomas Jones	49	160	0.6
Felix Jones	18	158	1.1
Lendale White	49	156	1.8
Reggie Bush	42	150	0.8

The top 5 rushers in the league, in terms of real yardage, are 1) Micheal Turner, 2) Adrian Peterson, 3) Julius Jones, 4) Matt Forte, and 5) Frank Gore. Those guys rank 12th, 11th, 15th, 13th, and 9th on this list. All of these guys have had big days that have been discounted because they were against terrible teams, such as the Lions, Colts, or Rams. Furthermore, the Lions, Colts, and Rams have really bad defensive ratings because they gave up a lot of yards to these guys, which penalizes the players even more. This is one of the effects that I think will go away after a few more weeks of stats are accumulated.

It is interesting to note that Jamal Lewis has been running better than anyone according to these stats, because he has faced Dallas, Pittsburgh, and Baltimore, three teams that give up less than 50% of the rushing yards of a league average defense. When Cleveland faces lesser run defenses, Lewis should be fine.

Its also interesting to see Chris Perry so high. He has faced Baltimore, Tennessee, and the Giants, also three much better than average defenses. The problem with both Perry and Lewis is that both of their teams have brutal schedules in terms of run defenses, so they won't get many opportunities to show just how good they are.

Ryan Grant, on the other hand, will be facing some lesser run defenses in coming weeks, so it will be interesting to see if he breaks out.

NOTE: A previous version of this post had a rounding problem that gave everyone either 0 or 1 TD. This has been fixed.

NOTE: Another bug was found in the database that invalidates all these numbers. An updated post, with correct numbers and more analysis, is found here.