Joseph Addai at Number 2?

For many fantasy football managers, the number one and two selections are both obvious and although I do agree with the consensus number one selection in LaDainian Tomlinson, I believe there is a better selection than Adrian Peterson at number two. Many believe Adrian Peterson is the second best running back but in the following article I will breakdown why I believe that Joseph Addai could be a better selection.
First of all let us take a look at historical statistics for players similar to Addai and Peterson and find out how they performed in their next season. Since 1983, there have been 15 running backs that had between 250 and 350 fantasy points per game (in a point per reception system) in their second season and had over 200 carries in their third season (it is safe to assume that Addai will have over 200 carries in 2008). The average improvement for those 15 running backs was 6% which is quite impressive. To put that number in perspective, if we apply the same criterions but look at running backs in their third to sixth NFL season, they decrease by an average of 6%. Furthermore, of those 15 running backs there are six that improved by 13% or more and had over 350 fantasy points in their third season, Steven Jackson in 2006 being the latest one. On the other hand, there are three that decreased by more than 10%, the latest being Frank Gore last season. If we apply the same criterions to rookie running backs we notice that on average they improve by a very impressive 12%. If we only apply these numbers we would project Adrian Peterson to have 330 fantasy points while Addai would have 311. This is the main reason why most people believe Peterson is the obvious choice at number two but there are some other factors to look at.
Those 6% and 12% improvements are a good general rule but it is also important to take a look at how Addai and Peterson can get those improvements. There are 41 players who had between 250 and 350 fantasy points in one of their first three NFL seasons and had over 200 carries in their next season. Those 41 players improved by an average of 4.6%. However, five of those players had over 5.0 yards per carry and their fantasy points decreased by an average of 2% which is a concern for Adrian Peterson who had 5.6 yards per carry in his rookie year. It is a small sample size but the drop in performance is also 2% for the 12 players who had over 4.5 yards per carry. Of those 12 players, there are five that improved by 10% or more but none by 20% or more and there are four whose number of points decreased by over 20%. If we now take a look at the 19 players who had between 3.8 and 4.4 yards per carry (Addai had 4.1), they improved by an average of 10.5%. There are 8 of those 19 that improved by more than 10%, including six by more than 20% and only one had a decrease in performance of more than 10%. If we take the average of these numbers and the numbers found in the previous paragraph we get an average improvement of 5% for Peterson and 8% for Addai. There are no other major statistical differences between these two so we can now look at other reasons why each might be better or worse in 2008.
In 2007, Indianapolis lost their starting left tackle Tony Ugoh from weeks 8 to 12, starting right tackle Ryan Diem from weeks 12 to 17, backup tackle Daniel Federkeil from weeks 9 to 17 as well as Marvin Harrison and Anthony Gonzalez for most of the season. Addai missed the week 5 game but in the other five games where everyone was healthy, Addai had 100 carries for 492 yards, 5 touchdowns and 15 receptions for 82 yards. If we project these numbers over a 16 games season it would give Addai 326 fantasy points in a point per reception scoring system and 278 in a non-PPR league. The Colts did lose their starting right guard Jake Scott this off-season which will hurt but the impact will be much less than for those injuries because his replacement will have an entire training camp to work with the line. On the other hand, the Minnesota Vikings did not have a single injury to their offensive line in 2007 and lost their starting fullback in Tony Richardson in the off-season. An interesting statistic is that in the nine games that Richardson has missed over the past two seasons, the Vikings averaged only 4.1 yards per carry as opposed to the 5.0 yards per carry average when he played. Thomas Tapeh should be an adequate replacement but those statistics are quite impressive for Richardson and his loss will hurt the Vikings. Another factor to consider is that starting left tackle Bryant McKinnie is likely to be suspended by the NFL for the beginning of the season because of off the field issues. If McKinnie is suspended it will create inconsistency along the line for the first few games and will hurt the running game. The Vikings did add Bernard Berrian who is a deep threat and could help the running game slightly but the effect is likely minimal.
The final aspects to look at are the injuries and threats on the team to steal carries from these two running backs. Addai missed only one game in two NFL seasons and had a few minor injuries in college that sidelined him for a couple of games. On the other hand, Peterson missed two games in his rookie season in the NFL, had a collarbone injury that sidelined him for a few weeks in 2006 and a high ankle sprain that sidelined him for four games the year before. In terms of carries, the Colts did add Dominic Rhodes and Mike Hart in the off-season which is likely to limit Joseph Addai’s carries to somewhere between 260 and 300 but Addai should continue to receive the goal line carries. Peterson had 238 carries in 14 games and should receive more this year but the Vikings limited him last season after his injury and will likely try to keep him under 20 carries per game this season. Peterson is probably going to have around 280 carries and like Addai he is quite unlikely to receive more than 300.
Addai and Peterson had a very similar number of fantasy points per game last season but the average fantasy manager expects Peterson to improve more than Addai because he is one year younger. As we saw in the first part of this article it is a good assumption but Peterson does not have much room to improve. Peterson would have had 272 carries over 16 games last season and it is hard to believe he will get much more than that this season. Moreover, he had 5.6 yards per carry and as we saw in the second part that number is expected to drop. He is also unlikely to improve much over his 13 touchdowns this season because the Vikings offense remains pretty average. On the other hand is Joseph Addai who is on a Colts offense that was devastated by injuries last season and he has plenty of room to improve in yards per carry and receptions. In conclusion, I believe that Joseph Addai is by far the better choice in a point per reception league and although it is pretty close in a non-PPR league I would also go with Addai because he is a much safer pick since he is more durable and plays on a better team.

Full Running Back Rankings and Projections (Point Per Reception)
Full Running Back Rankings and Projections (No Point Per Reception)