Edge Goes to James in Comparison With Hightower

The Football Scientist, KC Joyner, is a Fifth Down contributor. Lab results from “Scientific Football 2009,” to be published in August, are now available for those who preorder the book.

Many of the responses to the Monday post on the Cardinals’ offensive line run blocking metrics were from Arizona fans inquiring about how the Birds’ blocking affected the relative performances of Edgerrin James and Tim Hightower. James was the starter early in the year, lost the job to Hightower after a case of fumbleitis, and then regained it during the playoff run.

There was talk that James got his old gig because he was a postseason veteran who could handle the spotlight, but a metric review shows there might have been more to it than that. I looked at each runner’s yardage when he had a play with no Point of Attack (POA) run-blocking losses and when there was at least one POA loss. Here are those results:

Edgerrin James	Att	Yds	YPA	% of att
All POA wins	85	431	5.1	63.4%
At least one POA loss	49	81	1.7	36.6%
Total	134	512	3.8		Tim Hightower	Att	Yds	YPA	% of att
All POA wins	81	356	4.4	56.6%
At least one POA loss	62	44	0.7	43.4%
Total	143	400	2.8

What was surprising to me was that James and Hightower had a nearly identical number of runs with all POA wins. I would have expected a certain amount of consistency but would not have thought it would be within four carries.
These totals show that Edge was better regardless of whether he received good blocking. He averaged .7 of a yard more per carry than Hightower when given adequate blocking and topped him by a yard when there was at least one POA loss.

The bottom line is threefold. First, if James can average 5.1 YPA runs with all POA wins, I can only imagine what Chris “Beanie” Wells can do. Second, it shows why James seems in no hurry to sign with a team. He knows he has tread left on his tire and isn’t going to underplay his hand because of it. Third, it shows that for all of his fantasy football hype last year (and I was one of those hyping him), from an overall football perspective, at this point Hightower is simply not an everydown running back.

(nytimes.com)