LeSean McCoy is Right

LeSean McCoy recently ignited debate amongst football fans, and even from some players, by saying that he’s the best running back in the NFL. I tend to agree with him based off of his production and his versatility. However, conventional wisdom says that Adrian Peterson is the best back in the league. One could even argue that Peterson will one day be regarded as the best running back in league history. Although I contend that Barry Sanders will always hold that title. Either way, McCoy’s comments and the backlash that followed got me thinking: Who is the best running back in the league? When considering this, I don’t only want to look at rushing stats, as running backs need to contribute in the passing game these days, so I’m going to look at them as well. To make this a little more interesting, I’m going to compare the top-5 running backs (stats wise) from the 2013 season. This includes McCoy, Peterson, Jamaal Charles, Matt Forte, and Alfred Morris. For comparisons sake I’ll be looking at stats from 2011-2013, a good although not completely telling window. All stats for this post were found courtesy of ESPN at www.espn.go.com/nfl/statistics.

                Rush     Rush      Rush                 Rec.    Rec.     Rec.   Total   Total 

    Yards    Avg.       TD      Rec.        Yards  Avg.     TD     Yards    TD       

McCoy:

2011:         1,309    4.8          17        48         315     6.6           3        1,624    20

2012:            840    4.2           2         54         373     6.9           3        1,213      5

2013:          1,607    5.1          9         52         539    10.4          2        2,146    11

Average:    1,252     4.7         9.3      51.3       409    7.97        2.7       1,661    12

Peterson:

2011:            970     4.7         12        18         139      7.7          1         1,109    13

2012:         2,097     6.0         12        40         217      5.4          1         2,314    13

2013:         1,266     4.5         10        29         171      5.9          1         1,437    11

Average:  1,444.3    5.1       11.3       29        175.7   6.3           1        1,620  12.3

Charles:

2011+:            83     6.9          0          5             9       1.8          1             92     1 

2012:         1,509      5.3         5         35         236       6.7         1         1,745    6

2013:         1,287      5.0        12        70         693       9.9         7         1,980   19         

Average:    959.7     5.7        5.7       36.7     312.7     6.1         3       1,272.3  8.7  

Forte:

2011:          997       4.9         3          52         490       9.4        1        1,487      4

2012:       1,094       4.4         5          44         340       7.7        1        1,434      6 

2013:       1,339       4.6         9          74         594       8.0        3        1,933     12

Average: 1,143.3    4.6        5.7       56.7      474.7      8.4      1.7       1,618     7.3

Morris*:

2012:       1,613      4.8        13         11          77         7.0         0        1,690     13

2013:       1,275      4.6          7           9          78         8.7         0        1,353       7

Average:  1,444      4.7        10         10        77.5        7.9         0       1,521.5   10

All five of these players should, and very often do, make up the first five picks of fantasy football drafts. The order that they go in depends on the mindset of individual fantasy owners, with Peterson being the first pick a majority of the time. That’s fine and all for fantasy football, but in real life I’ll take McCoy. Peterson has more rushing yards but McCoy is more involved in the overall game. For my money McCoy is the best running back in football today, Forte is second, and Peterson comes in third.

Please share your thoughts about who you think the best running back in the NFL is and why.

+ Although all of the backs on this list suffered a bad injury at some point, this is the season that Charles blew out his knee in the second game of the season.

*Morris’ rookie year was 2012. His average is based on two years worth of stats.