Given the proliferation of committee backfields, each NFL defense usually faces two or three running backs each game. Turning in one of the best eight games allowed by a defense is an elite performance.
Below shows how often a player logged the best game allowed by a secondary (RB1), one of the four best performances allowed (top 4), and one of the best eight performances (top 8). With 17 games played, a top-eight game is “above average” among the best running back from each opponent.
The “Better than Average” (BTA) score is a weighting of those games.
Better than average
Quarterbacks | Wide receivers | Tight ends
Bottom line: This is a true measurement of how productive a running back is once the schedule influences are removed. It compares them to other backs who faced that same defense. If a player rates higher here than they did with 2024 fantasy points, it means they were limited by a schedule and are better than their last year’s stats suggest.
No real surprises here, other than Saquon Barkley delivering only half of his games for a top-eight result. He had several monster performances, but his slower start as an Eagle shows up here. Derrick Henry and Alvin Kamara may be at the point where most backs start to age out of the league, but had big years.
Several of the backs missed games due to injury as is common. Notable is that three of the top five were on new teams for the season – a situation that often causes big values in fantasy drafts since the tendency is to devalue a player when they change teams from the perceived risks. But, that is where solid value is created for an otherwise top player.
Chase Brown lacked any top performance but consistently fared well with nine top-eight performances. Joe Mixon and David Montgomery both dropped in the metric with seasons that declined due to injury.
Derrick Henry and Saquon Barkley would be expected here, but James Cook and Chuba Hubbard were not. It was encouraging too to see Breece Hall with a couple of the best performances allowed by a defense amidst an otherwise disappointing year.
