Chris Carson is clearly a better back than Nick Chubb

There is zero doubt in my mind that Chris Carson is a better running back than Nick Chubb. The evidence is obvious, but I’ll walk you through it anyway.

I’ll admit that on the face of it, stating that Chris Carson is better than Nick Chubb is an absurd statement. Chubb has 105 more yards than Carson in exactly the same number of carries. So how can I possibly explain away a hundred-yard difference? Chubb averages 5.16 yards per carry while Carson averages just 4.04. Clearly Chubb is the superior player.

Except he isn’t at all. More than any sport, football players depend on every member of the team to do their job so they can succeed. Without good blocking, a running back can only do so much. When you compare Carson and Chubb, well, it’s never been more clear just how much the offensive line contributes to the running game.

As I said, no matter how great a back is, he needs a key block to get him past the opposing line. And that is precisely the advantage Chubb has over Carson. In fact, it’s the only advantage. This isn’t just rabid 12 talk in support of the Seahawks. I have proof. And in a few minutes, you will too.

Let’s check how the offensive lines of the Seahawks and Browns are rated. First up, we’ll visit footballoutsiders.com. The site has a lot of in-depth metrics and tools that go beyond the usual measurements. This comes in handy when you want to know, oh, how much an offensive line contributes to a running back’s success. Here’s the link to their current O-line rankings.

Seattle Seahawks

Chris Carson deserves better blocking

The first measurement assigns the result of each carry to the line on a sliding scale. For example, if the back loses yardage, 120 percent of the yardage is charged to his line. If he goes for 11 or more yards, none of the yardage is credited to the line. It all evens out, trust me. Or just read their explanations. Anyway, Cleveland’s line is credited with 4.23 yards per carry, while Seattle’s just has 3.79 per attempt. Ahah, you say! But that doesn’t nearly account for the difference between Carson and Chubb. No, but this does.

There are two more categories that are particularly important to this discussion. Those would be Power Success and Stuffed. The former measures all carries on third or fourth down with two or fewer yards to go. The latter is exactly what you think it is; carries in which the back was tackled at or behind the line of scrimmage.

The difference between the Browns and the Seahawks is even larger here. Cleveland hit 67 percent in Power Success, 16th in the league. Seattle was at 54 percent, 34th in the NFL. The results were even worse in hits behind the line of scrimmage. The Browns running backs were stuffed just 14 percent of the time, good for 6th-best in the league. The Seahawks backs were stuffed on 22 percent of their carries, which ranks 23rd. This again shows why Pete Carroll made those alleged “bad” calls against the Rams.

Chris Carson does more on his own

If you don’t cotton to all those new-fangled stats, let’s just get really basic. We’ll head back to my favorite site for stats, pro-football-reference.com for this. We’ll look at advanced stats – but they’re not *too* advanced, don’t worry. We’re looking at two things here, yards before contact and yards after contact. In simpler terms, it’s how many yards a back gains before he’s first hit by the defense, and how many he gains after the hit. Before we get mathy, here’s some eye candy:

Alright, now here are the numbers for Nick Chubb. On average he runs for 3.23 yards before he’s ever touched. That’s a pretty solid gain. Chubb adds another 1.93 yards after that initial hit. That’s how you get to 5.16 yards per carry; you have your offensive line keep defenders off your jersey for the majority of your run, 62.6 percent of your yardage, to be exact.

Now let’s examine the same stats for Chris Carson. On average, he only gets 1.46 yards downfield before he’s hit by a defender. After that hit, Carson picks up another 2.58 yards. And that gives you his average of 4.04 yards per carry. Carson only gets 36 percent of his yardage courtesy of his offensive line. Clearly, Chubb needs to buy his line some steak dinners. Carson can just opt for a bag of burgers.

I would add that Carson has caught 15 of his 17 targets, while Chubb lags behind with 15 of 20. I mean, I guess I did add it, but it really isn’t fair to Chubb. After all, he doesn’t have Russell Wilson throwing to him. I think I’ve done enough to show who the better player really is. I expect Carson will show that today himself. All this being said, Chubb is certainly an excellent back. It’s not his fault he isn’t Chris Carson.