Fullback? Who Cares About Fullback?
Marty from today's presser:
On whether he expects FB Dan Klecko to be available for Sunday's game and if not, is he confident that FB Kyle Eckel can step in and play well: "Well, we'll see on that. Dan Klecko is day to day, so we'll see. (RB) Correll Buckhalter, you saw him last game, he will play fullback for us. Then Kyle is getting quite a few reps there, so we'll see on Dan, if he's available. Then, Buck will play that fullback spot. Then Kyle has taken a lot of reps at a couple of different spots, but the fullback spot as well."
First of all, I defy anyone to explain what on Earth Marty was attempting to say there.
Beyond that, I've got some hot, fresh new stats that probably explain why the Eagles' coaching staff isn't all that concerned about who plays fullback these days anyway. By way of introduction, I should say that I've been looking for these kinds of numbers for a long, long time. I knew FO had them, but was never able to find them anywhere public.
But I got word in the last week or so about ESPN.com's new split stats, and yeah, let's just say they're maybe the coolest thing on the Internet wearing clothes.
Obligatory IgglesBlog chart:
Thomas Tapeh was perhaps more effective than was popularly believed.
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Also, now everyone's making tables.
Well, those charts sort of prove what I felt from the beginning. That a good fullback is nice, but this team rarely operates that way anyway. It's mainly single sets and shotguns.
Posted by: Eric | January 08, 2009 at 04:25 PM
Well that's a big old Chicken/Egg question right there though, isn't it?
Look at the attempts numbers from last year to this year. They were MUCH more likely to run out of the I last year and did it with much greater success.
Sadly, I don't have week-to-week information there. If we did, we could get a pretty good sense of the evolution of Klecko.
Posted by: Derek | January 08, 2009 at 04:34 PM
Are you sure you're not giving Tapeh more credit than he deserves? Westbrook led the league in yards from scrimmage because he was superman last year (and less injured than he is now?), and he had Shawn Andrews blocking for him on the right side. Maybe it was the fullback, I don't know, but the front level blocking has to come into play somewhere.
Posted by: Ajay | January 09, 2009 at 01:12 AM
Ah, never mind. Perhaps he was more effective than popularly believed. I wrongly assumed that you made a conclusion about Tapeh based solely on these aggregate stats. How about profootballfocus.com? Do they have anything that helps?
Oh, and this could be the Eagles media persona working its magic. Even if you were legitimately concerned about a position/player, why let this on to your opponent 2 days before a divisional playoff game? No. You play to win. You plug Jon Dorenbos in there at FB if you have to and you're still fine.
Posted by: Ajay | January 09, 2009 at 01:18 AM
My god, I had no idea the Eagles ran I-formation that often last year or this year. Half their runs came out of the I last year. This used to be a one-back 3WR or 2TE offense.
The funny thing about this year to me was how, once they didn't have an FB, they seemed to run 2-backs all the fricking time. But now I see that, apparently, they did that last year too.
I still think you can work around not having a fullback by running out of 1-back heavy sets (2 TE, unbalanced lines, etc), but the Eagles just haven't done that (mostly because they don't seem to like blocking TEs). Maybe you move a lineman back there when you need one. But you need to be super prepared for that, have those situational "FBs" primed to go out there and do it, and Reid's teams are never that good at multipurposing players - Klecko being the huge exception that proves it.
Posted by: Thorin | January 09, 2009 at 08:54 AM
Looking at those tables, anyone else notice that the eagles RBs have their highest yards per carry when lots of receivers are on the field. Maybe that's a down-and-distance thing, but both BWest and Buck have their best averages with the fewest blockers on the field.
Posted by: Thorin | January 09, 2009 at 08:58 AM
Yep. Another way of saying that is that the numbers go down for every tight end you put on the field.
@Ajay -- I don't think you can say anything conclusive about Tapeh based on a single number, but look at Westbrook's other stats. Throw out split backs for small sample sizes. He's only slightly down this year in shotgun and he's actually up this year in single back. But then he's waaay down in the I formation. Buck shows the same pattern: close, close, close, off the table.
Again, we don't know how much of these stats were built up early in the year when it was Hunt, Buck and DT Klecko running at fullback, but they look pretty definitive.
Posted by: Derek | January 09, 2009 at 09:30 AM
Derek, I'm curious if there's been any improvement as the season's progressed. Do we have I-formation numbers for quarters of the season? Could also give us a comparison of Klecko vs. Hunt. I'd also like to see if there's any evidence that Klecko has improved.
Posted by: Jason H | January 09, 2009 at 12:20 PM
Nope, nope and nope. Too bad I didn't find these sooner.
With that said, there's no chance that the stats would say anything other than:
Late Klecko > Early Klecko >>> Tony Hunt.
Posted by: Derek | January 09, 2009 at 12:32 PM
The Eagles need to look for a big tough goal line sort of runner in the draft this year. Like maybe beanie wells.
http://www.fanzak.com/fzrants/2009_NFL_Mock_Draft_10
Posted by: Ryan | January 09, 2009 at 03:03 PM
Of course, as Football Outsiders would attest, to really appreciate what these numbers show, you need to know what situations these runs came in.
Meaning: If we use the I formation primarily for short yardage situations, where we need 1 yard to get a first down, then a 2 yard average is just great. If we're averaging 2 yards where we need 5, then it's a different story.
Posted by: Andrew2 | January 09, 2009 at 03:21 PM