Fantasy Football: Ryan Mathews and the Infinite Sadness

Diving into Ryan Mathews’ 2012 numbers is a terrifying plunge into a deep, dark well of never-ending woe.

I try to challenge any of the following: my preconceived notions, infernal groupthink, and firm conclusions based on small sample sizes. This goes for anything – politics, food, hair care – but especially for fantasy football.

My attempt to find light where others only found doom and/or gloom was twofold: I read every word written about the beleaguered San Diego Chargers’ running back over the past couple months, and I sliced and diced and parsed and cherry-picked his horrid 2012 statistics to see if there was even a sliver of hope for a bounce back 2013 season.

Here’s a quick rundown of how Mathews’ offseason is going…

• He called his teammates complacent.

• His teammates said they vomit before every game and asked Mathews to speak for himself.

• Mathews thinks excessive contact is the reason for his ongoing injury issues.

• Mathews has been deemed too muscular for his own good – a trait that may have contributed to his injury woes.

• The Chargers’ new general manager said Mathews is a fine back but there’s no way in hell he’s going to be a foundation back in coach Mike McCoy’s offense.

• The Chargers signed Danny Woodhead, effectively murdering Mathews’ point-per-reception prospects, if, indeed, he had any with which to begin.

Now to the numbers game, the one in which I gave Mathews every statistical benefit of the doubt, thinking that maybe by eliminating the games that saw former head coach Norv Turner play Ronnie Brown and Jackie Battle over Mathews – for good reason, mostly – I’d find a gem that just needed a nice dusting.

First step: finding out how many total touches it takes to be a top-12 running back. The per-game touch average of RB12s from 2011 (Frank Gore) and 2012 (Chris Johnson) was 18.4, so I threw out every game that saw Mathews receive fewer than 18 combined runs and receptions.

That left seven games from which to draw the sunniest possible conclusion about what he may or may not do in 2013. The results were the direct opposite of pretty.

• Mathews, in his seven 18-touch games, was the 14^th highest scoring fantasy running back.

• Mathews ranked 32^nd in points per opportunity during those seven contests, behind such running back luminaries as Felix Jones and Daniel Thomas. For the uninitiated, that means 31 runners averaged more fantasy points every time they received a carry or caught a pass out of the backfield.

• Mathews was third in carries during that stretch, tied with Doug Martin and just four totes behind King Workhorse Arian Foster. Mathews had 26 more carries than Ray Rice, who managed to outscore Mathews by 22 fantasy points during those seven weeks.

• Mathews, who sported a grotesque 3.8 yards per carry average in 2012, somehow, someway posted an even worse average in those seven games (3.6 YPC).

• Mathews’ elusive rating, according to Pro Football Focus, was below plodder Vick Ballard.

• Mathews’ breakaway percentage, another PFF measure, was 6.9 percent, slightly better than Mikel Leshoure, also a confirmed plodder (seeing a trend?) and only a little behind Adrian Peterson, who posted a breakaway percentage of 56.5.

Mathews performed like a replacement-level running back in 2012, sometimes even worse. Not even compiling Mathews’ best games can change that, and I think that could be the most damning indictment to date – a bold statement, considering the unspeakable things fantasy owners said about Mathews during last year’s teeth-gnashing Sundays.

Hope from rotoViz?

I took my desperate search for statistical hope to rotoViz’s similarity score app, which uses last year’s numbers to provide a range of possible outcomes for fantasy commodities in 2013. Throwing out every game in which Mathews didn’t touch the football 18 times, it seems his most hopeful comparable is Edgerrin James in 2003, when the then-Colts stud back ran for 1,259 yards and 11 touchdowns.

That’s the rosiest possible snapshot of what Mathews’ 2013 season could be like, if he stays healthy, if Woodhead doesn’t cut into his production, and if he earns the trust of teammates and coaches. Mathews’ rotoViz projections include a horrifyingly low fantasy floor, which you’d expect after sifting through his peripheral stats.

Too many of Mathews’ comparables had yards per carry averages below 4 and close to no pass game production. The James comparison is nice, but again, it seems that projection hinges on a laundry list of “ifs.” In fantasy football, guys with a lot of “ifs” attached to their prospects are considered fliers. I don’t see why Mathews would be different.

Mathews is being drafted in the middle of the fourth round in MyFantasyLeague mock drafts. That’s too rich for my blood, even as it becomes clear that the supply of halfway-reliable running backs will dictate runs on the position early in 2013 redrafts.

Everyone becomes a value if their average draft position drops far enough, even running backs with epic injury histories, too much muscle, and no confidence among teammates and coaches. That’s why I’d never say never about any player in any year.

The white-hot fire of Hades might have to singe Mathews’ ADP before I hold my nose and draft him this summer.