Two years ago, I looked at running back heat maps for the 2015 season; that was a fun article, so let’s update those numbers for 2017. This builds off of yesterday’s post about yards per carry.

Last season, Steelers running back Le’Veon Bell led the NFL in rushing attempts. How did Bell fare? Well, he had a slightly below-average 4.02 yards per carry average, but that was due to a lack of big plays. You may be as shocked as I was to learn that Bell didn’t have a single rush go for even 30 yards; his long of the year was a 27-yard rush against the Chiefs. It’s hard to stand out in yards per carry without big runs, and Bell is a good example of how you can still be an effective runner without big gains.

Bell rushed for positive yards on 85% of his carries; that’s very good, because the average among all running backs with at least 100 carries was 80%. In fact, Bell was 5% or 6% above average at gaining at least 1, 2, or 3 yards on all of his carries last year, and he was above average at gaining at lest 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, or 10 yards. And Bell gained at least 15+ yards on 4% of his carries, matching the league average. But Bell gained at least 20 yards on only 1% of his carries (and, of course, at least 30+ yards on 0% of his carries), compared to the league average of 2%. That’s the only reason Bell comes in with a below-average YPC number from 2017.

In the picture below, I’ve listed all running backs with at least 100 carries. I have then shown how they fared at rushing for at least 1 yard, at least 2 yards, at least 3 yards,… at least 10 yards, at least 15+ yards, and at least 20+ yards. A blue shading is good: that means a player gained yards at a higher clip than average. A red shading is bad, even though this is a heat map, since I think it makes more sense to associate red with bad (if you don’t like the way my brain works, you can let me know in the comments).

LeSean McCoy, Bilal Powell, and Kenyan Drake stand out as boom or bust runners by this metric. McCoy rushed for at least 1 yard on only 72% of his carries, but at least 20+ yards on 4% of his runs. Powell gained at least 3+ yards on a league-low 42% of his carries, yet he still averaged 4.34 YPC! That’s because he gained at least 20+ yards on 5.1% of his carries, the second-best in the league. As for Drake, he gained 20+ yards on a league-high 5.3% of his carries, but he only gained positive yards on 75% of his carries.

On the other hand, you have players like Bell and Ezekiel Elliott. The Cowboys star picked up at least 3+ yards on a league-high 65% of his carries, but because of a lack of big runs, he had a below-average YPC. Rookies Jamaal Williams and Christian McCaffrey are other interesting cases: both were bad at gaining big runs but above-average at gaining at least 1, 2, 3, or 4 yards.

What stands out to you?