Upon watching the NFC championship, I wondered to myself, "How can somebody who fumbles as much as AP be considered so great?".
So being the curious fan that I am I decided to break it down by the numbers. Over the past three seasons, AP has had 4,484 rushing yards on 915 carries (YPC 4.900546 [after all it is a game of inches]). He has also had 40 rushing TD's and 20 fumbles over the same span. However, this data all by itself means nothing.
I chose to compare this to a halfback who hasn't had the blessing of a great o-line to run behind, Jones-Drew. Over the same time span (the last three years), JD has only 2,983 yards but only on 658 carries (YPC 4.533434). Even though he had a significantly lower amount of touches, he scored almost as many TD's with 36. One might expect that if AP is really the best that JD would also have about as many fumbles, however, this is not the case. JD only had 10 fumbles in the 3 year period. So according to my stat sheet even though we see AP setting records on Sportcenter and running all over the NFC north, there is no eveidence to say that he is any better than sombody else in a different situation. In fact I would even be as so bold to say that most any starting halfback in the NFL would do an equally good if not better job in Minnesota.
I like it. I think AP is very good though, and he showed that at Oklahoma even though he coudldn't stay healthy. I think a lot of running backs put in his situation could excel like MJD or Chris Johnson, but i'm not sure if you put Kevin Smith, or Julius Jones behind the line they would do as well. But the line does feature a HOF Gaurd and a HOF talent Tackle
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