Skins Stats: Samaje Perine is the Best Running Back Prospect on the Redskins' Roster

The Washington Redskins selected Oklahoma running back Samaje Perine with the 114th overall pick (4^th round) in last week's NFL draft.

It certainly didn't take a premium pick to acquire Perine, but it was a move that may pay off in spades for the Redskins, at least in the eyes of many fans and members of the media. Those people believe that Samaje Perine has an excellent shot to supplant Robert Kelley and become the Redskins' starting running back as soon as this year.

That is what some are saying, but are they right? Is Perine truly the best running back on the Redskins' roster and should Jay Gruden and company actually be comfortable giving the starting gig on this high-powered offense to the young rookie?

That is what I've endeavored to find out. To do so, I've compared Samaje Perrine's resume to the pre-NFL prospects of every other running back on the Redskins' roster.

COLLEGE RECRUITING

This is certainly not the most important aspect of the careers of the runners that we'll look at, but I also think that we'd be remiss to ignore it altogether.

The rankings below are by position and not overall. They are sorted by 247 Sports' composite ranking, which is essentially the average ranking among all of the major recruiting services.

Positional Recruiting Rankings for Redskins RBs
Player	Year	ESPN	Rivals	247	247 Comp
Keith Marshall	2012	2	2	1	1
Mack Brown	2010	4	13	4	4
Matt Jones	2012	11	15	15	12
Samaje Perine	2014	17	13	13	15
Chris Thompson	2009	35	2	N/A	28
Robert Kelley	2011	153	NR	NR	NR

Keith Marshall and Mack Brown were clearly the most highly regarded players coming out of high school in this group. Matt Jones barely edges out Perine here. Several different recruiting services had one ranked higher than the other in their respective years. I basically consider them even in this regard.

Chris Thompson slots in right behind them. Robert Kelley was far and away the least celebrated player coming out of high school, with several sites not bothering to rank him at all.

Perine sits in the middle of the pack here, but I do think that it's interesting to note that he put up more rushing yards in his junior and senior years combined than any of these other runners did (Chris Thompson's junior year stats were not available).

However, these rankings aren't all about statistics; another big component is athleticism. As we can see from the combine and pro day numbers of these players, Keith Marshall's athleticism had a great deal to do with his elite recruiting rankings.

SPEED

We're going to look at each of the four main types of athleticism measured by the NFL: speed, strength, explosion and agility; but speed is the sexiest, so we'll start there.

Before we begin, I need to first point out that the raw numbers for each drill will be presented, but that the size-adjusted results will be the more heavily emphasized here, and that is for good reason. For example, there is a big difference between a 240 pounder running a 4.60 in the 40-yard dash and someone that weighs 170 pounds doing the same.

The adjustment equations used for each type of testing come from Chase Stuart and his site, Football Perspective. Speed score is the most traditional size-adjusted speed measure. You can read more about it here.

Redskins RB Speed
Player	40-Yard Dash	Adjusted 40	Speed Score
Keith Marshall	4.31	0.30	126.9
Samaje Perine	4.60	0.09	104.1
Matt Jones	4.61	0.07	102.3
Robert Kelley	4.68	-0.03	94.2
Mack Brown	4.61	-0.08	91.2
Chris Thompson	DNP	DNP	DNP

Well that explains that. Keith Marshall is one of the fastest size-adjusted running backs of all time. Both Robert Kelley and Mack Brown posted below average speeds for an NFL running back.

Samaje Perine comes in second with Matt Jones right on his tail. Perine may not have blazing speed, but don't kid yourself into thinking that he is slow. For a 233 pounder, Perine can more than hold his own in the speed department.

STRENGTH

Strength is where Perine shines the most as an athlete.

Redskins RB Bench Press
Player	Bench Press	Adjusted Bench
Samaje Perine	30	11.2
Keith Marshall	25	8.0
Chris Thompson	21	5.5
Matt Jones	20	2.7
Mack Brown	18	2.2
Robert Kelley	16	-2.0

Perine had the fourth best overall weight-adjusted bench press score at the combine. Only Myles Garrett, Carl Lawson and Derek Rivers were better.

Per Mockdraftable, his 30 reps are tied for the fifth most by a true running back at the combine since at least 1999. Only Terron Beckham, Jerrick McKinnon, Shane Vereen and Knile Davis bested him in this department. That's not the greatest company, but it's also far from the worst.

And once again, Marshall put up impressive numbers while Mack and Kelley brought up the rear.

EXPLOSIVENESS

The vertical and broad jumps are the best individual measures we have for explosiveness. When we combine those two figures we get an overall explosion score. Unlike the explosion score, Player Profiler's burst score equally weights the vertical and broad jumps, so the following table has been sorted by that metric.

Redskins RB Explosiveness
Player	Vertical	Broad	Explosion	Adj Vert	Adj Broad	Adj Explos	Burst
Samaje Perine	33	116	149	0.5	1.0	1.6	114.1
Mack Brown	32	115	147	-2.1	-5.3	-7.4	111.9
Matt Jones	31.5	112	143.5	-1.1	-7.4	-8.5	109.6
Robert Kelley	29.5	110	139.5	-3.4	-6.3	-9.7	105.2
Chris Thompson	35	DNP		0.1
Keith Marshall	30.5	DNP		-2.8

Not only does Perine have the best raw vertical, broad jump and explosion score of the Redskins' runners, but he also has the best size-adjusted explosion score and burst score. This might help to explain why he looks faster on tape than his 40-yard dash time would indicate.

Meanwhile, incumbent starter, Robert Kelley, ranks dead last yet again. Keith Marshall and Chris Thompson did not participate in the broad jump, so they don't have any total explosion numbers to report.

AGILITY

Much like with the explosion score, the agility score combines both the short shuttle and the 3-cone drill to give us a better picture of an athlete's short area quickness and agility.

Redskins RB Agility
Player	Shuttle	Cone	Agility	Adj Shut	Adj Cone	Adj Agil
Matt Jones	4.20	6.84	11.04	0.06	0.24	0.31
Keith Marshall	4.25	6.98	11.23	-0.01	0.09	0.08
Mack Brown	4.15	7.05	11.20	0.03	-0.08	-0.05
Samaje Perine	4.37	7.26	11.63	-0.05	-0.04	-0.09
Robert Kelley	4.63	7.19	11.82	-0.35	-0.03	-0.38
Chris Thompson	DNP	DNP

Matt Jones is your big winner here. Keith Marshall is the only other plus runner on the roster in terms of agility.

This is clearly Perine's biggest issue as an athlete and it may have something to do with his lack of a receiving game. Robert Kelley's numbers were again absolutely dismal.

OVERALL ATHLETICISM

It's time to wrap up our look at the athleticism of the Redskins' running backs. We'll do so by looking at three composite measures of overall athleticism, which are defined below:

SPARQ: SPARQ is a formula developed by Nike which measures player athleticism by outputting a single composite score.

SPARQ-x: Player Profiler's spin on SPARQ.

RAS: Relative Athletic Scores take player measurements and put them on an easy to understand 0 to 10 scale compared to their position group. A final score is then produced which is also on a 0 to 10 score to show overall athleticism for a draft prospect.

Redskins RB Overall Athleticism
Player	pSPARQ	pSPARQ %	SPARQ-x	SPARQ-x %	RAS
Keith Marshall	119.5	44.3%	130.9	92%	9.43
Matt Jones	117.5	38.0%	112.7	54%	3.98
Samaje Perine	115.7	32.5%	127.5	88%	3.82
Mack Brown	108.7	15.6%	106	29%	3.76
Robert Kelley	93.6	1.3%	86.5	2.0%	0.95
Chris Thompson	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A

To the surprise of absolutely nobody, Fat Rob is by far the worst athlete of the bunch.

Keith Marshall is the cream of the crop here. Matt Jones looks to be the second best Redskins' runner in terms of overall athleticism. He beat out Samaje Perine by a hair in two of the three metrics. So far, Marshall and Jones look to be the best NFL prospects of the group, but as we all know subjective rankings and athleticism are not the end-all be-all.

Actual production on the field is of the utmost importance when evaluating prospects. Samaje Perine has not yet taken an NFL snap, so we'll compare what he did at Oklahoma to the college careers of the Redskins' five other running backs.

CAREER COLLEGE RUSHING PRODUCTION

We'll start things off by looking at the career college rushing numbers for each player.

Redskins RB College Rushing Production (Career)
Player	G	Att	Yds	Rush Y/G	Avg	TD	TD/G	TD%
Samaje Perine	36	685	4,122	114.5	6.0	49	1.4	7.2%
Chris Thompson	39	277	1,735	44.5	6.3	14	0.4	5.1%
Matt Jones	28	297	1,431	51.1	4.8	11	0.4	3.7%
Keith Marshall	33	253	1,379	41.8	5.5	12	0.4	4.7%
Robert Kelley	49	318	1,270	25.9	4.0	6	0.1	1.9%
Mack Brown	44	210	805	18.3	3.8	4	0.1	1.9%

Perine simply puts these other RBs to shame in terms of both raw rushing production and rushing efficiency. Here are some statistics that really drive the point home:

• Samaje Perine rushed for over 1,000 yards in all three of his seasons at Oklahoma. No other Redskins running back has had more than 850 rushing yards or 1,000 scrimmage yards in a single season while in college or the NFL.
• Perine ran for 1,713 yards as a 19-year-old true freshman. Chris Thompson rushed for 1,735 yards in his whole 4-year career as a Seminole, the second highest college career rushing total on the roster behind Perine's 4,122 yards. Samaje Perine is Oklahoma's all-time leading rusher.
• Only 30 other college running backs have rushed for 4,000 yards, scored 40 touchdowns and averaged over 5 yards per carry on the ground since at least 2000. Twelve of those 30 have had successful NFL careers to this point. Three of the others were picked in last weeks' draft. Check out the list at the link above. Try dropping the yardage requirement down to 3,700 yards if you want to see some more impressive names added to the list.
• Perine scored 21 touchdowns on the ground in his freshman season. None of the other backs that we're looking at found the end zone more than 15 times in their entire college careers.
• He rushed for 49 touchdowns in 36 career college games. Meanwhile, the five other running backs on Washington's roster combined to rush for just 47 scores in college.

REDSKINS RED-ZONE RUSHING REVENGE

Remember when the Redskins used to suck in the red zone? That was rough wasn't it? Luckily, those days are over.

I already told you ten reasons why the Redskins' red-zone offense would improve before the draft; consider Samaje Perine the 11th reason.

Just take a look at the college TD breakdown for Perine and the combined total of the rest of the running backs on the Redskins' roster (RoR).

Samaje Perine and Rest of Roster College TD Breakdown
Type	Perine TDs	% of TDs	RoR TDs	% of TDs
Total TD	51	100%	58	100%
Red Zone	39	76%	40	69%
Inside 10	36	71%	33	57%
Inside 5	25	49%	23	40%
Goal Line	18	35%	14	24%
25-Yarder	11	22%	16	28%
40-Yarder	6	12%	11	19%

Perine's 39 college red-zone scores are just one less than the combined total of every other running back on the Redskins' roster. That's a whopping 76% of his touchdowns that came inside the 20-yard line, and 71% of them came inside the 10.

Perine scored more touchdowns inside the 10, inside the 5 and at the goal line (1 or 2 yard-line) than all of the other rushers on the Redskins' roster did combined.

He's no slouch in the long-ball department either. Over 20% of his TDs came from over 25 yards out or more and 12% of his scores went for 40 or more yards. He had the same number of 25-yard touchdowns and one more 40-yard TD in college than Kelley, Jones, Brown and Marshall did combined.

GAME-BY-GAME COLLEGE RUSHING PRODUCTION

At this point, you may be wondering if Perine racked up big totals on the strength of a few monster games or if he consistently just put up average numbers to inflate his career totals (i.e. that he was a compiler).

If you look at his game-by-game rushing yardage totals you can see that this is simply not the case in either regard. The percentages are based on the number of games in which the players actually received a touch (rushing attempt or a reception).

Redskins RB College Rushing Game Yards
Player	50 YG	%	75 YG	%	100 YG	%	150 YG	%	200 YG	%
Samaje Perine	30	83%	23	64%	15	42%	11	31%	6	17%
Matt Jones	10	40%	6	24%	4	16%	3	12%	0	0%
Chris Thompson	10	29%	8	23%	6	17%	2	6%	0	0%
Keith Marshall	10	30%	5	15%	3	9%	1	3%	0	0%
Robert Kelley	8	16%	3	6%	0	0%	0	0%	0	0%
Mack Brown	5	15%	2	6%	1	3%	0	0%	0	0%
Rest of Roster	43	24%	24	14%	14	8%	6	3%	0	0%

• Perine rushed for 50 or more yards in 30 of his 36 games with the Sooners (83%). No other Washington RB ran for 50 yards plus on more than 10 occasions and in more than 40% of their games.
• Those other backs combined for 24 games of 75 or more yards on the ground in college. Perine racked up at least 75 yards in 23 games by himself. Yes, that's 75 yards in nearly two thirds of his college games.
• Perine rushed for 100 yards 15 times, which is one more than the other Washington running backs did as a group (14).
• He also topped 150 yards 11 times, which is more than double the number that the Skins other RBs did. The fact that he went for over a buck fifty in almost a third of his games is more than impressive.
• Samaje Perine is the only player on the Redskins roster that has rushed for 200 or more yards in any college or pro game, and he did it six times. In one of those contests he rushed for an NCAA single-game record of 427 yards.

COLLEGE RUSHING MARKET SHARES

The guys at Rotoviz.com have done a great deal of work on showing us how college market share (percentage of a team's attempts, yards or touchdowns compiled by a player) is a far better statistical tool for us to use to analyze college prospects than raw totals are.

Most of their work has been focused on wide receivers, but I believe that this is a very useful metric to look at for running backs, as well. I've taken quarterback rushing stats out of the equation to give us a better idea of what slice of the pie each team's running backs received.

The table below is sorted by dominator rating, which is the average of the player's rushing yardage and touchdown market shares. Unfortunately, injuries and suspensions have not been accounted for here, so the numbers may be slightly skewed in some cases.

However, at the same time, that shouldn't have much of an affect for our purposes, because only Perine's three seasons and the best year in terms of dominator rating for each of the other players have been included.

Redskins RB Yearly College Market Shares
Player	Att MS%	Yards MS%	TD MS%	Dom Rate
Samaje Perine (SO)	56%	55%	67%	61%
Samaje Perine (FR)	57%	59%	62%	60%
Samaje Perine (COLL)	51%	50%	60%	55%
Samaje Perine (JR)	41%	36%	50%	43%
Matt Jones (JR)	46%	45%	40%	43%
Mack Brown (RS JR)	38%	33%	40%	36%
Chris Thompson (SO)	38%	41%	27%	34%
Keith Marshall (FR)	26%	29%	28%	28%
Robert Kelley (JR)	25%	25%	20%	22%

Perine posted his worst dominator rating as a junior, and that is mainly because he had to share a backfield with Joe Mixon.

Mixon is the superior prospect, but it should be noted that Perine was the team's workhorse over the course of the 22 games that the two played together in. Perine had more rushing attempts in 18 of those games (82%), more rushing yards in 15 of them (68%) and more rushing touchdowns in 13 of them (59%, with another 23% where they were tied).

That year (2016), Perine finished the season with a dominator rating of 43%, despite having to compete with Mixon and being sidelined for three games with a pulled muscle in his leg. The highest DR that any of the Redskins' other running backs ever produced was just below that 43% mark.

He also put up an elite dominator rating of 60% as a freshman. He was named the Big 12 Rookie of the Year and was a member of the All-Big 12 team. Multiple outlets named him a second or third team All-American for his efforts.

He very well could have made it on the first team, but he had some very stiff competition to deal with that year in the form of Melvin Gordon, Jay Ajayi, Tevin Coleman and Ameer Abdullah.

Perine is the only player in all of Division I college football (FBS) that gained over 1700 yards on the ground and scored over 20 rushing touchdowns as a true freshman since 1996 (Ron Dayne).

BREAKOUT AGE

Another important concept touted by Rotoviz is breakout age. Jon Moore of Pro Football Focus has been a pioneer on this subject so I'll let him explain it:

"For everyone thinking, "Yeah, but these guys are only going to be in the league for a few years. Who cares how old they are?" The point here has nothing to do with career longevity. The matter at hand is figuring out how talented a player actually is. A 20 year old dominating defensive backs who are 21 or 22 is much more impressive than a 23 or 24 year old doing the same."

Different sites set different bars for breakout age, but we'll set the mark low here and consider a breakout year to be any season in which the running back either posts a rushing attempt or rushing yardage market share over 25%. The age used is the player's age on the last day of the year in their breakout season.

Redskins RB Breakout Age
Player	Dom Rate	Breakout Age
Keith Marshall (FR)	28%	18.9
Samaje Perine (FR)	60%	19.3
Robert Kelley (SO)	22%	20.2
Chris Thompson (SO)	34%	20.0
Matt Jones (JR)	43%	21.8
Mack Brown (RS JR)	36%	22.3

Perine had the second youngest breakout age of any RB on the roster, just four months behind Keith Marshall's. But as we have seen, Perine was significantly better in college in terms of overall production and efficiency. He is also younger and has dealt with far fewer injuries than Marshall has.

CURRENT AGE & MAJOR INJURIES

Redskins RB Current Age & Major Injuries
Player	9/1/17 Age	Injury 1	Injury 2	Injury 3
Samaje Perine	22.0	Pulled Leg Muscle
Keith Marshall	23.5	Torn ACL	Ankle/Leg Sprain	Sprained Elbow
Matt Jones	24.5	Torn Meniscus
Robert Kelley	24.9	Meniscus Tear
Mack Brown	25.9
Chris Thompson	26.7	Torn ACL	Broken Vertebrae	Torn Labrum

Perine only missed three games in college due to the aforementioned pulled muscle. The majority of Washington's other backs haven't been so lucky. Perine is also currently a year and a half younger than the next youngest RB on the roster, Keith Marshall.

Marshall tore his ACL as a freshman and has suffered several other injuries in his college and pro careers. He missed 20 games at Georgia and was placed on injured reserve just prior to his rookie season in the NFL.

Both Matt Jones and Robert Kelley have needed surgery to repair their meniscus and are 24, going on 25.

Not only is Chris Thompson the oldest player of the group, but he has also dealt with more major injuries than any other player on this unit. Thompson is scheduled to be an unrestricted free agent in 2018.

CONCLUSION

The running backs on the Redskins' roster have combined to rush for just 2,320 yards in their NFL careers. Only the Packers, Lions and Dolphins' running backs have combined to rush for less yards in the pros.

Washington simply has not had a quality running back on their roster in the last several years, and the numbers back that up.

Keith Marshall was the most celebrated recruit coming out of high school and is unquestionably the most athletic running back on the roster. However, outside of his freshman season, which took place five years ago, he has done very little in terms of actual on-the-field production. His career has been derailed by injuries; and frankly, he runs like a track star and not an NFL player.

Matt Jones is a decent athlete, but has never been able to consistently put up big-time numbers in both college and the NFL. The only things that he has done consistently are avoiding contact and fumbling.

Chris Thompson is a great third-down back, but his body type, injury history and age limit him to that role. He's also going to be a free agent next year.

Outside of a 61-yard touchdown run against the Bears last season, Mack Brown hasn't done anything in college or the pros to justify typing another word about him.

Robert Kelley is a nice player. However, his small sample of plus NFL production has been overrated. He was not productive in college, despite playing at a smaller school that provided little competition. And, finally, and perhaps most importantly, he is one of the least athletic running backs in the entire league. I could go on, but I feel like I already said it all here.

Samaje Perine was highly regarded coming out of high school, is an above-average athlete, was ultra-productive as a rusher at one of the best programs in college football history, has never suffered a truly major injury and is the youngest back on the Redskins' roster.

Perine was not the best running back prospect in the 2017 NFL draft; truthfully, he probably wasn't even in the top 5. But that doesn't matter much anymore. Samaje Perine is on the Washington Redskins now, and he is easily the best running back prospect that the team has had in years. As such, he should be afforded every opportunity to compete for the RB1 role on this team; and if he is, don't be surprised when he runs away with the job and never looks back.

*All statistics are courtesy of 3 Sigma Athlete, 247 Sports, CBS Sports, College Football Reference, ESPN, Footbll Outsiders, Football Perspective, Mockdraftable, NFL Draft Scout, Player Profiler, Pro Football Focus, Relative Athletic Scores, Rivals and Rotoviz*