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2012 Broncos Season Review: Running Backs

Rob Carr

The 2012 season is over for the Broncos and many have begun turning to free agency and draft talk but before that happened I wanted to review the Broncos position by position. This is purely looking back on the production of each player in 2012, this is not a discussion about what players I think should stay or go. Instead I want to present the data on the 2012 season before we start making decisions about what should change.

Here's the positions we've already review:

- Quarterbacks

Today we'll be reviewing the running backs.

Basic Info

So in this table we'll be looking at a few topics
- Name of the player
- Their current age
- Games they saw at least one snap
- Snaps played during the 2012 season
- Years left on their contract

Name
Age Snaps
Games
Contract Years Left
Ball, Lance
27
151
15
0
Gronkowski, Chris
26
30 14
0
Hester, Jacob
27
80
3
1
Hillman, Ronnie
21
258
14
3
McGahee, Willis
31
399
10
2
Moreno, Knowshon
25
369
8
1 (2 Year Option)
Team Totals
26
1287


2012 Rushing Production

Here's what's in this table
- Name of the player
- Rushing attempts
- Rushing yards
- Rushing touchdowns
- Longest rush
- Rushing yards per attempts
- Rushing yards per game
- Rushing attempts per game

*This is a sortable table*

Name
Attps Yards
TD's
Long
Y/A
Yds/G
Attps/G
Ball, Lance 42 158 1 22 3.8 10.5 2.8
Gronkowski, Chris 0 0 0 0 0.0 0.0 0.0
Hester, Jacob 17 81 2 18 4.8 27 5.7
Hillman, Ronnie 84 327 1 31 3.9 23.4 6.0
McGahee, Willis 167 731 4 31 4.4 73.1 16.7
Moreno, Knowshon 139 525 4 20 3.8 65.6 17.4
Team Totals
449
1822
12 31
4.1
114
28.1

2012 Receiving Production

Here's what's in this table
- Name of the player
- Receiving attempts
- Receiving yards
- Receiving touchdowns
- Longest reception
- Receiving yards per attempts
- Receiving yards per game
- Receiving attempts per game

*This is a sortable table*

Name
Rec Yards
TD's
Long
Y/R
Yds/G
Attps/G
Ball, Lance 7 61
1 17 8.7 4.1 0.5
Gronkowski, Chris 1
11
0 11
11 0.8 0.1
Hester, Jacob 1
7 0 7
7 2.3 0.3
Hillman, Ronnie 10 62 0 29 6.2 4.4 0.7
McGahee, Willis 23 221 0 31 8.5 22.1 2.6
Moreno, Knowshon 21
167 0
26 8.0 20.9 2.6
Team Totals
66 529 1 31 8.0 33.1 4.1

2012 Total Production

Here's what's in this table
- Name of the player
- Total touches, rushing attempts plus receptions
- Total yards
- Yards per touch
- Missed tackles forced
- Missed tackle per touch
- Total touchdowns
- Touchdown percentage, touchdowns divided by touches
- Fumbles
- Fumble percentage, fumbles divided by touches

*This is a sortable table*

Name
Touches TotYards Y/T MT MT/T TotTD TD% Fumb Fumb%
Ball, Lance 49 219 4.47 6 0.12 2 4.08% 1 2.04%
Gronkowski, Chris 1 11 11 0 0.00 0 0.00% 0 0.00%
Hester, Jacob 18 88 4.89 1 0.06 2 11.11% 0 0.00%
Hillman, Ronnie 94 389 4.14 8 0.09 1 1.06% 2 2.13%
McGahee, Willis 193 952 4.93 19 0.10 4 2.07% 5 2.59%
Moreno, Knowshon 160 692 4.33 14 0.09 4 2.50% 1 0.63%
Team Totals
515 2351 4.57 48 0.09 13 2.52% 9 1.75%

2012 Pass Blocking

Here's what's in this table
- Name of the player
- Snaps spent as a pass blocker
- Sacks given up
- Hits given up
- Hurries given up
- Total pressures
- Pure pass rushing productivity, total pressure given up divided by snaps in pass defense turned in a percentage
- Weighted Pass Rushing Productivity, gives more weight to sacks, created by Pro Football Focus

*This is a sortable table*

Name
Snaps Sacks
Hits
Hurries
Total Pressures
Pure PRP
Weighted PRP
Ball, Lance 23 1 1 0 2 91.3% 95.2
Gronkowski, Chris 2 0 0 0 0 100.0% 100.0
Hester, Jacob 11 0 0 0 0 100.0% 100.0
Hillman, Ronnie 31 1 0 0 1 96.8% 96.3
McGahee, Willis 47 0 0 2 2 95.7% 96.5
Moreno, Knowshon 56 1 0 1 2 96.4% 96.5
Team Totals
170 3 1 3 7 95.9% 97.4

Notes:

- It should be noted that Hester's numbers will be a bit higher per game than the rest of the group since his game count was so low while Moreno's will be lower because of his early season games where he saw snaps but was VERY limited until his resurgence late int he season.

- Fumbles were a major issue for Ball, McGahee and Hillman, all of whom posted an over 2.0% fumble rate.

- Hester really showed what a weapon he is in the red zone.

- All of the Broncos backs saw significant time catching passes out of the backfield, even Ball, Hester and Hillman saw success in that role.