Welcome to the new off-season series, aptly named ‘Final Fantasy’. In this series, Razzball will be focusing the spotlight on certain players that either exceeded or fell-by-the-wayside of our expectations, and we’ll briefly touch them with our thoughts, legally. Despite rumor (and the series name), we will not be discussing anything +5 to magic missile. Unless there’s actually a NFL player that shoots missiles. And has, like, an amulet to vitality or something like that. Michael Vick’s -98 amulet of dog-caring will be excluded in this particular instance. Regardless, let’s get to the spotlight for today, and that’s Steven Jackson.
| Rush | YDS | TD | REC | YDS | TD | |
| ESPN Projections | 226 | 976 | 9 | 47 | 371 | 1 |
| CBS Projections | 255 | 1147 | 9 | 39 | 298 | 1 |
| Razzball Projections | 1144 | 12 | 40 | 328 | 2 | |
| 2013 Actual Stats | 156 | 542 | 6 | 33 | 191 | 1 |
I have to say, I was excited for the outlook of Steven Jackson in an Atlanta Falcons uniform going into last year, and I obviously wasn’t the only one. The Atlanta Falcons lead running back was going to get you double digit touchdowns, period, exclamation mark, put it in the books. After all, the previous primary back, Michael Turner, had done it for five straight years (2008-12). This was going to be the year that Steven Jackson got back to double digit touchdowns, even though the last time he did that was back in 2006, with 16 total touchdowns. Oops.
Let’s take a look into the game log for 2013:
– Week 1: 122 total yards on 16 total touches.
– Week 2-7 (5 games): Only played 9 snaps in week two (hamstring injury),and missed the next four games.
– Week 8-11(4 games): 14 total touches, 43.5 total yards & 0 TDs per game.
– Week 12-17(6 games): 19 total touches (2.66 catches), 71.5 total yards and 1 TD per game.
His final numbers in 12 games was 2.75 catches, 61.08 total yards, & .58 total TDs. Which placed him as the 32nd running back in standard (non-PPR) scoring. Now, let’s focus a bit more on the final six games of the season. The first stat is the six touchdowns in six games. Had he been healthy all season, you’d have to assume he could have scored at least ten touchdowns. The second stat to draw focus upon is the amount of touches Jackson saw. He saw five more touches per game. Also remember that in week one, he had 16 total touches.
The following is how Steven Jackson finished each week(12-17) among running backs in standard (Non-PPR) scoring:
Week 12: 10th
Week 13: 5th
Week 14: 34th
Week 15: 12th
Week 16: 18th
Week 17: 17th
He was no worse than a middle of the pack RB2 in 5 of those 6 games. Even better was that he gave us RB1 numbers in 3 of those 5 games. Looking at the other running back’s that the Falcons have as of now, the only back that will see touches would be Jacquizz Rodgers, who saw just 6.7 total touches in 10 games playing with Jackson.
In the mocks that I’m seeing so far, he is coming off the board around the 34th RB, somewhere around the 9th round/100th pick. I understand that he is 31 and has some serious mileage on his legs (2,993 touches). But I also see a starting running back with no competition for touches, who finished last year in a very strong way (fantasy-wise) and is part of an offense that has had it’s RB1 score at least 10 TDs in five of the last six years. As a fantasy owner, I am always looking for value, a player that will outperform his draft slot. One of those players looks to be Steven Jackson in 2014.
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