Ezekiel Elliott is the league's leading rusher, but he's got a tough matchup this week. He's in Green Bay to face the league's top-ranked run defense. What can be expected from him in this matchup?
I went back to the 2015 season and pulled out the NFL's top 5 running backs, in terms of rushing yards, and looked at their matchups with teams that finished the season as top-5 run defenses. These matchups don't happen very often; there were nine such encounters last season.
2015's top rushers were Adrian Peterson, Doug Martin, Todd Gurley, Darren McFadden (helpfully, also running behind the Dallas line) and Chris Ivory. Here's how they fared in their matchups with top-5 run defenses a year ago. Peterson's second Seattle encounter was a playoff game.
The numbers aren't great, but they aren't terrible. Six of the nine backs, for example, managed at least 94 total yards. On the other hand, only three of them scored. (There was also a 2-point conversion in there, for McFadden against Carolina.)
I don't think many fantasy teams will (or should) bench Elliott this week. I wouldn't. But it won't be surprising if Green Bay is able to keep him in check in their game.
| TOP-5 RBs VS TOP-5 RUN Ds (2015) | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| RB | Run | Rec | Total | TD |
| Peterson (vs. Sea.) | 18 | 6 | 24 | 0 |
| Peterson (at Den.) | 81 | 13 | 94 | 1 |
| Peterson (vs. Sea.) | 45 | 13 | 58 | 0 |
| Martin (vs. Car.) | 106 | 37 | 143 | 1 |
| Martin (at Car.) | 48 | 60 | 108 | 0 |
| Gurley (at Sea.) | 83 | 7 | 90 | 1 |
| McFadden (vs. Sea.) | 64 | 49 | 113 | 0 |
| McFadden (vs. Car.) | 11 | 45 | 56 | 0 |
| McFadden (vs. NYJ) | 100 | 13 | 113 | 0 |
| Average | 62 | 27 | 89 | 0.33 |
--Andy Richardson