At what point do we give up on Tyrion Davis-Price? The 49ers selected him in the third round, but he was underwhelming as a rookie. The team nowadays has three other backs who look a lot better.
Christian McCaffrey, of course, is their starter – the most expensive running back in the game. And both Elijah Mitchell and Jordan Mason averaged over 6 yards per carry last year. Mason wasn’t even drafted but forced his way onto the roster with a strong preseason.
Davis-Price, on the other hand, was unimpressive at training camp, and he gained only 99 yards on his 34 carries in the regular season, averaging under 3 yards per carry. That makes it reasonable to wonder if he’s another Trey Sermon (their third-round pick the previous year, who didn’t make it to the start of his second season).
Looking at comp backs, the numbers aren’t as dire as I would have expected. That is, if you look at a bunch of other running backs who had similarly crappy first seasons, far more of those guys were able to turn things around than I expected.
In the 32-team era, I see 36 other running backs who as rookies carried the ball at least 10 times and averaged less than 3.1 yards per carry. Of those backs, 11 of them at some point developed into viable fantasy players. Such production didn’t necessarily come in their second season, but it happened eventually. And if you separate out some fullbacks and some lesser guys who were clearly backup or special teams type players, it's really more of a 1-in-3 hit rate.
Ronald Jones, Rashard Mendenhall, Reuben Droughns, Mike Davis and others have been able to have some NFL success after uninspiring initial seasons.
I’m not suggesting anyone roster Davis-Price right now (would need to a huge league to make that happen). I like Jordan Mason a lot more. But it would not be a surprise if we re-visit this situation in August or perhaps a year from now, concluding that Davis-Price might be able to turn things around.
| UNDER 3 YARDS PER ATTEMPT AS ROOKIES (the next year) | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Year | Player | Att | Run | No | Rec | TD | PPR | Rk |
| 2009 | Tim Hightower, Ariz. | 143 | 598 | 63 | 428 | 8 | 213.6 | 14 |
| 2015 | Charles Sims, T.B. | 107 | 529 | 51 | 561 | 4 | 184.0 | 16 |
| 2009 | Rashard Mendenhall | 242 | 1108 | 25 | 261 | 8 | 209.9 | 17 |
| 2019 | Ronald Jones, T.B. | 172 | 724 | 31 | 309 | 6 | 170.3 | 25 |
| 2010 | Mike Goodson, Car. | 103 | 452 | 40 | 310 | 3 | 134.2 | 38 |
| 2006 | Brandon Jacobs, NYG | 96 | 423 | 11 | 149 | 9 | 122.2 | 41 |
| 2012 | Bilal Powell, NYJ | 110 | 437 | 17 | 140 | 4 | 98.7 | 44 |
| 2005 | Greg Jones, Jac. | 151 | 575 | 10 | 65 | 4 | 98.0 | 50 |
| 2006 | Noah Herron, G.B. | 37 | 150 | 29 | 211 | 3 | 83.1 | 52 |
| 2022 | Deon Jackson, Ind. | 68 | 236 | 30 | 209 | 2 | 86.5 | 55 |
| 2009 | Mike Tolbert, S.D. | 25 | 148 | 17 | 192 | 4 | 75.0 | 59 |
| 2014 | Joseph Randle | 51 | 343 | 4 | 23 | 3 | 58.6 | 74 |
| 2004 | Artose Pinner, Det. | 57 | 174 | 11 | 72 | 2 | 47.6 | 76 |
| 2002 | Nick Goings, Car. | 50 | 188 | 18 | 91 | 0 | 47.9 | 77 |
| 2019 | Mark Walton, Mia. | 53 | 201 | 15 | 89 | 0 | 44.0 | 80 |
| 2014 | Fozzy Whittaker, Car. | 32 | 145 | 5 | 60 | 2 | 37.5 | 90 |
| 2007 | Michael Robinson | 26 | 121 | 11 | 73 | 0 | 30.4 | 91 |
| 2020 | Alec Ingold, L.V. | 3 | 4 | 12 | 110 | 1 | 29.4 | 94 |
| 2004 | Jeremi Johnson, Cin. | 3 | 5 | 16 | 53 | 1 | 27.8 | 95 |
| 2002 | Reuben Droughns, Den. | 4 | 11 | 5 | 53 | 2 | 23.4 | 98 |
| 2006 | Ciatrick Fason, Min. | 18 | 99 | 3 | 19 | 1 | 20.8 | 99 |
| 2020 | Patrick Laird, Mia. | 13 | 72 | 10 | 68 | 0 | 24.0 | 100 |
| 2008 | Tony Hunt, Phil. | 4 | 9 | 6 | 42 | 1 | 17.1 | 106 |
| 2007 | Jerome Harrison | 23 | 142 | 2 | 19 | 0 | 18.1 | 107 |
| 2012 | Jamie Harper, Ten. | 19 | 30 | 1 | 8 | 3 | 22.8 | 109 |
| 2016 | Mike Davis, S.F. | 19 | 50 | 3 | 25 | 1 | 16.5 | 110 |
| 2002 | James Jackson, Cle. | 12 | 54 | 3 | 9 | 0 | 9.3 | 123 |
| 2017 | Dwayne Washington, Det. | 20 | 44 | 2 | 14 | 0 | 7.8 | 132 |
| 2017 | Josh Ferguson, Ind. | 1 | 5 | 3 | 16 | 0 | 5.1 | 139 |
| 2008 | Garrett Wolfe, Chi. | 15 | 69 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 6.9 | 141 |
| 2014 | Michael Cox, NYG | 4 | 33 | 2 | 9 | 0 | 6.2 | 141 |
| 2003 | Jonathan Wells, Hou. | 5 | 14 | 2 | 17 | 0 | 5.1 | 141 |
| 2019 | John Kelly, LAR | 3 | 9 | 0 | 0 | 0 | .9 | 147 |
| 2022 | Kylin Hill, G.B. | 1 | 7 | 0 | 0 | 0 | .7 | 156 |
| 2020 | Qadree Ollison, Atl. | 1 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 | .3 | 161 |
| 2019 | Trenton Cannon, NYJ | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | .0 | --- |
| 2023 | Tyrion Davis-Price, S.F. | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? |
—Ian Allan