Drinen rambles about Tiki Barber

Drinen rambles about something having to do with: Tiki Barber

Introduction to these player comments
Index of player comments
Glossary of terms
Tiki Barber career statistics

Tiki Barber is the exact opposite of Mike Alstott.

Barber is small; Alstott is big. Barber is versatile; Alstott is one-dimensional. Barber is underrated; Alstott is overrated, Barber splits time with someone he's better than; Alstott splits time with someone he's not as good as. Barber looks like a prettyboy, but he plays tough. Alstott looks gritty and rugged, but he doesn't play that way.

But you didn't tune in to hear about my personal feelings. There's another relevant way in which the two are opposites: Alstott's fantasy points come mostly from TDs, while Tiki's come mostly from yardage.

I've written about this before, but I figured I'd revisit it with the larger data set. I rounded up all RBs who finished above the baseline between 1970 and 2000 and then played at least 8 games the next year. Then I split them in half according to what percentage of their fantasy points came from TDs and what percentage came from yardage. Here's the full data set.

The yardage-heavy producers held their value much better than the TD-heavy producers did.

Of the yardage-heavy backs, 38 percent of them improved the next year (as measured by fantasy points per game). Overall, this group's production declined by 9 percent.
Of the TD-heavy backs, 30 percent of them improved the next year. Overall, this group's production declined by 16 percent.

The usual warnings apply. This is a general phenomenon, and its applicability to any particular back is questionable. That said, this is about as strong as these kinds of general trends get.

Here are last year's above-the-baseline RBs, along with the percentage of their production that came from TDs:


Player              PCT TD
--------------------------
Mike Alstott          42.0
Marshall Faulk        37.0
Antowain Smith        36.6
Shaun Alexander       36.6
Stacey Mack           36.5
Corey Dillon          33.6
Dominic Rhodes        28.9
Lamar Smith           28.5
LaDainian Tomlinson   27.2
Maurice Smith         26.7
Warrick Dunn          26.4
Ahman Green           25.0
Curtis Martin         24.7
Anthony Thomas        23.6
Priest Holmes         21.7
Michael Pittman       21.3
Eddie George          19.8
Ricky Williams        19.3
Jerome Bettis         17.6
Duce Staley           16.3
Garrison Hearst       16.2
Stephen Davis         15.5
Tiki Barber           14.3
Charlie Garner        11.3

Unless he gets hurt (which could happen to anyone), I think his downside is what he did last season. If Dayne gets hurt or the Giants give up on him (Dayne) totally, then Barber could slip into the top 10. Given where he's being drafted, that's pure gold.