Gang Green Nation
Breece Hall had a productive season again in 2024, but - despite the fact that the offensive line was unquestionably better - his numbers were down slightly pretty much across the board (with yards per reception being the only real exception).
There were a few obvious factors in this. Hall was dealing with an injury to his surgically repaired knee down the stretch and also lost some touches due to the emergence of rookie backs Isaiah Davis and Braelon Allen. However, the question has also been asked as to whether he may have lost a step.
In particular, some people have wondered whether Hall’s omission from the NFL’s list of 20 fastest ball carriers via NextGenStats is significant.
The answer to that question is simple. This statistic is often misunderstood and doesn’t necessarily represent what it purports to. Once that is understood, we can agree that him not being on that list is not that significant. In addition, if we dig deeper, we can also gain some insight to provide comfort that maybe Hall hasn’t lost a step after all.
First of all, while this statistic lists the 20 fastest ball carriers of the season, that’s not just running backs. It includes anyone who possessed the ball, including wide receivers, return specialists and even defensive players. So the pool is much bigger than you might have assumed.
In addition, it’s not the 20 fastest players rated by how fast they typically were over the course of a season or even a game. It’s literally just the 20 single plays on which the ball carrier’s maximum speed was highest. In fact, it’s even less than 20 players because some are featured more than once.
Most importantly of all, the maximum speed on any given play doesn’t necessarily represent the player being able to accelerate to their maximum possible speed. In fact, such plays are rare.
Think about Usain Bolt. It takes him 50-60 meters to get up to his top speed and that’s running in a perfectly straight line. How often does this even happen at the NFL level? Even on long plays, the ball carrier will need to make a cut, slow down to allow his blocks to develop or will gear down once he’s clear of the field.
Even if a player is lucky enough to get a run where he is totally untouched through a big gap or perhaps intercepts a pass with nobody between him and the end zone, he might be slowing down to look around him or just coasting to the end zone. Unless you’re being actively chased, you wouldn’t naturally keep accelerating.
It therefore turns out that the fastest plays are not necessarily a measure of the fastest players so much as a list of those rare plays where a guy can actually run up to 50 yards in a straight line, unencumbered, and actually get up to top speed.
Those speeds these players achieved? There are dozens of NFL players that could reach...
