I see that Melvin Gordon has been working out with Adrian Peterson, trying to improve his ball security. And I have to chuckle. We are talking about Minnesota’s Adrian Peterson, correct? The guy whose fourth-quarter fumble helped Seattle sneak out of town with 10-9 win in the playoffs last year?
Peterson is the best running back of his generation, but ball security has never been his forte. He coughed it up 7 times last year. His worst season came back in his second year, with 9 fumbles.
But to be fair, I have pulled up the numbers. And here I’m relying on www.pro-football-reference.com (an outstanding web site with sortable stat features).
Checking into it, there are 36 active running backs with at least 700 career touches. Peterson is a bottom-10 running back in that group.
RUNNING BACKS: FUMBLE RATES | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|
Rk | Player | Fum | Touch | Pct |
1. | LeVeon Bell | 1 | 799 | .13% |
2. | Donald Brown | 4 | 817 | .49% |
3. | Pierre Thomas | 7 | 1,252 | .56% |
4. | Danny Woodhead | 5 | 780 | .64% |
5. | Rashad Jennings | 6 | 918 | .65% |
6. | Lamar Miller | 5 | 755 | .66% |
7. | Justin Forsett | 7 | 1,008 | .69% |
8. | Steven Jackson | 23 | 3,229 | .71% |
9. | Matt Forte | 20 | 2,522 | .79% |
10. | LeSean McCoy | 16 | 1,996 | .80% |
11. | Doug Martin | 8 | 976 | .82% |
12. | Mark Ingram | 7 | 851 | .82% |
13. | DeAngelo Williams | 16 | 1,895 | .84% |
14. | Chris Johnson | 21 | 2,396 | .88% |
15. | Alfred Morris | 11 | 1,125 | .98% |
16. | Eddie Lacy | 8 | 814 | .98% |
17. | Arian Foster | 17 | 1,703 | 1.00% |
18. | Mike Tolbert | 8 | 791 | 1.01% |
19. | DeMarco Murray | 15 | 1,343 | 1.12% |
20. | Marshawn Lynch | 27 | 2,396 | 1.13% |
21. | Stevan Ridley | 9 | 719 | 1.25% |
22. | Darren Sproles | 21 | 1,652 | 1.27% |
23. | Chris Ivory | 12 | 936 | 1.28% |
24. | Frank Gore | 40 | 3,078 | 1.30% |
25. | Darren McFadden | 20 | 1,532 | 1.31% |
26. | Jonathan Stewart | 19 | 1,446 | 1.31% |
27. | Adrian Peterson | 38 | 2,636 | 1.44% |
28. | Ryan Mathews | 18 | 1,196 | 1.51% |
29. | LeGarrette Blount | 14 | 930 | 1.51% |
30. | Jamaal Charles | 26 | 1,654 | 1.57% |
31. | Tim Hightower | 12 | 759 | 1.58% |
32. | Fred Jackson | 28 | 1,731 | 1.62% |
33. | Ahmad Bradshaw | 22 | 1,355 | 1.62% |
34. | Joique Bell | 12 | 726 | 1.65% |
35. | Reggie Bush | 33 | 1,845 | 1.79% |
36. | C.J. Spiller | 18 | 988 | 1.82% |
While we’ve got that open, let me chime in on a couple of other guys.
Stevan Ridley has a reputation as being a butter-fingered buffoon. He’s a guy you might think of as being a fumbler, given that Bill Belichick has benched him a couple of times. But the numbers suggest Ridley is more accurately close to average in ball security. He’s 21st on this list.
Sticking with the Patriots, I see Donald Brown up at No. 2, with only 4 fumbles in 817 career touches. With Belichick seemingly valuing guys who can hang onto the ball, that makes Brown a nice fit with that offense.
I wonder if C.J. Spiller will even make the New Orleans roster. He’s had a lot of knee problems, and they didn’t use him much last year. He’s last on this list.
If you want to ready the feel-good story about Melvin Gordon’s new-and-improved ball security, it’s at ESPN.com.
—Ian Allan