Dion Lewis: Top Five Running Back?

The Patriots finished off the regular season in rather lackluster fashion on Sunday, defeating the Jets 26-6 and clinching home field advantage throughout the playoffs in the process. Missing James White, Rex Burkhead, and Mike Gillislee, the Patriots had to lean heavily on Dion Lewis to carry the load, and he delivered for the second straight week, racking up 133 yards from scrimmage and finding the end zone twice. Lewis has proven he can be a catalyst for this Patriots offense during the rare times it has stalled, and he should be a major factor in the coming playoffs.

Once a fifth-round pick out of Pitt, the 5’8” Lewis has put the NFL on notice this season. Lewis finished as Pro Football Focus’s third ranked running back, and coming into Week 17, Lewis was fourth in yards after contact per attempt (3.4) and 5th in forced missed tackles on the ground (38). While he does rank just 14th in rushing yards in the NFL, every running back ahead of him had at least 32 more attempts, and 12 of them had at least 50 more attempts.

Because of his lack of volume, Lewis’s numbers don’t jump off the page, but when you look closer, it is easy to see why he deserves to be mentioned along with the best running backs in the NFL. He led the NFL in rushing yards in the second half of the season, and was second in all-purpose yards during that span. Lewis also had the most carries out of all running backs without recording a fumble. He finished second among all running backs in yards per carry with a 5.0 average, meaning he was one of just two backs that averaged over five yards per carry this season (the other being rookie sensation Alvin Kamara). Using Lewis’s yards per carry average, if he had been given 265 carries this year (which would have only been roughly 16 carries per game), Lewis would have put up more yards than the NFL’s rushing leader, Kareem Hunt, on seven less carries than Hunt had.

It is also important to note that Lewis excels in the passing game. While this influence hasn’t been as apparent in 2017, as Lewis has ran routes on only 41.2% of his snaps this season, compared to running routes on 59.6% of his snaps in his first two seasons in New England, he has still stood out as a pass-catcher. Of the 13 running backs ahead him in rushing yards, only three (Todd Gurley, Kareem Hunt, and Mark Ingram) have a better yards per touch average than Lewis’s 5.2 mark. That average is better than guys like Leveon Bell (4.8), Ezekiel Elliot (4.7), Lesean McCoy (4.6), and Melvin Gordon (4.6), all backs that the vast majority of the public would take over Lewis.

Lewis did all this despite only playing 35% of the Patriots total offensive snaps. Of the group of 13 running backs ahead of him in rushing yards, only one (Alex Collins, who had to split time with Buck Allen and Danny Woodhead) was on the field for a lesser percentage of his teams total offensive snaps. Lewis’s workload will probably decrease once James White and Rex Burkhead return from injury, but with the way Lewis has looked down the stretch, I would be cautious to lower his touches too much. At this point, I would like to see him get 20-25+ touches a game in the playoffs, even if it means less snaps for White and Burkhead.

Consider this: in the two games Lewis had over 20 touches (Week 16 vs. the Bills and last week against the Jets), he averaged 143 yards from scrimmage. And these stats don’t even take into account the absolute bargain Lewis is for the Patriots. Obviously, he is up for a far bigger contract this offseason, but in 2017, he is the 46th-highest paid running back in the NFL. That is crazy. The 45th-highest paid back? Robert Turbin, who had 109 yards from scrimmage this year. The 47th-highest paid back? Fozzy Whittaker, who had 65 yards from scrimmage this year.

Bell got paid twelve million dollars this season, McCoy received eight million, Leonard Fournette racked in 6.8 million, and Elliot collected 6.2 million. Lewis? Just 1.3 million, which is less than all but three (Hunt, Jordan Howard, and Collins, all on their rookie deals) of the 13 running backs ahead of him in rushing yards. Devonta Freeman, who had 31 less rush yards than Lewis on 16 more attempts, received 8.25 million in 2017. Jonathan Stewart, who Lewis out-gained by a whopping 216 yards despite Stewart carrying the ball 18 more times, got paid eight million dollars this season.

Perhaps these numbers are just a cautionary tale on the replicability of the running back position, but I think these stats show just much of a value Dion Lewis is to this team. In his career, he has only played in three playoff games (all in last years playoffs), and played just 26% of the total offensive snaps in those three games. Lewis was not unleashed in last year’s playoffs because of many factors, one being the presence of Legarrette Blount and another because he had returned from a torn ACL just weeks prior, but I think it’s time to truly unchain the beast that is Dion Lewis.

I hope McDaniels is able to give Lewis at least 25+ touches in each playoff game, because it would be foolish to restrict perhaps the best value back in the NFL when it matters most. He is simply too dynamic a force to take off the field, and while his superstar teammates Tom Brady and Rob Gronkowski rob him of much of the publicity he deserves, make no mistake: there are not five runnings backs in this league I would rather have than Dion Lewis. He is that good.