The Bucs opted for an advanced statistic darling when they drafted Bucky Irving in the fourth round of the 2024 NFL draft. Despite Irving’s diminutive size at 5-foot-9, 192 pounds (20th percentile height and 6th percentile weight), Tampa Bay is betting that Irving’s ability to force missed tackles and create yards after contact will translate into an improved running game for the team in 2024.

Per Pro Football Focus, Irving ranked fourth in missed tackles forced with 69, and ranked 20th in yards after contact per carry at 3.99 amongst all of the running backs in this year’s draft. Irving forced a missed tackle at an equivalent rate to 37.1% of his carries, which ranked third amongst all running backs with at least 150 carries last year.

Finding A Better Way of Evaluating Running Backs

For years the preferred method of evaluating running back performance was through the fairly basic statistic of yards per carry. But then the football world began to learn and evolve. It became widely accepted that yards per carry was as much (or more) of an offensive line statistic as it was a running back statistic. Given two running backs of equal talent and put one behind a line that gave him on average two yards before he gets hit initially, and put the second back behind a line that only allowed him one yard before contact and the results will diverge accordingly.

Bucs RB Bucky Irving – Photo courtesy of Oregon

So, sites like Pro Football Focus began to publish stats that attempted to isolate the back from the line. And missed tackles forced and yards after contact were born. But one thing these stats do not account for is the quality of defenses faced.

If a running back forces seven missed tackles on 20 carries (35% rate) against a defense that typically misses tackles at a 40% rate, that back isn’t over-performing. He is actually underperforming. 

Similarly, if he generates 70 yards after contact on those 20 carries (3.5 average) against a defense that allows 3.8 yards after contact per carry, then he left six yards on the table. I think I found a way to take these metrics and attempt to stabilize for the quality of defense faced.

Any Way You Slice It, Bucky Irving Excels At Getting Extra Yards

In order to truly understand what Bucky Irving brings to the Bucs I took a look at each defense Irving faced in 2023 and calculated the rate of missed tackles and yards after contact they allowed for the entire season. This gave me an expectation to measure Irving and his missed tackles forced (MTF). I then compared Irving’s actual performance to the weekly expectation based off of the defense he faced. Totaling up each week gave the following results.

Irving’s 37% forced missed tackle rate was impressive when compared to his peers, but now we see it truly is above the expectation for the level of competition he faced. Most importantly we can see he gained just a hair over three quarters of a yard after contact over what would be expected of him against those opponents.

Did The Bucs Make The Right Decision?

Bucs RB Bucky Irving – Photo courtesy of Oregon

On its face, this would bode well for Bucky Irving’s chances to be an effective runner in the NFL. But it will take more research to see if these metrics have any correlation with performance at the next level.

It is research I am excited to dive into in the future.

But for the next installment of this series, I’ll take a look how Irving’s performance over expectations compares to the other running backs taken shortly after him. That will include Will Shipley, Ray Davis, Isaac Guerendo and Braelon Allen (Sione Vaki was also taken in this area and announced as a running back but his college sample size of performance at running back was too small for any real takeaways to be gleaned).

Once we have this information, we will see if the Bucs made the best decision on which running back they selected given they cited Irving’s ability to not go down after first contact as a primary factor as to why they liked him.