Where would you rank Jonathan Taylor?

[tyler735]

4 hours ago, diamondbull424 said:

I think both RBs are in the same tier of ability. Taylor has displayed better ability as a receiver, but Dobbins is the superior runner of the football. As a receiver Taylor presents better hands and better concentration. I mean he’s got a drop rate of 0% and a passer rating of 109.2 when targeting him. While conversely Dobbins stands at only an 85.4 passer rating when targeted and has a 16.4% drop rate. Taylor also presents stronger legs to carry the pile a little better and finish runs. However that’s about it for Taylor.

Dobbins has superior foot quickness/move set, better run vision, superior contact balance, and better long speed/second gear making him the superior big play threat. Now neither has their final explosive game counted into these numbers but prior to this week JKD was 11th in DYAR and 5th in DVOA while Taylor was only 21st and 24th respectively (footballs outsiders). What’s more Dobbins contact balance is on display with creating a broken tackle every 17.3 carries while Taylor sits at a broken tackle once every 18.4 carries. Talking about vision and contact balance, Taylor gives you an average of 2.0 yards after contact, while Dobbins provides you with 2.5 yards after contact.

Taylor finishes his season with 232 rushes, 1169 yds, 5.04 YPC, 11 TDs.
Dobbins finishes his season with 134 rushes, 805 yds, 6.01 YPC, 9 TDs.

When compared to their teammates at RB:
Colts- 177 rushes, 714 yds, 4.03 YPC, 4 TDs, 2.3% TDs/rush
Taylor- 232 rushes, 1169 yds, 5.04 YPC, 11 TDs, 4.7% TDs/rush
JT Share- 56.7% rushes, 62% yds

Ravens- 228 rushes, 1082 yds, 4.75 YPC, 8 TDs, 3.5% TDs/rush
Dobbins- 134 rushes, 805 yds, 6.01 YPC, 9 TDs, 6.7% TDs/rush
JKD Share- 37% RB rushes, 42.7% RB yds

So while Taylor has the volume numbers benefiting him due to playing in an inferior RB room, Dobbins has been far more efficient and more efficient with respect to a superior RB room. Mark Ingram will probably be cut and go to another team as a quality veteran RB, yet Dobbins makes him look washed. Gus Edwards is a top 20 RB in the league and Dobbins has outpaced his productivity by an entire YPC.

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But again considering receiving ability, I’d place them both somewhere around that 8-12 RB tier. I’m high on both of these guys and from what I’ve seen the only RBs I find either more talented or so much more proven that I have to lean with them ATM are: Henry, CMC, Kamara, Chubb, Cook, Jones, Barkley... beyond that, you’ve got guys like Robinson, Montgomery, Mixon, Sanders, Jacobs, Hunt, Carson, Zeke... and I’m personally taking both Taylor and Dobbins above those guys due to greater big play ability.

Dobbins has been good as well. I think he will be a quality RB for the Ravens for years to come, but I don't think he is as good of a runner or receiver. While I can appreciate you digging in to stats on this one, I don't think it tells the whole story here. With rookies some take some time to adjust to the pro game, Taylor certainly seemed to be one of them. I don't know what the exact numbers are, but if you take Taylor's first half of the season (first 8 games or so) vs his 2nd half of the season, the difference is night and day. He was far more decisive in the 2nd half of the season, breaking more tackles with far more explosive runs compared to his first half of the season. He had 741 rush yards (6.23 ypc) in just his last 6 games alone (plus 96 receiving yard and 8 touchdowns). That 2nd half peak was rivaling just about any RB in the league in terms of production. I get that it isn't the biggest sample size, and is somewhat cherry picking, but since things "clicked" for him, he has displayed top tier RB ability. I know a few weeks back, his broken tackle rate was also substantially higher in recent weeks compared to early on in the season, I'd be curious to see what that looks like in this final 6 game stretch for him.

Ravens are probably my 2nd favorite team, so I have no bias in this towards Taylor, but I'm just more impressed by him as an overall player. The Lamar Jackson effect is real, and I'm confident the Ravens can plug just about anyone in and get good results. It's no secret that the Ravens have been the best run team in the league since Lamar took over for Joe Flacco. Obviously Dobbins is getting better results than his peers as he is a better player than Edwards/Ingram (at this point in his career he doesn't look like the Ingram of past years anymore). None of this is to say Dobbins isn't "legit", he is, I just think he is a step below as a player, which isn't a bad thing. I think Dobbins still has top 10 potential.

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better long speed/second gear making him the superior big play threat.

I don't agree with this at all. Jonathan Taylor has 4.3 speed in the 40 and has run in a 10.49 in the 100m dash winning state champs in that event. Dobbins doesn't have Taylor's acceleration or long speed. He does have better quickness though I'll definitely concede that. Taylor has shown to be a huge big play threat every single year he's played in college/pro, if he gets to the 2nd level he can score from anywhere on the field. Dobbins fastest 40 I'm aware of is a 4.44 and he ran a best of 10.78 in the 100m. Both are still impressive marks, but I don't think he has Taylor's acceleration or top end speed, which are crazy fast for a guy that is almost 230lbs.

This is also pretty crazy. Taylor was able to accelerate to 21 mph on a 5 yard run

 

Edited January 4, 2021 by tyler735

[Forge]

1 hour ago, tyler735 said:

 

 

 

This is the other big difference in Taylor from the beginning of the year. He would have missed this at the start of the season 

[Pugger]

Taylor was the fastest RB at the 2020 combine (4.39) and shined in track and field in high school and at Wisconsin.

[rich homie]

If you have JK Dobbins over Jonathan Taylor you are on CRACK

[Blackstar12]

Game recognize game. 👍

[wackywabbit]

13 hours ago, tyler735 said:

I'm definitely taking Taylor over Dobbins.

Taylor may have started a bit slow this year but came on strong the 2nd half of the season and really started to showcase his elite athletic ability.

Had just under 1,500 yards from scrimmage, 12 touchdowns, 5.0 yards per carry, 1,169 rush yards (15 games)

2 of his biggest weaknesses coming into the league were fumbling and pass catching.

In his rookie year he only 1 fumble and caught 36 out of 38 targets and had zero drops with about 300 receiving yards on the year. 

I think Dobbins vs Taylor as runners is close. Dobbins hasn't been a plus receiver though, because of a combination of drops and not quite getting to the right spots as an outlet. Taylor has the edge, but Dobbins is special as a runner too.

[Soko]

Love me some JT. Expected/still expect him to be another one of the league’s best backs that fell to the 2nd round.

You can probably argue the guy had a top 10 season (right at the edge), although I’d be hesitant to put him there in a ranking. Just because you’d like to see it a little longer. Also had guys like CMC and Barkley injured. Should be a fun position to watch.

[diamondbull424]

5 hours ago, tyler735 said:

I don't agree with this at all. Jonathan Taylor has 4.3 speed in the 40 and has run in a 10.49 in the 100m dash winning state champs in that event. Dobbins doesn't have Taylor's acceleration or long speed. He does have better quickness though I'll definitely concede that. Taylor has shown to be a huge big play threat every single year he's played in college/pro, if he gets to the 2nd level he can score from anywhere on the field. Dobbins fastest 40 I'm aware of is a 4.44 and he ran a best of 10.78 in the 100m. Both are still impressive marks, but I don't think he has Taylor's acceleration or top end speed, which are crazy fast for a guy that is almost 230lbs.

I knew with Taylor’s 4.3 forty and that comment would present a reaction.

But the 4.44 forty from Dobbins is from a HS combine. Taylor at the time ran a 4.42 forty at the same event. This after Dobbins had just recovered from a leg fibula fracture that kept him out of his senior HS season. That’s a 3-6 month recovery window of waiting for that bone to heal where he’s not speed training. Considering it happened in August and the combine was in February, there’s reason to believe his time could’ve been faster with increased time to train. But the difference in speed there was negligible.

Either way, 4.44 doesn’t reflect Dobbins speed and it’s not even his last unofficial time run. At Ohio State, Dobbins ran a 4.32 forty unofficially and tested as the 4th fasted on the team above Terry McLaurin’s 4.36 at tOSU (4.35- official at combine) while behind only Denzel Ward (4.32- combine), Kendall Scheffield (no combine), and Paris Campbell (4.31- combine).

There’s strong enough reason to believe that had Dobbins been healthy enough and trained to run at the combine, he tests in the mid 4.3’s in his forty time.

Perhaps it’s that Dobbins has greater initial explosion and just gets to his top speed quicker (second gear) while Taylor is faster overall... that would be fair and probably accurate. But speed on the football field IMO also encompasses agility and exploding out of cuts. Dobbins is faster at those things. He just doesn’t have the combine evidence to prove it. If both run a forty, I think Dobbins edges out Taylor. And 40 yard speed is all you really need on the football field, anything beyond that hardly sees much use.

[tyler735]

3 minutes ago, diamondbull424 said:

I knew with Taylor’s 4.3 forty and that comment would present a reaction.

But the 4.44 forty from Dobbins is from a HS combine. Taylor at the time ran a 4.42 forty at the same event. This after Dobbins had just recovered from a leg fibula fracture that kept him out of his senior HS season. That’s a 3-6 month recovery window of waiting for that bone to heal where he’s not speed training. Considering it happened in August and the combine was in February, there’s reason to believe his time could’ve been faster with increased time to train. But the difference in speed there was negligible.

Either way, 4.44 doesn’t reflect Dobbins speed and it’s not even his last unofficial time run.

Actually I think that seems about right for him watching him play. That's still a pretty explosive time for a RB. That's faster than guys like McCaffrey, Cook, and Kamara. Watching him play he doesn't strike me as being much faster than those guys who are considered very explosive RB's

3 minutes ago, diamondbull424 said:

At Ohio State, Dobbins ran a 4.32 forty unofficially and tested as the 4th fasted on the team above Terry McLaurin’s 4.36 at tOSU (4.35- official at combine) while behind only Denzel Ward (4.32- combine), Kendall Scheffield (no combine), and Paris Campbell (4.31- combine).

There’s strong enough reason to believe that had Dobbins been healthy enough and trained to run at the combine, he tests in the mid 4.3’s in his forty time.

That's a lot of speculation that I'm not going to buy into. OSU hasn't been the most reliable with their offseason 40 times over the years. All it takes is a generous start of the clock in an unofficial setting to get a lower than expected 40 time

3 minutes ago, diamondbull424 said:

Perhaps it’s that Dobbins has greater initial explosion and just gets to his top speed quicker (second gear) while Taylor is faster overall... that would be fair and probably accurate. But speed on the football field IMO also encompasses agility and exploding out of cuts. Dobbins is faster at those things. He just doesn’t have the combine evidence to prove it. If both run a forty, I think Dobbins edges out Taylor. And 40 yard speed is all you really need on the football field, anything beyond that hardly sees much use.

Disagree. We know (verified) Taylor has 4.3 speed, we know Taylor was a state champ in the 100m dash, we know Taylor has has the most runs hitting 20+ MPH this year among RB's (including hitting 21 MPH on a 5 yard run, which is some insane acceleration). Best verified times we have on Dobbins in each of those 3 metrics (40, 100m, mph) is slower than Taylor's best. Just because Dobbins doesn't have the same level of acceleration/top end speed doesn’t mean he also isn't explosive and able to generate big plays. Dobbins lateral quickness is a huge bonus where he undoubtedly has an advantage over Taylor. 

[diamondbull424]

4 hours ago, rich homie said:

If you have JK Dobbins over Jonathan Taylor you are on CRACK

If you think such is a crack worthy opinion, than you haven’t watched enough Dobbins.

6 hours ago, tyler735 said:

He had 741 rush yards (6.23 ypc) in just his last 6 games alone (plus 96 receiving yard and 8 touchdowns). That 2nd half peak was rivaling just about any RB in the league in terms of production.

In that same span Dobbins had 495 rushing yards (6.43 YPC) in his last 6 games, when he finally started seeing consistent carries. He added 7 TDs as well. He did this on 42 less carries than Taylor.

The reason I included a comparison to their respective RBs as well is it shows that regardless of a Lamar Jackson effect, Dobbins has thoroughly outperformed his RB mates. What’s more while Lamar provides an effect, that effect is also somewhat nullified by the fact that defenses have consistently formed 8 and sometimes 9 man boxes to stop the run, thus Dobbins is facing more heat upfront.

2018 and 2019 guys were benefiting, but in 2020 defenses have really been putting more men up close to take away Lamar’s production over the middle of the field, while having guys to go after the run game. Gus has amped his running to the next level, yet Dobbins is on an even higher level than that. He takes advantage of cutback lanes, breaks tackles behind the LOS off an ungodly number of run blitzes, etc. Yet he still performed to hit the above numbers.

[ThatJaxxenGuy]

I think I would give Johnathan Taylor the edge in rankings just for the sake he is asked to do more in a workhorse role right now (which I think is a pretty underrated consideration when ranking backs). I think they are close enough in pure talent you could go either way, but we don't really need to grind Dobbins as hard as the Colts have been riding Taylor. Phillip Rivers ain't introducing the same lateral threat as Lamar Jackson in the run game. Either way as a Ravens fan I couldn't be happier with Dobbins, he is electric sprinting out of the gates. 

Edited January 4, 2021 by ThatJaxxenGuy

[diamondbull424]

20 minutes ago, tyler735 said:

Disagree. We know (verified) Taylor has 4.3 speed, we know Taylor was a state champ in the 100m dash, we know Taylor has has the most runs hitting 20+ MPH this year among RB's (including hitting 21 MPH on a 5 yard run, which is some insane acceleration). Best verified times we have on Dobbins in each of those 3 metrics (40, 100m, mph) is slower than Taylor's best. Just because Dobbins doesn't have the same level of acceleration/top end speed doesn’t mean he also isn't explosive and able to generate big plays. Dobbins lateral quickness is a huge bonus where he undoubtedly has an advantage over Taylor. 

Taylor has verified speed is my point. And I wouldn’t call it speculation. Dobbins tested nearly as fast as Taylor at the same HS event after recovering from a broken leg. We’re talking 4.44 to 4.42, the difference there is negligible.

Taylor went from a HS 4.42 as a track guy to an official combine 4.39s time. I don’t think there’s a great stretch that needs to be made to believe Dobbins has mid to high 4.3 speed as well.

Taylor at the same Nike combine event as Dobbins had far lower numbers overall. JKD had the highest SPARQ score at the event.

Admittedly I also lowered Taylor’s deep speed because I saw him get caught on that run yesterday without realizing the guy who caught him had unofficial 4.2 speed. Dobbins had a similar run yesterday where he was not caught after having to slow down to provide a stiff arm.
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Its also no surprise to me that Dobbins wouldn’t find himself on a 20mph list considering he’s had roughly 1/2 to 1/3 of the carries as some of these other RBs.

Dobbins and Taylor were close coming out and I think they’re close right now. Taylor isn’t competing for carries within quite as stacked a backfield, while Dobbins has had to compete for such.
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Like I said, I’m not against anyone taking either above the other, but as a pure runner there isn’t enough evidence to suggest Taylor is a better runner of the football than Dobbins outside of volume stats. They have a full yards/carry separating them. Dobbins has more broken tackles. He has produced more yards after contact.

After final numbers FO has Dobbins with the 7th highest DYAR and finishing 1st in DVOA. Conversely Taylor finished 14th and 21st respectively. I suspect that if you remove Taylor’s early season issues, they’d both still finish within the top 5-10 in the NFL, with Taylor behind Dobbins.

[diamondbull424]

13 minutes ago, ThatJaxxenGuy said:

I think I would give Johnathan Taylor the edge in rankings just for the sake he is asked to do more in a workhorse role right now. I think they are close enough in pure talent you could go either way, but we don't really need to grind Dobbins as hard as the Colts have been riding Taylor. Phillip Rivers ain't introducing the same lateral threat as Lamar Jackson in the run game. Either way as a Ravens fan I couldn't be happier with Dobbins, he is electric sprinting out of the gates. 

This is exactly how I see it. Both very similar but in a rankings I’d probably give Taylor the advantage purely because of the workhorse fashion.

Though I no longer apply the Lamar effect to our runners, considering the boxes they’ve seen. On that 77 yds run yesterday for instance, Lamar wasn’t in the game, the Bengals knew we would run, had 10 men up near the LOS and Dobbins still went for the score.

But again, I’m in full agreement. If we’re ranking them off of greatness, I’d have Taylor higher. But if we’re stacking them based off of ability, I think one could go either way, but I’m waiting to make my determination after next season where both should be able to work on specific elements of their game.

While some positions need 3 years, I think RB you know whose who by 1/2- 1 1/2 seasons of time.

At some point in time or another I had both as my #1 RB prospects for 2020. With Taylor finishing the process on top. Largely due to having athletic measurables to go off of and durability throughout college. It was incredibly close and so those were as good of tie breakers as any. Both have lived up to what I foresaw however.

[rich homie]

Taylor just finished the season with the third most rushing yards in the NFL, behind only Dalvin Cook and Derrick Henry. He has more yards, more touchdowns, more receptions, more y/r better catch rate, less fumbles, etc than Dobbins, all of this on a lower average yards before contact. My apologies to the Ravens delegation but as of right now they're not in the same tier of RB.

[tyler735]

 

1 hour ago, diamondbull424 said:

Taylor has verified speed is my point. And I wouldn’t call it speculation. Dobbins tested nearly as fast as Taylor at the same HS event after recovering from a broken leg. We’re talking 4.44 to 4.42, the difference there is negligible.

Taylor went from a HS 4.42 as a track guy to an official combine 4.39s time. I don’t think there’s a great stretch that needs to be made to believe Dobbins has mid to high 4.3 speed as well.

It's speculation and it's still a stretch. In your previous post you mentioned OSU's timing Ward ran a 4.23 at Ohio State and a 4.32 at the combine. Generally over the years it seems many of them are about .1 (a tenth) faster than what they actually run at the combine. Not everyone gets faster in college. Some gain weight and remain the same or even slower. Dobbins put some some weight on since that 40 time. It surely doesn't make sense that Dobbins is somehow faster than Taylor now given the evidence to say otherwise in 3 different speed metrics.

Also Dobbins ran that 4.45 time before breaking his fibula not after. He states the fastest he ever ran was 4.44. He broke his fibula in September of 2016

Nike Combine- July 8, 2016

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Taylor at the same Nike combine event as Dobbins had far lower numbers overall. JKD had the highest SPARQ score at the event.

 

Irrelevant to who is faster though

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Admittedly I also lowered Taylor’s deep speed because I saw him get caught on that run yesterday without realizing the guy who caught him had unofficial 4.2 speed. Dobbins had a similar run yesterday where he was not caught after having to slow down to provide a stiff arm.

Yeah Taylor didn't outrun that angle, but the Claybrooks has legit speed and had the pursuit angle so it's kind of hard to make much out of that one. Taylor also had a run where he blew by everyone yesterday on his 2nd touchdown. Regardless doesn't matter much Taylor has posted a higher MPH and better times in the 40 and 100m

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Its also no surprise to me that Dobbins wouldn’t find himself on a 20mph list considering he’s had roughly 1/2 to 1/3 of the carries as some of these other RBs.

I mean Taylor is doing it multiple times a game at times.

This is the fastest MPH I've seen measured from Dobbins.

Fastest for Taylor was 22.05 mph yesterday

https://nextgenstats.nfl.com/stats/top-plays/fastest-ball-carriers/2020/REG/17

Edited January 5, 2021 by tyler735