Austin Ekeler’s possible role in Washington
May 17, 2024
by Steve Thomas
Austin Ekeler was one of Washington’s highest-profile free agency signings this year. He was the choice of the team’s new leadership to replace Antonio Gibson, who they did not attempt to re-sign, and to presumably challenge Brian Robinson Jr. for role of starting running back. He’s on a two year contract with more than $4.2M in guarantees, so it appears as those Washington has fairly high hopes for him. Ekeler’s signing definitely fills a fairly major team need. Is he going to live up to the hype or become just another failed free agent? Let’s examine the situation and see if we can make an educated guess.
Ekeler entered the NFL as an undrafted free agent out of Western Colorado in 2017 when he signed with the San Diego Chargers. He made the active roster as a rookie, then earned 3 starts in 2018 and 8 in 2019 before becoming the Chargers’ full-time starter in 2020. Ekeler has had his moments; he has performed like a plus-level running back at times and has also made some contributions as a receiver. In total, in 7 seasons, he’s had 990 carries for 4355 yards, for an average of 4.4 yards per attempt, plus 39 touchdowns, as well as 440 receptions in 556 targets, for 3884 yards, an average of 8.8 yards per attempt, and another 30 touchdowns. The following are his year to year running stats:
2017: 47 carries, 120 yards, 5.5 yards per attempt, 2 touchdowns
2018: 106 carries, 554 yards, 5.2 yards per attempt, 3 touchdowns
2019: 132 carries, 557 yards, 4.2 yards per attempt, 3 touchdowns
2020: 116 carries, 530 yards, 4.6 yards per attempt, 1 touchdown
2021: 206 carries, 911 yards, 4.4 yards per attempt, 12 touchdowns
2022: 204 carries, 915 yards, 4.5 yards per attempt, 13 touchdowns
2023: 179 carries, 628 yards, 3.5 yards per attempt, 5 touchdowns
These are his year to year receiving stats:
2017: 27 receptions, 279 yards, 10.3 yards per reception, 3 touchdowns
2018: 39 receptions, 404 yards, 10.4 yards per reception, 3 touchdowns
2019: 92 receptions, 993 yards, 10.8 yards per reception, 8 touchdowns
2020: 54 receptions, 403 yards, 7.5 yards per reception, 2 touchdowns
2021: 70 receptions, 647 yards, 9.2 yards per reception, 8 touchdowns
2022: 107 receptions, 722 yards, 6.7 yards per reception, 5 touchdowns
2023: 51 receptions, 436 yards, 8.5 yards per reception, 1 touchdowns
The first thing you should notice is that Ekeler’s 2023 season was the worst and most ineffective of his career, by far. It’s highly likely that his performance last year was a big reason why the Chargers didn’t try to re-sign him, although they could have started negotiations after the end of the 2022 season, yet didn’t bother to try. However, he’s only 28 years old, and 990 carries isn’t an overwhelming amount by career running back standards. By no means is he an old, washed up veteran with a limited future. Washington has been down that road before (see, e.g., Peterson, Adrian), but that’s not what the Ekeler signing is.
Looking back on his 2023 season, Ekeler had a grade 2 ankle sprain early in week 1 that caused him to miss weeks 2, 3, and 4. That clearly depressed his gross production but it doesn’t explain his drastically reduced yards per carry average. An average of 4.5 yards per carry is plus-level production; 3.5 is below average. That’s actually less than the 4.1 yards per carry that Washington received from both Brian Robinson, Jr., and Antonio Gibson.
Last season, Ekeler had three games in which he averaged 4.5 yards per carry or more: week 1 against the Dolphins, week 10 against the Packers, and week 13 against Denver. Green Bay and Denver both had poor run defenses, with opponents averaging 4.4 yards per carry (ranked 22nd) and 5.0 yards per carry (worst in the NFL). However, the Dolphins had one of the best run defenses in the league, with opponents averaging just 3.8 yards per carry, which was tied for 7th in the league. The Chargers were the most successful team on the ground against Miami all season, and considering it was week 1, it may have been an anomaly.
Examining Ekeler’s 2022 season, he had two games that were way, way above average: he had 16 carries for 173 yards, 10.9 yards per carry, against the Browns in week 5, and 10 carries for 122 yards, 10.2 yards per carry, in week 16 against the Raiders. Subtracting those two games out of his 2022 statistics leaves 178 carries for 620 yards, which is an average of just 3.5 yards per carry. Not only that, but Ekeler had a carry of 71 yards in the Browns game and 72 yards against the Raiders. I’m not saying that those big games and big carries don’t count; they do. The point is that it’s been awhile since Ekeler had been consistently above average, and his overall numbers have been boosted by a very small handful of huge games. Most of Ekeler’s last two seasons had long periods of below 4.0 yards per carry production. His last season in which he regularly averaged well above 4.0 yards per carry was 2021.
Therefore, I suspect that, for right or for wrong, the Chargers saw Ekeler as a fading player, which is why they didn’t try to re-sign him. That’s not to say that he can’t turn it around. Sometimes a change in circumstances allows a player to improve. In Washington, he’ll be aided by an offense that will almost certainly be more focused on the running game this season than it was during the prior regime, almost by default considering how little value former offensive coordinator Eric Bieniemy placed on the ground game.
In the end, after analyzing Ekeler’s stats, it appears fairly unlikely that Ekeler will be able to turn back the clock two years and become a consistently above-average running back again. Don’t get me wrong; I hope he succeeds, and I was in favor of the team taking a chance on him, especially with a contract that was only two years and a manageable amount of guaranteed money. The most probable result isn’t that Ekeler will morph into a classic #1 franchise back; far more likely, he’ll be a part of a cadre of backs who will get carries and be moderately effective at times, along with Robinson and Chris Rodriguez, and average at other times. Washington did not draft a running back this year, instead only signing two undrafted free agents, Austin Jones from USC and Michael Wiley from Arizona. It’s possible that one of those two players emerges out of relative obscurity to become a franchise-caliber back – that seems to happen with running backs every year – but that’s obviously unlikely.
What do you think? Can Ekeler get back to 4.5 yards per carry? Let me know in the comment section.