Analytics Reveal Only 4 Safe Free-Agent RBs Broncos Can Target

The Denver Broncos have some holes to fill on their roster and will need to do it through free agency after trading away draft picks to land Sean Payton as the new head coach. One big need is at the running back spot.

Javonte Williams suffered a major injury last season, and the trio of Mike Boone, Latavius Murray, and Marlon Mack are all unrestricted free agents. That leaves the cupboard bare at running back.

To understand who to target in free agency, we can look at the past to predict the future. By analyzing each player’s career by position, we can start to see when a free agent will peak and when they will decline.

I have compiled all players who were in the NFL from 1998 to 2019 and whose final season was at least 2008. From there, I segmented them by position and analyzed only players who started at least 60% of the possible games in their first three seasons.

Finally, each position was analyzed by player’s age in each of their seasons to find what percentage of games they started and what percentage of awards (first-team All-Pro/Pro Bowl) they received.

Ages with less than 10 players at the position were excluded. In the below image, you will see how the running backs fared.

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Running backs peak at 26 years old in both their ability to start often and garner attention for awards. After that, they begin to fall off a cliff, and by the age of 30, they start less than 25% of the possible games.

These backs also rarely do well enough to garner those coveted awards. Rewarding running backs with a contract after 26 years old should be done with great caution and should never be a long-term contract.

However, the Broncos must fill in the glaring need prior to the draft at this position group. The Broncos must get some players in free agency to have at least some semblance of a stable of running backs.

The bad news is, there are very few players that the Broncos should take a chance on paying. Denver should look at only players who would stand to produce at least one peak season during the contract.

Here is a list of possible players young enough to take that risk in paying for up to three years:

Josh Jacobs
Alexander Mattison
Devin Singletary
David Montgomery

Bottom Line

Jacobs will likely carry a large price tag, but the others may not. With the Broncos' need at this position, it would be wise for the team to look at two of the lower-cost free agents instead of paying a large sum to the star of the group.

This will allow the Broncos to fill in the running back group for the future over the next two drafts, if Williams is unable to return to form because of how significant his knee injury was in 2022.

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