What Went Wrong?

Tomlinson, too, has been handcuffed by an offense in transition. LT has a new play-caller in coach Norv Turner, who wants to balance the offense by developing quarterback Philip Rivers and the passing game. But Rivers has too often failed to make defenses pay for stacking the box against the run.

Waters offers a prescription for ailing running games that would be appreciated by many of these backs' owners: Just keep pounding the ball. "You can talk about all sorts of things for why a running game is successful," he says. "One of the big things is that you've just got to stick with it, even when it doesn't look good. If you look at the playoff teams from last year, they were all almost like 70 percent on third-and-four or less. Well, to get into those situations, you have to have positive plays, and you're more likely to have positive plays with a run play than a pass play. If you stay with it, things have a way of working out."

This year, that's easy for him to say.

FANTASY OWNERS love to get their hands on a workhorse back, the kind who gets the ball handed to him over and over, week in and week out. But the danger with these workhorse backs is that they tend to wear down: The player who wins the league title for you one year may lose it for you the next, when the pounding catches up with him.

Although this year is a drastic example, the following chart details how backs who led the league in carries will, on average, fall off in production the following year. (The drop would be even larger if we hadn't discounted Ricky Williams's quitting on the Dolphins in 2004 after carrying the ball a league-high 392 times in '03.) Behind these averages are some startling details: Only four times (in 21 possible chances) did a player in the top three in carries gain more yards the following year: LaDainian Tomlinson in '02 and '03, and Rudi Johnson and Shaun Alexander in '05. Tomlinson was 23 and 24 when he bettered his previous season, Johnson was 26, and Alexander was 28. No back older than 28 had gained more yards after being in the top three in carries the previous year.

[This article contains a table. Please see hardcopy of magazine or PDF.]