Chicago Bears running back Matt Forte is one of the most consistent players in the NFL, and it’s especially difficult to find the kind of week-to-week consistency he brings to the table in the NFL. Aside from a sophomore slump of a season in 2009, Forte averaged at least 60 yards per game in his six other seasons in the NFL, and he’s never run for less than 900 yards or caught less than 40 passes. Despite playing on an offense that lacked a legitimate passing attack, Forte still managed to catch 102 passes, and you have to look at the right numbers to appreciate his solid 2014 campaign.
There’s no doubt that Forte has put up better seasons in his career, but he did an excellent job for the Bears considering the circumstances. He ran for over 1,300 yards with 74 receptions and 12 total touchdowns in a monstrous 2013 season, and those were numbers he had no chance of replicating with defenses focused on him thanks to Jay Cutler‘s turnovers. Forte took the rock a whopping 368 times, and the Bears continue to feed him the ball, as he shows no signs of decline at the age of 29.
On the surface, some might say that Forte was a bit of a disappointment in 2014 with just 3.9 yards per carry, and he didn’t provide many big plays with just eight runs of at least 15 yards. Per Pro Football Focus, Forte also averaged just 2.2 yards after contact per carry, and some would say that those numbers paint the picture of a running back in decline. I’d say that while this can’t be completely ruled out, it would be irresponsible to jump to such a conclusion. Just as quarterbacks suffer when defenses don’t respect the running game, running backs suffer when defenses don’t respect the passing game. Look no further than Adrian Peterson in 2013 for an example of this effect in the NFC North.
Forte didn’t juke defenders out of their heels or provide many highlight-reel carries, but he did consistently move the ball for the Bears offense. Success rate percentage measures the percentage of plays that were successful based on down and distance (so a two-yard run on third-and-1 is successful, while a four-yard run on third-and-five is not), and, per Football Outsiders, he was 12th in the league in success rate last season and 14th in DYAR, which is FO’s statistic that most comprehensively evaluates RB performance (DeMarco Murray, Marshawn Lynch, and Jamaal Charles were in the top three).
I always tout using rate statistics to evaluate players, but you have to bend that rule at the running back position, because it’s just so hard to be efficient when you are touching the ball so many times. Forte’s 266 rushes this season were less than the number of carries he had last season, but, when you factor in receptions, he had more touches overall. 266 carries isn’t nothing to sneeze at either, as only four running backs carried the ball more often.
Matt Forte finished the 2014 season as the clear leader among RBs in receptions, and his 102 catches broke Larry Centers‘s record for the most in a single season from a back. In fact, only elite wideouts Antonio Brown and Julio Jones had more receptions than Forte, who had 808 receiving yards and four touchdowns as the clear safety valve in the Bears offense. He averaged about six receptions for 50 yards in each game, and you can only imagine how many picks Cutler would have thrown without his favorite check-down receiver operating out of the backfield. There are several great pass-catching backs in this league, but Forte is arguably the most reliable of the bunch.
We’re accustomed to seeing Forte put up analytics that have him as a clear top-five or top-ten running back, but that wasn’t the case this season due to his average of just 3.9 yards per carry. YPC can be fickle, though, and it is in this case. Not only did the lack of a passing game hurt him as a rusher, but it’s also important to look at what he did as a pass-catcher. Forte may have “only” been 12th in the league in rushing yards, but only MVP candidate DeMarco Murray and elite Pittsburgh Steelers RB Le’Veon Bell had more yards from scrimmage than Forte this season.
Players who do the dirty work are praised as workhorses, warriors, lunch-pail guys, and blue-collar cogs, and I think that’s exactly the type of season Forte had for the Bears in 2014. He didn’t average many yards per carry and wasn’t even one of the top ten players in the league in missed tackles forced on his runs, but he was still among the league leaders in yards from scrimmage and set the receptions record at his position. Making chain-moving catches, hard-nosed rushes, and being one of the only consistent performers on a dysfunctional, maligned franchise deserves plenty of plays. Forte has a lot of tread on his tires and will continue to take beatings and net over 300 touches as a 30-year-old, but he still consistently moves the ball better than most backs (only four RBs had more first downs on runs than Forte’s 63).
Chew on this: No running back played a higher percentage of his team’s snaps than Forte this past season. If that’s not value, then I’m not sure what is. In fact, he had over 1,000 snaps this season, and it’s one reason why he was probably the Bears best player in 2014. That isn’t saying much, but the amount of snaps he played and touches he took speak volumes.
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