Who is the Commanders’ most underappreciated player?
It was clear before Washington’s first preseason game last summer that rookie running back Brian Robinson Jr. was poised to take over as the Commanders starting running back. It’s not that Washington didn’t love Antonio Gibson but wanted to use him in a different role, with Robinson being more of the every-down back.
Unfortunately, Robinson was shot twice in the leg during an attempted robbery in late August. Miraculously, Robinson returned to the field in Week 5. It didn’t take long for Robinson to become Washington’s top back, which is amazing in retrospect.
Entering the second season of his career and the first with new offensive coordinator Eric Bieniemy much is expected from Robinson and Gibson in 2023.
Cynthia Frelund, an analytics expert for NFL.com, recently named the most underappreciated player for every NFL team. Robinson was her pick for the Commanders.
Here’s what Frelund said about Robinson:
Missing the first four games of the season after being shot in an attempted robbery, Robinson amazingly returned to average 17.1 carries (leading all rookies) and 66.4 yards per game (third among rookie backs). While the volume is a clue to how much the Commanders immediately trusted the newbie, NGS shows that he also posted the highest percentage of 10-plus-yard runs against stacked boxes in the NFL (13.2%). With new OC Eric Bieniemy architecting the offense this season, those types of gains — and the skills Robinson possesses to create them — will be highly valued in Washington.
Here’s the formula Frelund uses to find each team’s most underappreciated player:
First, I calculate and then rank each player’s season-long contribution metric by team (win share). To sum it up without getting overly technical, the contribution metric (or win share) measures each player’s production during the previous season. The metric encompasses a value for every snap by each player and reveals each player’s contribution to the team’s overall win total. After making those calculations, I factor in each player’s salary by position (contract data via Over The Cap) to add some context around who was being “underappreciated.” I always try to give priority to players who have not switched teams in the current offseason (since it’s harder to be underappreciated by a team you haven’t played for yet), but that keeps getting harder to do, due to tons of free-agent movement. Then I weight players drafted in Round 2 or later who have been to no more than two Pro Bowls and aren’t in the top 10 at their position. That said, the most critical component to this entire method remains the contribution metric.
