David Johnson in 2016. Bruce Arians has been an NFL head coach for six season and that is the only time he had a notable fantasy football running back. Sure, DJ had a helluva a year and a lot of people point to it when hyping up the fantasy football prospects of Ke’Shawn Vaughn or Ronald Jones II this season.
Unfortunately, the five other seasons of Arians’ head coaching career is a wasteland of running backs. And no matter how bullish you may be on Tom Brady and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers offense in 2020, Vaughn and Jones II are going to end up a lot closer to Rashard Mendenhall and Andre Ellington than one emerging as a reincarnation of David Johnson.
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Bruce Arians and his running backs
Let’s take a look at the numbers Bruce Arians’ running backs put up in those non-2016 seasons. Warning, this isn’t pretty.
2013
| Name | GP | Rush Att. | Rush Yards | Rush TDs | Targets | Recs | Rec Yards | Rec TDs |
| Rashard Mendenhall | 15 | 217 | 687 | 8 | 21 | 18 | 134 | 0 |
| Andre Ellington | 15 | 118 | 652 | 3 | 57 | 39 | 371 | 1 |
In his first season in Arizona, a timeshare emerged between two fairly average players. Ellington showed a little more juice as seen by his 5.5 YPC, but it wasn’t enough to stop Arians from giving Mendenhall 100 more carries. This scenario could be highly likely for Vaughn and Jones II this season. Hopefully, neither one of them will have to go through this:
2014
| Name | GP | Rush Att. | Rush Yards | Rush TDs | Targets | Recs | Rec Yards | Rec TDs |
| Andre Ellington | 12 | 201 | 660 | 3 | 64 | 46 | 395 | 2 |
Ellington was the lead back in 2014 although he missed the last four games of the season with a hip pointer. The paltry 3.3 YPC was certainly underwhelming and his lack of touchdown meant he was a fantasy non-factor for the most part. Stepfan Taylor and Kerwynn Williams got some work and were actually a little more effective on average after Ellington went down.
2015
| Name | GP | Rush Att. | Rush Yards | Rush TDs | Targets | Recs | Rec Yards | Rec TDs |
| Chris Johnson | 11 | 196 | 814 | 3 | 13 | 6 | 58 | 0 |
| David Johnson | 16 | 125 | 581 | 8 | 57 | 36 | 457 | 4 |
| Andre Ellington | 10 | 45 | 289 | 3 | 24 | 15 | 148 | 0 |
Chris Johnson came off the scrapheap in 2015 to have a few 100-yard games for Arians before breaking his leg in week 11. However, he only had six catches, put some dud performances and couldn’t find the end zone. David Johnson stepped up to replace him. He went on a tear that would continue into 2016. It remains to be seen just how DJ wasn’t playing more to begin with. Ellington was also in the background stealing volume from both at random times during the season. It’s important to note this was never a timeshare.
2017
| Name | GP | Rush Att. | Rush Yards | Rush TDs | Targets | Recs | Rec Yards | Rec TDs |
| Adrian Peterson | 6 | 129 | 448 | 2 | 16 | 9 | 66 | 0 |
| Kerwynn Williams | 16 | 120 | 426 | 1 | 15 | 10 | 93 | 0 |
| Andre Ellington | 8 | 15 | 53 | 1 | 50 | 33 | 297 | 0 |
David Johnson was injured in Week 1 and Bruce Arians was forced to use some questionable running backs after that. Adrian Peterson had two blowup games after getting traded to the Cardinals from New Orleans, but he also missed the final five weeks of the season due to a neck injury. Ellington was the only running back to catch passes and this whole situation was a mess. Arians was gone after the season but some lucky manager will always remember this week:
2019
| Name | GP | Rush Att. | Rush Yards | Rush TDs | Targets | Recs | Rec Yards | Rec TDs |
| Ronald Jones II | 16 | 172 | 724 | 6 | 40 | 31 | 310 | 0 |
| Peyton Barber | 16 | 154 | 470 | 6 | 24 | 16 | 115 | 1 |
| Dare Ogunbowale | 16 | 11 | 17 | 2 | 46 | 35 | 286 | 0 |
Bruce Arians didn’t use running backs consistently during his first season in Tampa Bay. Jones II and Barber were dart throws at best on a weekly basis. Meanwhile, Ogunbowale took away receiving volume from both players.
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2020 isn’t likely to be different
Seemingly everyone believes either Vaughn or Jones II is going to be a breakout running back this season, However, Bruce Arians isn’t good with running backs. He constantly force feeds ineffective backs for seemingly no good reason and is happy to run out waves of players. Don’t be fooled into thinking that Tom Brady and Rob Gronkowski are changing this.
Yes, Brady likes throwing to running backs. That is work Ogunbowale will probably get. Also, it took an injury to an over-the-hill Chris Johnson to get David Johnson into the lineup back in 2015. Let’s say Vaughn is the second coming of DJ, which he is probably not, history shows us that Arians isn’t unleashing him as a bellcow unless forced to do so.
Here is a list or running backs with similar ADPs to both Vaughn and Jones II on Fantasy Pros: Marlon Mack, Kerryon Johnson, Damien Williams, Phillip Lindsay, Matt Breida and Jordan Howard. None of these guys are slam dunks, but they all offer a lot more in the NFL this season than any running back coached by Arians.
