In looking at the NFL’s yards-per-carry king’s career, it’s hard not to wonder if Jamaal Charles could have made an even more demonstrative impact on the game.
Had the Chiefs outfitted him with superior offensive lines or made better investments in their passing game for most of his tenure, Charles wouldn’t have experienced the annual burden of carrying average-at-best offenses. And if injuries hadn’t intervened, or he played in a bigger market or on better teams, wouldn’t his consistently electric style have at least infiltrated Marshall Faulk territory in the public consciousness?
From a fantasy perspective, Charles didn’t even have the No. 1 or No. 2 season among Chiefs running backs this century. Priest Holmes and Larry Johnson — the vehicles that showcased the dominance of one of the league’s greatest offensive lines — were more sought-after commodities.
Now entering the final season in his 20s, Charles’ status as a no-doubt RB1 is suddenly in question thanks to his second torn ACL.
In re-signing Charcandrick West and Spencer Ware, Kansas City’s secured the coalition that ably took over when Charles went down last season. And it’s fair to wonder how much that duo will eat into his workload during his age-29 season.
Fantasy-wise, Charles had the ability to function as a Faulk-like piece, and had he come along a few years earlier, he could well have LaDainian Tomlinson status within the fantasy realm.
Arriving in 2008 and not seeing much action until a year later, Charles did not receive the royal treatment Holmes and Johnson did, when the Willie Roaf- and Will Shields-powered offensive front made multiple Chiefs RBs No. 1 picks in the years Faulk was slowing down. (Yes, there were years Holmes or Johnson were considered better than Tomlinson.)
While Holmes and Johnson ran behind Hall of Famers and first-team All-Pros, and a multi-time Pro Bowler in Brian Waters, Charles has never enjoyed the luxury of following a blocker who booked a Pro Bowl berth that season. Kansas City could not establish much continuity up front, yet its yards-per-tote legend kept churning out per-touch mastery.
Charles has never finished a season averaging fewer than 5.0 yards per rush. Given some of the teams he was on, that’s astounding. Although he has four seasons in which he finished as a top-10 fantasy back — No. 1 in 2013 — he’s done it unconventionally.
Kansas City initially restricted its dynamic runner by somehow giving an aging Thomas Jones more carries in 2010 — Charles’ masterpiece campaign, one that featured a career-best 6.4 in the yards-per-carry column despite him taking 230 handoffs — and this arrangement led to Jones finishing with six rushing TDs to Charles’ five. The ex-Texas sprinter still earned the first of his two All-Pro honors.
It’s the end zone factor that has kept Charles from etching his name among the fantasy icons. Only in 2013 did he rush for more than 10 touchdowns, and the elusive back has just two seasons (2013-14) with double-digit TDs overall.
Charles’ 42 rushing TDs rank 100th in NFL history, right alongside BenJarvus Green-Ellis and behind immortals like T.J. Duckett, Marion Barber and Marion Butts — none of whom enjoyed careers as long as his. As far as active runners go, the Chiefs’ eighth-year starter sits 10th — with Cam Newton eclipsing him last season. This statistic will unfortunately have an impact on whether or not he can earn a Hall of Fame nod when his career concludes, and it doesn’t illustrate how important he’s been to the Chiefs this decade.
Coupled with Charles’ uncertain health going into his ninth season, the fact that he’s never been a consistent goal-to-go scorer stands to restrict him.
Ware rushed for six touchdowns last season in just 72 attempts; Charles went two full seasons (2010 and ’12) without doing that. The 24-year-old Ware looks like a legitimate threat to vulture TDs from Charles, and West could make this a Schottenheimer-style committee (that’s how the Chiefs rolled before Holmes), at least as Charles proves he’s recovered from the second ACL setback.
Charles could be more dependent on his air work to make an impact, and although Andy Reid’s taken care of his primary ball-carrier’s owners in this area (131 receptions, 13 TDs in less than 2 1/2 years in Reid’s system), receiving scores are harder to predict.
Although Charles has as good of a resume as anyone in the league not named Adrian Peterson and has averaged just 165 carries per season, he’s a risk with a first-round choice.
Several lower-profile backs — Lamar Miller, Thomas Rawls, even C.J. Anderson or Latavius Murray as of now — figure to receive almost all of their team’s goal-line carries and lead their backfields’ respective pecking orders between the 20s. None of these players are better than Charles, but they may be safer bets and at lower costs for owners.
Selecting Charles with a top-10 pick will never be less fun because of the confluence of circumstances that could restrict this elite talent.
As long as he’s healthy enough to reclaim his starting gig, Charles stands to be a first-round pick. But he’s never faced this much of an uphill battle to make good on that value.
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