Can LeSean McCoy Survive Another 300-Plus-Carry NFL Season?

Over the past several seasons, there haven't been many more productive running backs in the National Football League than LeSean McCoy.

McCoy's on a new team in 2015, but if reports out of Buffalo are to be believed, one thing is going to stay the same: McCoy is going to see the football a lot with the Buffalo Bills.

And with McCoy coming off back-to-back big workloads and a relatively "down" 2014, is another 300-plus-carry season for McCoy such a good idea?

That's the plan for the Bills this year, according to what running back Fred Jackson told Sal Capaccio of WGR-Radio in Buffalo.

"I don’t know exactly what my role is going to be," Jackson said. "They say that they want Shady [McCoy] to get 300-plus carries next year. So that’s a guy you’re feeding the ball all the time. So I’ll be ready when my number is called."

Jackson's comments echoed those of running backs coach Anthony Lynn, who told Jay Skurski of the Buffalo News that he'd love to see McCoy carry a heavy workload again this season:

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I think he’s got a lot of good years left in him at 27, going into his seventh season. I talk to the guys all the time about Curtis Martin. This guy led the league in rushing his ninth year.

I’d love to see him get that many rushes. If he’s getting that many touches, that means that we’re winning ball games, we’re running the ball. We’re controlling time of possession. We’re setting up the play action. We’re doing some good things if he touches it that many times.

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At first glance, it isn't hard to see why the Bills want to get the ball into McCoy's hands.

In each of the past two seasons, McCoy has carried the ball more than 300 times. In both of those seasons, McCoy topped 1,400 total yards. Two years ago, McCoy piled up 1,607 yards on the ground (best in the NFL) and added another 539 yards receiving.

Year	G	Att.	Yards	Avg.	TD	Rec.	Yards	TD
2009	16	155	637	4.1	4	40	308	0
2010	15	207	1,080	5.2	7	78	592	2
2011	15	273	1,309	4.8	17	48	315	3
2012	12	200	840	4.2	2	54	373	3
2013	16	314	1,607	5.1	9	52	539	2
2014	16	312	1,319	4.2	5	28	155	0

In each of three seasons in McCoy's career in which the soon-to-be 27-year-old has topped 300 total touches, McCoy has piled up at least 1,400 yards. In two of those seasons, McCoy crossed the goal line more than 10 times.

That's music to ears of a Bills team whose leading rusher in 2014 (Jackson) is the NFL's oldest active running back—especially given that the quarterback situation in Buffalo is no bueno.

Lynn's absolutely right. If the Bills are going to win games in 2015, it's going to be running the football.

Unfortunately, giving McCoy the rock 300-plus times again in 2015 could cause as many problems as it solves—maybe, depending on whom you ask.

Running back workloads are a hot topic of conversation among fantasy football types. JC Newton of Fantasy Football Analytics did an extensive study of running backs coming off 300-carry seasons. As Newton points out, those backs generally experience a drop in production the following season—although it doesn't necessarily have anything to do with the previous year's workload:

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The key takeaway of this analysis is that players do regress in the nearby season following a 300+ carry campaign, but players have the potential to bounce back, and massive workloads can get bigger. However, as a general rule of thumb running backs tend to regress as they move beyond their first 300+ carry campaign. The overall regression in player performance is less likely to be attributable to whether or not a player eclipsed 300+ carries in a season (and how long ago it was) and is more a function of a variety of factors such as player age, role in the offense due to substitute players, coaching philosophy, game strategy, weather conditions, and health.

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That assessment jibes with the findings from a study done last year by Jonathan Bales of Rotoworld, who reached a very similar conclusion:

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Do running backs really get overworked? I don't think so, and if there is an effect, it's likely so small that we can't turn it into actionable information. We do see a steep regression in health, efficiency and bulk stats in running backs who garner lots of carries in a given year, but that's due almost entirely to the nature of that sample of runners—unusually healthy and efficient, and thus in position to post quality bulk stats.

Heavily worked running backs will normally see a drop in health and efficiency in the future, but those declines are only correlated with a heavy workload and not caused by it. When it comes to actionable intel, there's not much to be gleaned from a running back's previous workload besides that he's probably in a pretty good spot since he got those opportunities in the first place.

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Haha! Take that, naysayers!

Well, sort of.

The thing is, there's no denying that McCoy's 2014 production was down from the year before. In fact, of the seven instances where a running back has topped 300 carries over the past two seasons, only once did that back rush for more yards the following season.

Player	Year	Carries	Yards	FY Carries	FY Yards
LeSean McCoy	2013	314	1,607	312	1,319
Marshawn Lynch	2013	301	1,257	280	1,306
Adrian Peterson	2012	348	2,097	279	1,266
Arian Foster	2012	351	1,424	121	542
Alfred Morris	2012	335	1,613	276	1,275
Doug Martin	2012	319	1,454	127	456
Marshawn Lynch	2012	315	1,590	301	1,257

Of course, that back (Marshawn Lynch of the Seattle Seahawks) has carried the ball at least 280 times in four straight seasons with no appreciable drop-off in his production, and Lynch takes a lot more per-play punishment than McCoy does.

There are other reasons for concern regarding McCoy's future. Were Shady to rack up 339 carries in 2014, he'd hit 1,800 for his career. And according to Joseph Juan of NumberFire, that number is a red flag for ball-carriers.

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When we take the average rushing output from players in the season where they hit the 1,800 carry mark and compare these numbers to their averages the subsequent season, we find a precipitous drop in every major rushing category.

In the time span encompassing these running backs' 1,800 carry seasons and their next ones, the average rushing yards and touchdowns for these players fall by more than 18% and 27%, respectively.

"

McCoy will also turn 28 years of age in 2016. And as ESPN's Kevin Seifert reported a year ago, that's another benchmark that does not foretell good things if you make a living carrying a football.

"All running backs who have played at least four NFL seasons since 2001, with a minimum average of 75 carries per season, we see their careers peak at age 27," Seifert wrote. "Afterward, their rushing totals drop by 15 percent in one year, 25 percent in two and almost 40 by the time they are 30."

None of those are numbers that inspire a lot of warm fuzzies about longevity where running backs are concerned.

Granted, just as with the 300-carry studies, the numbers need to be quantified a bit. It stands to reason that as running backs age, their productivity will decline. And it takes a while for a tailback to hit that 1,800-carry mark. Guess what he's doing that whole time?

Getting older.

Yes, McCoy's production was down in 2014 relative to 2013. But there are plenty of NFL teams (the Bills included) who would take those 2014 numbers in a second. If the Bills really are serious about giving McCoy the ball 300-plus times, there's little reason to think that McCoy can't churn out a fifth career 1,000-yard season.

However, there's also a ton of empirical data suggesting that a Bills team unlikely to contend for a playoff spot in 2015 might just want to tread lightly with McCoy this year.

Because if the Bills choose to ride him hard, they had better enjoy McCoy's 2015 season while they can.

It could well be as good as things ever get.

Gary Davenport is an NFL analyst at Bleacher Report and a member of the Fantasy Sports Writers Association and the Pro Football Writers of America. You can follow Gary on Twitter at @IDPSharks.