5. Aaron Jones, Green Bay Packers
Jones’ potential production seemed clear in the 2018 season, his second in the NFL as the Packers’ 2017 fifth-round pick out of Texas-El Paso. Then, he led the league with a 5.5 yards per carry rate and scored eight rushing touchdowns on just 133 carries. Still, then-head coach Mike McCarthy was relatively unimpressed, and said so when asked why he didn’t make Jones his primary back.
“There’s more to the offense than just running the football,” McCarthy said.
This would imply that Jones’ pass protection was a problem, or that perhaps he wasn’t a good receiver, but the tape didn’t show that. Jones would have to wait for Matt LaFleur to become the Packers’ new head coach and offensive play-designer to really break out, which Jones did in 2019. Only Ezekiel Elliott, Christian McCaffrey, and Mark Ingram ranked higher in Football Outsiders’ season-cumulative efficiency metrics for running backs, and only New Orleans’ Latavius Murray ranked higher in FO’s Success Rate metric.
There were other ways in which Jones stood out in 2019.
In 2019, Aaron Jones had the NFL's best rushing DVOA in the red zone (49.5%), and the best rushing DVOA out of shotgun (51.5%). Good thing Matt LaFleur showed up and understood Jones' value. pic.twitter.com/0OzM7PeBkb
— Doug Farrar (@NFL_DougFarrar) July 26, 2020
Sometimes, all you need is the right coach.