Projecting Brown's Stats

Obviously, to call Ronnie Brown's injury unfortunate, would be a major understatement. He was the best back in the NFL so far this year and definitely had a Pro Bowl selection coming. But that all vanished in the time it took for his ACL to tear.

Still, I was curious as to what Brown's numbers would have looked like if he finished the season. Granted, this is an imperfect science as you can't account for statistical fluctuations such as slumps or hot streaks. Even so, 7 games is a large enough sample size to project out over a full 16 game season to get a relatively accurate idea of what we could have expected out of Brown.

I also projected out his stats over 14 games, since that is the average amount of games he played in during his first two seasons.

Take a look at the numbers (I added his 2006 stats as a point of reference and to show just how much he improved this season):

Rushing

Year	Games	Attempts	Att/Game	Yards	Avg	Yds/G	TD	1st Downs	1st%	20+	40+	FUM
2006	13	241	18.5	1,008	4.2	77.5	5	49	20.3	6	1	4
2007	7	119	17	602	5.1	86.0	4	39	32.8	2	1	0
2007 Projection 1	16	272	17	1,376	5.1	86.0	9	89	32.8	5	2	0
2007 Projection 2	14	238	17	1,204	5.1	86.0	8	78	32.8	4	2	0

Receiving

Year	Games	Rec	Rec/G	Yards	Avg	Yds/G	TD	20+	40+	1st
2006	13	33	2.5	276	8.4	21.2	0	2	0	12
2007	7	39	5.5	389	10.0	55.6	1	5	1	18
2007 Projection 1	16	89	5.5	890	10.0	55.6	2	11	2	41
2007 Projection 2	14	78	5.5	780	10.0	55.6	2	10	2	36

Wow. If Ronnie had finished off this season maintaining his current pace he would have had 1,376 rushing yards at an amazing 5.1 yards/carry average to go along with 89 receptions for 890 yards. That is 2,266 yards from scrimmage. He also would have tallied a total of 11 TDs.

While those rushing statistics are certainly a major improvement from his first two seasons, it's the catching totals that most surprise me. We all knew that Cam Cameron loves to utilize his RBs as pass-catchers, and he certainly did that with Ronnie.

Sadly, all these numbers can be are statistical projections. Maybe next season...