4 Baltimore Ravens bound for a breakout season in 2017

Terrance West, RB

Jon Giles’ offensive bold prediction:

Terrance West had his best season yet last year in his young career. Amassing over 1,000 yards in total offense, he led a ragtag running back core and proved himself the leader over a high potential dual threat in Kenneth Dixon.

This year, with Dixon, benched to start the year, expect West’s to get the bulk of the carries. Newcomer Danny Woodhead is only really taking targets away on third down, and with the addition of Jeremy Maclin, defenses will have to respect the pass, dropping a man out of the box. Expect a 1,000 yard rushing season for the former Towson star.

Advanced stats to prove West is the real deal: Let’s look at Approximate Value (AV), a statistic created by Pro-Football-Reference’s founder Doug Drinen. I broke down each player’s value, compared to others at his position in the league, given the same number of plays run. Think of it as a football equivalent to baseball’s WAR.

Think of it as a football equivalent to baseball’s WAR. For this exercise, we’ll call it Value Above Replacement, or V.A.R. The Baltimore Ravens 2017 leaders, based on last years stats are:

The top seven are all proven leaders that we know and love. West has the potential to vault up this leaderboard even further and be a leader for this franchise.

Excel Spreadsheet with Ravens V.A.R. (no formulas for speed’s sake)