On The Move: Breaking Down Austin Ekeler on the Commanders

Austin Ekeler was one of the biggest busts of the 2023 season. Ekeler was the consensus No. 4 player overall off the board, the clear focal point of an offense everyone expected to be high-scoring, and arguably the favorite target of one of the NFL’s ascendant star QBs, Justin Herbert. So what happened?

We’ll begin with the actual numbers. Ekeler started the season looking every bit like a Top 5 pick, rushing for 117 yards and a touchdown while adding 47 yards on four receptions through the air in a loss to the Dolphins. Ekeler got banged up though and missed the next three games, and when he returned he was not the same player. While Ekeler has always been a unique elite fantasy RB because of how reliant he was on passing game work, 2023 was by far his worst showing as a rusher. After Week 1, Ekeler never got to 70 rushing yards again in any game. Since he’s more of a pass-catching back, that’s okay right? Well, not when his targets dropped from 7.4 per game in 2022 to 5.2 in 2023 (still a good number for RBs, but alarming nonetheless) and he only topped 50+ receiving yards once all season. And this is where the forecast gets a little scary for Ekeler as he enters his age-29 season.

Ekeler is known as a pass-catching back, but the truth of his dominance is that his true source of power was touchdowns. In 2021, Ekeler scored 20 total touchdowns, and in 2022 he scored 18 touchdowns. His rushing and receiving numbers did take a dive, but there are some circumstances that point to other factors besides Ekeler just falling apart as a player. The real decline for Ekeler was that he only scored six touchdowns in 2023, and while that drop is extreme, touchdowns are an inconsistent stat for most players, and he was due for a pretty extreme regression.

The touchdown regression doesn’t quite explain why Ekeler graded as PFF’s No. 55 RB though, nor does it explain his yards per carry dropping a full yard to 3.5 in 2023. Volume was never Ekeler’s bag, but efficiency was. This is where you have to really get in the weeds, and you’ll learn that Ekeler was running behind the literal worst run-blocking offensive line in football. Per PFF, the Chargers had the worst-graded run offense in football (69.4), and their run-blocking grade was a putrid 40.1. Over at FTN Fantasy, the Chargers were dead last in Offensive rushing DVOA (-20.3%), posted the third-worst mark in adjusted line yards (3.58) and in power success (55%). To zoom out a little and put this in plain English…this offensive line absolutely sucked, and Ekeler isn’t the type of player to make lemonade out of these lemons.

Now, Ekeler is on a prove-it deal with the Washington Commanders, an intriguing landing spot to say the least. Known as a receiving back, he’ll absolutely be relegated to that role with Brian Robinson Jr., a 2023 breakout who is built for big workloads handling the rushing work. When Ekeler does run, it’ll be behind a much improved unit than he’d been running behind in Los Angeles, but the true key to his success or failure will be Washington’s offensive scheme under Dan Quinn.

Last season Antonio Gibson saw 59 targets and Robinson saw 43, both numbers being a far cry from what Ekeler is used to with the Chargers. He’ll also likely have a rookie QB running the show, a steep downgrade from Justin Herbert, an elite NFL passer. Ekeler’s already low – for a high-end RB1 – rushing volume is set to drop even further, and he will no longer dominate snap share near the end zone like he has the past several seasons for the Bolts. Ekeler appears poised to fill a role like Shane Vereen and James White once did in New England, which can be a fantasy relevant role, but is unlikely to justify his ADP. Ekeler’s ADP will surely drop, but he will still have name value, and it’ll still be inflated. One-dimensional backs without a clear path to TD opportunity are not the type of player I target in drafts, so I’ll likely be avoiding Austin Ekeler this season.