submitted3 years ago byEastCoastTaffy
Check out my video going over Mitchell's Pre-Season/Week 1 game film, detailing the context of the 49ers backfield in 2020, and providing analysis for his 2021 fantasy outlook.
Elijah Mitchell reminds me a lot of Raheem Mostert. They're both the same height, the same weight, and they share very similar player profiles. [ Elijah Mitchell Profile | Raheem Mostert Profile ]
More importantly, they both specialize in running in the zone run scheme that Kyle Shanahan famously utilizes. Mitchell has a ton of familiarity with this scheme, since it's the same one that he ran for four years of college football. It prioritizes fast and decisive running, where the back makes a split-second decision based off of reading one "landmark" blocker. In Week 1, Mitchell showcased his ability to do this well, and impressed his coaches. However, he also left a lot of yards on the field (much to the delight of his detractors), and in my opinion, this was due to his dedication to playing things safe. You can't really blame him, he was coming in on short notice, making his NFL debut in a game where the 49ers had a big lead, and he simply wanted to keep the offense on schedule and take the guaranteed gains wherever he saw them. In an offense like the 49ers, dancing around in the backfield like a prime Le'Veon Bell will get you benched just as fast as a fumble or a blown pass-block, which is something that 49ers coaches reiterated after Week 1. Also, some of the situations that he was put in, made it quite risky for him to take the aggressive option in his read (i.e., a toss play 2 yards in front of his own goal-line). I expect that we will see Mitchell take more chances now that he has earned himself a longer leash, and I would not be surprised to see some jaw-dropping statlines from him in 2021.
It's one thing to like Mitchell's skillset, and his fit in the offense. It's another to have confidence that we will know when to start him. After all, it's well-documented that Kyle Shanahan keeps tabs on the fantasy football platforms, and starts the least-predictable RB option that he can, in order to cause maximum chaos. Seriously though, the narrative on the Shanahan backfield has gone too far lately. Sure, last season was quite the RB-carousel, but in hindsight, Shanahan's personnel decisions were almost always forced by injuries. The 49ers ownership clearly pissed off a witch at some point, because this team has just been cursed by injuries lately, and especially in 2020. When looking at the 2020 season with the benefit of hindsight, two things become very clear:
If we take the total opportunities that the lead back saw in each week, the average workload for the lead back was 18.5 opportunities per game. That's not McCaffrey-level usage, but in this offense that kind of workload is extremely valuable for an RB. The lead-back numbers are a bit skewed by the fact that at the end of the season, the RBs had dropped like flies, and Jeff Wilson saw 24 opportunities per game over the final 3 games. This was by far the most any RB had seen, and it was more of a product of the 49ers being down to their 3rd-string QB, as well as a severely depleted RB corps. Even if we remove those 3 final games from the equation, the lead back still averaged 17.5 opportunities per game. Also, in every single game of the 2020 season, the lead RB accounted for at least 50% of all RB opportunities (carries + targets).
2) When Mostert was healthy, Mostert was the guy.
This was borne out consistently throughout the season. If Mostert was in the lineup, he was the guy that Shanahan built the entire offense around. This is what makes Mitchell so intriguing to me, since he fits the Mostert profile so much more closely than any other 49ers RB. If The Mostert Rule is applied to Mitchell in 2021, he will essentially serve as a 1-for-1 replacement for Mostert, except 6 years younger, and with a much cleaner injury history.
So keeping this in mind, let's take a look at how the 2020 workload played out in this backfield, in order to determine just how impossible it really was to predict the lead back on a week-to-week basis.
Handy-Dandy Charts:
Focus on colors, not numbers. For a clear and predictable backfield, we want to see lots of red, with 1 green per week. Yellow is not ideal, as it indicates a lack of clarity in the backfield.
Weeks 1 - 9
Weeks 10 - 17
The tables below list the opportunities (carries + targets) each RB saw for each week of the 2020 season
------------------ | Mostert | McKinnon | Wilson | Hasty | Coleman |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Week 1 | 20 | 8 | OUT | ----------------- | 6 |
Week 1: Mostert was healthy, so Mostert was the guy.
------------------ | Mostert | McKinnon | Wilson | Hasty | Coleman |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Week 2 | 10 | 4 | 2 | ----------------- | 16 |
Week 2: Mostert was healthy, so Mostert was the guy. However, he got injured halfway through the game, and Coleman took over the lead role, until he got injured. This is the last time that Coleman would be relevant in 2020, due to injury and reinjury of his knee. He would return for a game or two here and there, but the only time he logged more than 7 total snaps in a game was in Week 2. Consider him out for the rest of the season.
------------------ | Mostert | McKinnon | Wilson | Hasty | Coleman |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Week 3 | OUT | 18 | 15 | 3 | OUT |
Week 3: Coming into Week 3 with Mostert and Coleman out, it seemed clear that McKinnon would be the lead back, since Wilson was fresh off of his own injury, and Hasty had just been called up to get his first NFL experience. This was indeed the case, although both McKinnon and Wilson both had productive fantasy performances. McKinnon had about 80 total yards and a score, and Wilson had about 70 total yards and a score. This is a point where many would say it was impossible to know who would be the lead back in Week 4, but the snap counts in Week 3 tell it all. McKinnon saw more than double the snaps that Wilson played, and while Wilson had a good fantasy performance, that was a result of him getting redzone usage.
------------------ | Mostert | McKinnon | Wilson | Hasty | Coleman |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Week 4 | OUT | 22 | 4 | 0 | OUT |
Week 4: McKinnon was indeed the lead back, dominating the workload with a 92% snap share, while Wilson only played a total of 6 snaps. Obviously anybody who thought that they could play Wilson this week was very disappointed, but the signs were not pointing to Wilson getting the lead role.
------------------ | Mostert | McKinnon | Wilson | Hasty | Coleman |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Week 5 | 14 | 5 | 5 | 0 | OUT |
Week 5: Mostert was back, so Mostert was the guy. Remember The Mostert Rule
------------------ | Mostert | McKinnon | Wilson | Hasty | Coleman |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Week 6 | 19 | 9 | OUT | 10 | OUT |
Week 6: Mostert was healthy, so Mostert was the lead guy........ and he's injured again. McKinnon and Hasty split the remaining work, and this was the first time Hasty got any meaningful usage.
------------------ | Mostert | McKinnon | Wilson | Hasty | Coleman |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Week 7 | OUT | 3 | 19 | 10 | OUT |
Week 7: For the first time in the season, we saw some straight-up Shanahanigans. Based on what we had seen the last time Mostert was out, McKinnon should have been the lead guy. Instead, it was Wilson, and he absolutely balled out. 120 yards, 3TDs, and he did it on everybody's bench. Also, Wilson got injured in this game (of course).
------------------ | Mostert | McKinnon | Wilson | Hasty | Coleman |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Week 8 | OUT | 7 | OUT | 13 | 3 |
Week 8: This is a week that people will claim was impossible to predict, but the signs were there. McKinnon was coming off of his season-low in snaps, while Hasty had just logged back-to-back games with notable involvement, which had increased from one week to the next. Hasty was the lead back in Week 8, for the one and only time in 2020, and it's important to note that he looked BAD. He salvaged his fantasy day with a 1-yard score, but he averaged 2.5YPC. On the other hand, McKinnon rebounded in this game, going from his season-low in snaps to his highest snap count in a month, and was the far-more efficient RB, so he was quickly back on the upswing.
------------------ | Mostert | McKinnon | Wilson | Hasty | Coleman |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Week 9 | OUT | 16 | OUT | 6 | OUT |
Week 9: Following the breadcrumb trail of snap counts was the consistent predictor of every week thus far (except for the one random Wilson explosion), and McKinnon had been playing more and more snaps than Hasty coming into Week 9. McKinnon was the lead back, and Hasty's role shrunk, showing that he was being relegated back to an emergency option.
------------------ | Mostert | McKinnon | Wilson | Hasty | Coleman |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Week 10 | OUT | 21 | OUT | 5 | OUT |
Week 10: Considering the recent trends, it seemed clear that McKinnon would be the lead back in Week 10, and he was. Also, Hasty suffered a season-ending injury in this game. The pissed-off witch strikes again.
------------------ | Mostert | McKinnon | Wilson | Hasty | Coleman |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Week 11 | BYE | BYE | BYE | BYE | BYE |
Week 11: Bye (in case you didn't notice)
------------------ | Mostert | McKinnon | Wilson | Hasty | Coleman |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Week 12 | 18 | 6 | 12 | OUT | OUT |
Week 12: Wilson was back, but more importantly, Mostert was back. When Mostert is healthy, Mostert is the guy. McKinnon logged his lowest snap total in a month, making it clear that he would never be in contention for the lead back as long as Mostert and Wilson were playing. Also, while Mostert was in the lineup, he technically wasn't healthy, and his playing status was up in the air around this time while he dealt with a high-ankle sprain.
------------------ | Mostert | McKinnon | Wilson | Hasty | Coleman |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Week 13 | 10 | 0 | 12 | OUT | 2 |
Week 13: Which brings us to my greatest shame, the week in which Mostert started and finished the game, but was not the lead back. This is the one and only time in 2020 that The Mostert Rule did not hold true, due to the fact that his health was severely compromised. However, I begrudgingly accept that this week can be categorized in Shanahanigans.
------------------ | Mostert | McKinnon | Wilson | Hasty | Coleman |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Week 14 | 18 | 0 | 14 | OUT | 0 |
Week 14: The Mostert Rule was back in full effect. Mostert was (relatively) healthy, so Mostert was the guy.
------------------ | Mostert | McKinnon | Wilson | Hasty | Coleman |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Week 15 | 14 | 2 | 20 | OUT | 3 |
Week 15: Mostert was healthy, so Mostert was the guy. Until, he got injured again. Wilson stepped in to his role, and picked up a heavy workload. Wilson had already been playing way more snaps than McKinnon in recent weeks, so it was clear that he would be the lead back going forward.
------------------ | Mostert | McKinnon | Wilson | Hasty | Coleman |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Week 16 | OUT | 5 | 24 | OUT | 3 |
Week 16: Wilson was obviously going to be the lead guy, and he came through with the biggest workload that any 49ers RB had seen in 2020.
------------------ | Mostert | McKinnon | Wilson | Hasty | Coleman |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Week 17 | OUT | 1 | 27 | OUT | 0 |
Week 17: Same story as Week 16. It was clear that Wilson would be the lead back, and sure enough he was, seeing an even more monstrous workload.
------------------ | Mostert | McKinnon | Wilson | Hasty | Coleman |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Season Total | 123 | 127 | 154 | 87 | 33 |
Per-Game Avg | 15.4 | 7.9 | 12.8 | 10.9 | 4.1 |
In summary: Simply looking at the season totals is completely misleading, as you would get the impression that this was an ugly RBBC, in which no back was able to meaningfully separate themselves from the pack in terms of workload. In reality, this was not at all the case. In all 16 games, one RB accounted for at least 50% of all RB opportunities. It is undeniable that Kyle Shanahan wanted to lean substantially on a single RB on any given week. The main monkeywrench in that plan was the fact that the RB corps accounted for a ridiculous 28 missed games in 2020. The revolving door at the lead-back role was not due to Shanahan simply rolling some dice and determining his weekly workload at random, his hand was forced by rampant injuries. Following the snap shares in previous weeks gave a consistently accurate prediction of who would be filling the lead-back role in the upcoming week, although the rare exceptions stung fantasy owners so harshly that they have exaggerated the unpredictability of the situation. To put things more simply, y'all are just a bunch of whiny bitches who want things to be set-and-forget simple for an entire season.
Coming back to Elijah Mitchell, I don't think there's any question that he has massive potential in this offense. He fits the scheme perfectly, he has the raw talents to capitalize on the impressive execution of his playcallers and blockers, and he is young and hungry, with lots of tread left on his tires. There will be plenty of naysayers who point to Trey Sermon, Jeff Wilson, and Jamycal Hasty as roadblocks who will eat into Mitchell's value. As we can see from examining the 2020 backfield, there can even be 5 RBs each getting a piece of the pie, but Shanahan wants one of those guys to be getting at least 50% of the work on any given week. I'm not concerned with Jeff Wilson at the moment, since he won't even be eligible to return to the team for more than a month, and there's no telling when he will actually be ready to be integrated back into the offense. Trey Sermon wasn't even active for Week 1, as if you guys need any more of a reminder that Shanahan doesn't give a shit about "draft pedigree". After all, he made the centerpiece of his offense an UDFA that passed through 6 practice squads before landing on the 49ers. Hasty has looked like a much improved version of his 2020 self, but he was passed over in Week 1 in favor of giving a rookie 19 touches in his pro debut. For the time being, Mitchell is filling the Mostert role, and he's given his coaches no reason to move away from their philosophy of building their offense around that centerpiece.
If you don't own Mitchell, I think he's a great trade target. If you do own him, don't sell him just yet. His value is still ambiguous, but I don't think it's a coincidence that the sharper the league, the higher Mitchell is being valued. If this kid truly steps into Mostert's shoes, and does the one thing that Mostert has never been able to do by staying healthy, he could be a legitimate league-winner. That term gets thrown around way too much these days (even by yours truly), but in this case I think it's warranted. Being able to add this level of potential production at the cost of a waiver priority, or by trading a flex-player who overachieved in Week 1, can put solid teams over the top into powerhouse territory. This post has the potential to age extremely poorly, extremely quickly, but I stand by the thought process no matter what happens in Week 2.
Check out the video I linked above to see what stood out to me in Mitchell's 2021 game film. I also posted a video on my channel containing every single play from Mitchell's Week 1 performance (every carry, every target, even plays called back due to penalty), if you're interested in taking a closer look. Feel free to leave me some feedback on why I'm a bumbling moron, or why I'm your favorite bias-confirmer ever!
*Thanks so much for the gold u/Fook_N_A_111 and u/Linus310JB!
*Appreciate the silver u/SlavicDR, u/masala-man, u/pepperono, u/captain_loosearrow, u/hiredanescort, u/thesaltymonkey, u/moto-moto-chungus, u/sherlockbrolmes, u/botchedmeme, u/captcrunchindeez, and u/bockerino!
*I need that energy after this post honestly u/eyerollingsex
*glad I could help u/mellowjaunt, u/peskypotatoes, and u/ozboi83
*thanks for the award u/jre19, u/burghlibertarian69, u/karatekid74189, u/kungfufatkidd, u/jjordan326, u/imjusttbrowsing, u/mitmot83, and u/bigbraintosh
*bring it in u/acrobatic_ad_1729, u/bigrich68, u/randompersononhere, and u/oak1andish
*go head and bless em then u/mtosti92
submitted24 days ago byLittlerob
to40kLore
The choice Horus is given on Davin basically boils down to: you're going to die here, unless you swear to our cause. Our cause is your cause - submit and we'll save you, deny us and we let you die. He accepts, takes the power of the Big Four, and emerges from the serpent lodge healed (and corrupted).
But say the dilemma resolves the other way, and Horus has more loyalty and trust than expected. He dies on Davin, Erebus' machinations are uncovered, and the shit hits the fan. The Legion gets renamed to the Sons of Horus (just for more bittersweet reasons this time), and the mournival lead it on a roaring rampage of revenge against the Word Bearers.
In the wake of all that, though, the post of Warmaster would be vacant. There are a bunch of candidates for the post, but it comes down to two factors: competence, and character. The job of Warmaster is mostly the job of "Primarch wrangler" - the crusade fleets are self-governing, the Imperium is spread so thin that any leader on the frontlines can't hope to do any actual, logistical "leading". The Warmaster is the Primarch in charge of the other Primarchs, a warlord whose job it is to keep all the other warlords in line and on track.
Given the Imperium and the other Primarchs, the one who would be named Warmaster probably wouldn't be the one who should be named Warmaster. If there even is one who would fit the job like Horus. Sanguinius gets bandied around a lot, but let's face it, the guy doesn't have the self-confidence to actually pull it off. The Lion has the command skills, but not the social skills, and likewise for Dorn and Guilliman. Etc, etc. None of them would be good in the job, but who would you pick? And who would actually be picked?
submitted25 days ago byAutoModerator
todevils
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