Jacksonville Jaguars RB Tank Bigsby poised for breakout season based on ATEX metric.
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Jacksonville Jaguars RB Tank Bigsby poised for breakout season based on ATEX metric.
The Jacksonville Jaguars have an interesting situation at running back heading into the 2025 season. Former first-round pick Travis Etienne doesn’t seem to be a favorite of the new regime. And the team has high hopes for Bhayshul Tuten, the fourth-round pick this year out of Virginia Tech. But, Tank Bigsby is entering his third season and could be in line to be the guy in Jacksonville.
Why? There is a new metric developed by Chris Trapasso named ATEX, which factors in missed tackles forced and explosive runs (15+ yards). And Bigsby was ranked seventh on the list of potential breakout stars based on their 2024 ATEX score. The former Auburn star scored an impressive 13.81.
The other running backs that ranked ahead of Bigsby are:
–Seattle Seahawks: Kenneth Walker, 18.3
–New England Patriots: Antonio Gibson, 16.83
–Atlanta Falcons: Tyler Allgeier, 14.74
–Green Bay Packers: Emanuel Wilson, 14.56
–Minnesota Vikings: Jordan Mason, 14.38
–Cleveland Browns: Jerome Ford, 14.04
Sure, it’s a brand new metric and there isn’t much to compare it to, but you still made a note of these guys as sleepers in your upcoming fantasy draft, didn’t you?
What is ATEX? How does it work?
Again, this is a new statistic and Trepasso explains it thusly:
Here’s the ATEX formula:
(Missed Tackle Forced % × 0.4) + (High Impact Tote % × 0.6)
MTF rate is self-explanatory. And HIT % is the amount of 15+ yard runs from a back divided by total carries during the regular season.
I gave slightly more weight to HIT% simply because a longer run is more impactful than an avoided tackle.
After its creation, I gathered ATEX for all running backs with 50+ carries in a given season from 2019-2024.
I then took all those ATEX scores and split them into six clear tiers—Elite, Strong, Above Average, Average, Below Average, and Poor.
At the very least, he clearly put some thought into it. But, in this “Moneyball” stat era, is this actually a good prediction of a running back’s potential?
“The logical follow-up was to see whether ATEX is actually sticky from one year to the next,” Trepasso writes. “In other words, does a strong ATEX season predict another strong ATEX season and vice versa? I computed the correlation coefficient between each pair of back-to-back seasons.
“In plain English — this number tells us how well a back’s ATEX in one year predicts his ATEX the very next year.”
For all the stat geeks that want to take a deep dive, you can read more about the details here.
Bigsby’s issues go beyond just stats
In 2024, Bigsby toted the rock 168 times for 766 yards, seven touchdowns and 39 first downs. He might even end up with a bigger workload in 2025.
However, he’s going to have to fix some holes in his game that plagued him last year. And, according to Sport Illustrated’s Jared Feinberg, these issues don’t really show up on any stat sheet.
“Pro Football Focus graded Bigsby at a 74.6, 25th among 47 running backs graded last season,” Feinberg writes. “His 766 rushing yards led the team and offered some encouraging signs with his contact-balance, quickness, and footwork. However, there were times when he would disappear and his vision would become inconsistent in finding creases and working back against the grain.”
It looks to be a crowded running back room for the Jaguars this year, filled with several running backs that no one is overly thrilled with. If Bigsby can make some adjustments, he could be in line for the lion’s share of the backfield work.