As running back Matt Forte and the Chicago Bears close in a potential long-term contract, the running back's name continues to pop up in a good way on Pro Football Focus' advanced statistic analysis over the past three years.
Last week Forte was ranked as having the second best hands for a running back in the NFL, dropping just three percent of catchable passes. And on Wednesday, Pro Football Focus ranked Forte as having the eighth best yards per route run average for a running back.
Forte's 1,664 receiving yards over the last three years are third most for a running back, behind Baltimore's Ray Rice (2,197) and New Orleans' Darren Sproles (1,924). In that span, Forte has run 948 routes out of the backfield, fifth most in the NFL.
Those numbers give Forte a Yards Per Route Run (YPRR) of 1.76, eighth best in the NFL. He's almost dead even with Rice, who finished sixth at 1.83.
Oakland's Darren McFadden led the way for running backs with a 2.08 YPRR, having missed 16 games the last three seasons with injury, but making the most of his route-running.
Forte has been used heavily out of the backfield, and he acts more as a decoy to open the field for wide receivers than wide receivers do to let him slip out of the backfield. Forte was fifth in total routes run, but he has missed four games the last three seasons, more than any of the four players in front of him in that category.
Of the seven running backs ahead of him in YPRR, Pierre Thomas (first in drop rate, third in YPRR) was the only player ahead of him in both.