The Ringer: It's time to give Mark Ingram his due as one of the best RBs in the NFL

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Going back to the start of the 2014 season, the former Heisman Trophy winner has racked up 29 rushing touchdowns (tied for third most league-wide) and 3,582 yards (sixth), yet he’s remained mostly underappreciated by fans and the media at large, who have never consistently counted him among the NFL’s elite. Hell, even his own team has seemed to undervalue him—despite Ingram’s career year in 2016, when he rushed for more than 1,000 yards on 5.1 per carry and scored 10 total touchdowns, the Saints still went out and inexplicably signed another early-down back in Adrian Peterson over the offseason.

Through 11 weeks, Ingram now ranks fourth in the league in rushing yards (806), is tied for first in rushing touchdowns (8), and is fourth in yards per attempt (5.2). He’s first in Football Outsiders DYAR (total value), first in DVOA (value per play), and third in success rate (successful running plays divided by total running plays). He’s third in yards after contact per rush (3.2) per Pro Football Focus, and tied for second in the NFL in 15-plus yard runs (11) with a breakaway percentage of 36.6, fourth best in the NFL. And he’s done all that while sharing time with Kamara and (briefly) Peterson. By pretty much any metric, Ingram’s put himself among the elite this year.

Ingram is a complete player, effective in the passing game (he’s caught 159 passes for 1,082 yards out of the backfield over the past four years) and explosive on the ground. The first thing that stands out about Ingram as a runner is the decisiveness with which he gets downhill. He’s a north-south back—he ranks third in NFL Next Gen Stats’ Efficiency Rate metric (3.33 yards), a stat that reflects the total distance a running back travels per rushing yard gained—and frequently carries the ball up the gut for the Saints, following a lead blocker or a pulling guard to pick up tough yards in the middle of the field.

He does all this at a fraction of the salary of some of the league’s other premier backs. Ingram re-signed with the Saints in March 2015 for a four-year deal worth $16 million, a contract that, at its current value, makes him one of the biggest bargains in the NFL: His $4 million salary in 2017 ties for 18th among all running backs, his $6.1 million guaranteed money at signing is 16th highest, and his $1.525 million average guaranteed money per year ranks 25th.

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