The 2013 Indianapolis Colts won the AFC South by four games in what was one of the least competitive divisions in the NFL. They coasted to a 6-0 division record, were one of three teams to beat the eventual Super Bowl Champion Seattle Seahawks, and overcame a 28-point deficit to win the first playoff game in Colts history without FantasyFootballCalculator.com 12-team mock drafts, ahead of more efficient options like Net Expected Points (NEP) metric, which looks at the number of points a player adds for his team, we see that Bradshaw was been the better rusher, and has contributed more to his team’s overall success than Richardson.

Bradshaw, labelled an “aging” rusher in his sixth season, netted a positive Rushing NEP in 2012 with a much higher Success Rate than Richardson. In essence, he not only was adding a lot more points than Richardson was, but each of his rushes were contributing positively for his team at a much higher rate. Though Richardson was a rookie, his -17.80 Rushing NEP ranked fifth-worst out of the 23 200-plus attempt runners that year. Bradshaw ranked ninth.

And that's not out of the norm for the veteran Bradshaw. In seven NFL seasons, Bradshaw's failed to reach a per rush Net Expected Points score above zero just once. That's an impressive feat considering rushing is far less efficient than passing - only 24 of the 67 running backs with 50 or more carries last year finished with a positive Rushing NEP score. Bradshaw's done that in six of seven seasons.

This is a big reason to be optimistic about the veteran, not the young guy who's shown little in his two years as a pro. If Bradshaw can stay healthy, there's reason to believe he'll be far more efficient than Richardson, similar to what we saw with Donald Brown a season ago. While Trent Richardson was a bottom-five running back last season according to our metrics, Donald Brown was the sixth-best. This isn't an offensive line problem. This is a Trent Richardson problem.

Don't sleep on Ahmad Bradshaw this year.