Funny I came into this thread with the mindset to post Charles as severely overrated, and I find this the #1 comment. Let me first off say that I am in no way talking about his past. He's a HOF level rb for sure, I'm only talking about my expectations for him going forward, and why I think he's barely a top 10 rb for 2015.
For starters here's my top 10 rbs for 2015:
AP
Leveon Bell
Marshawn Lynch
Demarco Murray
Matt forte
Arian Foster
Justin Forsett
Jamaal Charles
Shady Mccoy
Jeremy Hill
7-10 is very interchangeable, but that's the order I would give If I had to put them in order.
First of all, his ypc is great but it's skewed at the same time. Charles is a home-run hitting back, but he barely got over 200 carries last year. He's never actually reached 300 carries in a season in his whole career, which inflates his ypc. He isn't a workhorse rb like demarco murray or leveon bell, which imo lowers his value as a featured back. Part of this is injury, but also lack of durability to be able to carry the ball upwards of 30 times in a game if needed. The most carries he got in a game this past season was 22, and he only reached 20 3 times. Meanwhile Leveon bell had voer 20 carries 7 times, with a high of 33. A ypc difference of .3 isn't worth having almost 90 less carries.
And that's only as a rusher. The 2013 jamaal charles was an elite backfield threat in the passing game. The 2014 charles? Not as much. while he scored 5 tds, he only had 40 receptions for less than 300 yards, which is overall unimpressive. It's not really a knock on charles, but you can't say he's an elite receiver from the backfield with that level of production, especially considering how much the chiefs relied on rbs/tes this past season. I won't even compare charles to bell as a pass catcher, because that's simply not fair. Instead, I'll compare him to arian foster, a rb that I rate higher than charles in every facet. While having a smaller part in the passing offense (fitzpatrick threw the ball down the field a lot more than he checked it down), foster had basically equal receiving yards, tds and receptions. This just shows that charles and foster are fairly similar in the receiving game, with a slight edge to foster because of superior receivers taking away targets and an inferior qb who was a bit of a gunslinger.
But I haven't even gotten to my major qualm with charles that almost never gets mentioned-his ball security issues. Over the last 3 years, with fewer touches than pretty much every feature back in the nfl, charles had 14 fumbles. 14. In 895 total touches, he had 14 fumbles, which is good for 1 fumbler per ~64 touches. Comparing that stat to any top rb is also unfair, the closest to him would be Lynch and AP, but if you count their last 3 seasons (excluding 2014 ofc for AP) their fumble rate is still about 50% better than charles, all while being both far superior as a rushers and lynch being a much better receiver out of the backfield.
Dependability is imo the most underrated attribute of a running back. If you're truly an elite back, I should be able to depend on you to rush as much as needed without fumbling all while having a good ypc. The whole 5.0+ ypc every season is impressive, but overrated in value imo as having less carries than everyone else but having .2-.3 higher ypc does not give you an edge. That makes you worse as a featured back than the guy with more carries but lower ypc. Not to mention, he has fewer carries than everyone else all while having over triple the fumbles than all the top backs (AP and Lynch excluded). This makes charles unreliable, and you're not getting as much reward for the risk you take giving him the ball as his ypc is only slightly better than those I ranked above him. Idgaf if you have a 5.0+ ypc if you can't be a workhorse back, you fumble way more than most and you have durability/injury problems while not providing any sort of extraordinary receiving ability.