Fix the running game, change the attitude

I’m sure you’ll get three thousand comments that say that. However, I do agree with you— Knowshon does not seem to make his impact on the game.

Early on in the career of many special backs, you saw them impose their will or skill on a player. Chris Johnson is an excellent example of imposing skill, and Adrian Peterson is a perfect example of imposing will. Chris Johnson has tremendous vision in addition to his truly special speed. When he hits a hole he’s gone, and many of those holes are not available to other running backs. Although All Day has the speed and vision to make some tremendous athletic plays, you typically think of him laying a bone crushing hit on a linebacker/DB and setting the tone.

Here’s where I think your point is made— a special back should be plugged into a system out of college (DeAngelo Williams, Jonathan Stewart, heck even Clinton Portis had 15 rushing TDs his rookie season) and produce. Knowshon has not shown me any power, decision making prowess, breakaway speed, or vision expected of the number one back taken in a draft.

The expectations are what are driving your analysis. He could be a solid pick, just not a gamebreaker. But again, it’s too early to tell. Also, his blitz pickup sucks :oP

Moreno is a very good back. But you cannot run when there are no running lanes. Pretty simple really.

Your stats clearly highlight that it is a combination of things: Changing scheme and tentative RB play.
Buck is being FORCED into being a workhorse, where he is best with 10 or so touches a game as a big play guy, being a threat in pass and run game.
Moreno and the lines ineffectiveness is essentially taking away the tole that Buck is best in…so it turns it into multiple problems quickly.
Rec’d BMan!

Not just smash-mouthing up the middle, but Shanny had the Hillis mojo going strong with the flip passes to the outside—I loved seeing that kid getting just a little bit of steam up the sideline before the collisions.

That later this season we are going to see a big dose of Hillis- fresh legs so to speak…

I am ready to see the Hillis and Larsen show. Nothing backs off blitzing LB’s like a hard hitting Larsen with a hard hitting Hillis as a follow up punch.

Oh and it might give Orton a few more seconds to throw the ball too.

for breaking tackles or making defenders miss (with 11 on 109 carries). AP by comparison has 17 in 164, putting them both at around 1 in 10. All the rest of the “daylight” running room comes from the Oline.

The thing to realize about McD’s running offense, is that it pressures the interior of the defense, not necessarily with the intention of hitting homeruns, or even of “softening” the defense up, as much as it sets up the defense for specific coverages in passing situations. That is why McD harps on balance: in general, every successful pass correlates to the part of the running game that sets it up, and 9 times out of ten, that part is the very difficult interior running, due to the nature of ~90% of the defenses in the league. It would be great to say that if we ran the ball successfully we wouldn’t need to care about the passing game, but McD realizes that he will have to pass in every game eventually. Rather than wait for defenses to force him into the passing game, he forces a situational passing game (targeted at specific weaknesses and tendencies) onto defenses.

This kind of interrelation between passing and running isn’t obvious watching a single play, and isn’t glaring even during a series of plays. Watch a series of 1st down rushes from across several drives and multiple games, though, and it starts to show up.

Moreno can be a great player, not because he rips off 80 yard TD runs, but because he loves the game, and his team, enough to gut out 4 and 5 yard power runs, with no stats, TDs or glory for himself. He puts every part of himself into the game, and has an elite “shiftiness” that gives him opportunities that many lesser backs won’t have. That is a rare combo, and I am glad that McD and co saw it and wanted it.

We live in the world of situational football now, and Moreno may never be the statistical darling that many other great backs like AP and Turner are, because of that. But every so often he will will something to happen that has no earthly right happening, and when he does it, we will all get to share in the celebration of something special.

Wish he would stop slipping down on his cut though… :P

We live in the world of situational football now