Irresistible Force Meets Immovable Object: Knowshon Moreno and the Rookie Wall

I especially loved this statement:

It’s rare indeed when your pro team takes on a player from the college ranks that you really want for them, but that can turn out to be a heavy burden for a fan. When you intertwine your objective expectations and your subjective aspirations, even adequate results like those of Moreno’s rookie season can feel somehow doubly disappointing.

I think this is true not only of rookies, but vets as well.

I think he did pretty well last year but I believe that he is going to have an exceptional career in Denver as a difference maker. Thanks as always for the great read E.J. Much recomended.

It’s good to allow some time for the “subjective” expectations and resulting disappointments to fade before going back and taking a more objective look at his season last year. I do hope the hold-out was a contributing factor, since there is nothing like that this year and he also has a full year of off-season workouts and camps to attend.

I’m looking forward to seeing more production catching passes out of the backfield, since I believe that was considered a strength of his before the draft. Your projections sure sound like good ones, if he makes them. That, coupled with modest projections for our two new receivers (say, 45 catches each for about 600 yards and 3-4 TD’s), and we could be looking at an offensive jump this year. Wouldn’t that be nice?

My feeling is they all had a drop off in terms of production, from Orton to Doom…Orton had the majority of his sacks in the first half of the season, Orton had the majority of his INTs in the 2nd half of the season, the defense as a whole couldn’t stop the run in the 4th qtr of the season. Alot of it could attributed to either fatigue or locker room distraction. We know one of those problems has been solved…Look for some great things to happen this year, it is the first year of many good fortunes to come. I’m a realist…

To put it plainly, I expect big things from Knowshon this year. 1150+ yards and 8+ td’s

I would think that the change in blocking style, and the new interior beef could help him moving forward. I do really like his skill as a receiving option, if he improves as a blocker he should see even more touches in 2010

For some reason, Moreno’s production last season seemed more underwhelming than it was. Perhaps it was indeed the late-season fade – not just for him, but for the team as a whole – that colors that perception for me.

Thanks for breaking down the numbers. Your conclusions sound eminently reasonable. And, while this time of year always invites optimism of a break-out season for one player or a few, Moreno has the track record to deliver on the promise.

In fact, I spent several hours “between the hedges” last Saturday (UGA graduation), and found myself saying a quick prayer for Moreno to work hard and excite the fans in his new home this season like he did in those years there.

while not the be all and end all of RB statistics, helps to get an idea of RB performance. As the chart below indicates

Moreno was in the upper tier of RBs

people think he didn’t produce that much because he was a 12 pick in the draft. 947 rushing yards in his rookie year, plus the holdout, the injury and a suspect o-line is really good imo. So 2010 should be a better year for moreno and our offense. Go Broncos!!

No offense, but these are very generous projections. To put it into perspective, LaDainian Tomlinson has topped 515 receiving yards and had 4 receiving TDs just once in his career. That was in 2003, when he had 100 catches for 725 yards and 4 TDs. Since then, he’s averaged 49 catches per season. Granted, he also posted a line of 79-489-1 in his 2nd year, but he had a much better rookie campaign of 59-367-0.

Source

While I definitely expect Moreno’s output to improve, I think prorating 4 weeks’ worth of good stats over an entire season is misleading. Especially since your projections would put him at 10.7 yards/catch (only Darren McFadden at 11.7 and Darren Sproles at 11.0 were better among RBs last year). Maybe a happy medium is in order; say, 41 catches, 383 yards, and 4 TDs (I prorated his receiving performance in weeks 14-17 over three-quarters of a season and his averages over weeks 1-13 to account for the other one-quarter…if that makes any sense; I’m trying to temper expectations a bit).

That still puts him at 9.3 yards/catch, which is very high for a running back. Most of the top RBs last year, at a cursory glance, lingered in the 8.0-8.5 range. I discounted RBs with less than 20 catches on the year, to account for anomalies like Donald Brown’s 11 catches for 169 yards.

As a fellow Moreno champion (pre-draft), I salute you! By the way, Emmitt wants me to tell you that the time for our weekly meeting has been changed… :)

I was disappointed in Moreno last year. After ceremonially ridding myself of my HWSNBN jersey last year, I immediately picked up Moreno’s. I was just as giddy this year (and my wife was just as worried for my sanity) when we got Tebow. His jersey is in the mail, BTW. But I thought he didn’t do as much as I had hoped or expected. That being said, there is still plenty of room and reason for hope and improvement. Nothing about Moreno’s play led me to think that he “just doesn’t get it” or that he will have a hard time being productive in our system.

He still was a solid producer. He will get better.

I too think Moreno is on the cusp of being special. He will be the best all-around RB Denver’s ever had. I hope he’s the 2nd best rusher (behind TD) and the best pass-catching RB (just ahead of Sewell and Willhite) we’ve ever had.

His all-around talent is extremely under-estimated (IMO).

Rec’d. I honestly think Moreno has that perfect combination of speed, agility, and strength so he can be a dominant, top-5 RB in a few years.

2736 yards on 498 carries is a bit more impressive than 2736 yards on 998 carries.

Early on Knowshown was looking for the big hole instead of hitting the crease, he mentioned in interviews. He seemed on the verge of overcoming that, dropped a couple of fumbles took a little step back, then came on strong against WAS, SAD, NYG and KC. He took a lot of pounding during that third quarter of the year, hit the holes hard and focused on ball protection. The stats say he ran out of gas at that point but we have to also remember our opponents were daring us to beat them on the arm of a limping although gutsy QB performance.

I think he did just fine last year…sans holdout and a few extra weeks of official training will be excellent for him.

I think you might be skewing the catch prediction some….if I recall, Buck was hurt when KM’s catches started increasing…..(he was on my Fantasy team so that was cool) but that may come back down to Earth if Buck stays healthy. It was good to see what most of us knew. He can catch just fine! ;)