News: DC: With RB Roles Undecided, Ryan Williams Seeks Opportunity To Showcase Skills

[DFWJC]

This is just more of what I call fan-logic. It's the same logic that had people predicting less than 8 wins at this time last year. Fans predicted doom for the defense without Ware and Hatcher. In reality the defense was better.

Most "fans" have not spent 5 minutes studying the game footage of the players in question. Fan-logic dictates that if a player has been in the league for a certain amount of time without great success then that player can't possibly have any value.

True.
I remember writing some fairly long posts describing all the reasons why, at least potentially, the team could be better....including the defense.
The same can be said this year regarding the defense.

And, btw, if Murray had gone to Arizona and had the exact same injury history as Williams, he may very well be in his same situation.
Williams was the higher ranked player coming out, and as a pure runner, actually looks as good or better than Murray.
Like the other backs, however, there's no track record that they can be relied on with a heavy workload an entire season.

Still, I'm more in a "show-me" mode vs a "sky is falling" mode regarding RBs.
I tend to think this group can get it done--given the oline and passing game.
Guess we'll see...

 

[The Natural]

As much as I wanted Peterson I'm kind of intrigued to see what these other guys, particularly Williams might be able to do behind this line.

 

[MichaelWinicki]

I less concerned about RB than I am the DT position (in total) and the back up QB position.

I see what Denver is able to do year after year with no-name running backs and I see how good this Cowboy offensive line is and either the "solution" is on the roster or it's affordably found.

Bottom line it's not a concern for me.

 

[Blast From The Past]

So we have a practice squad guy, a Raider castoff, and an underwear thief all competing for the starting RB job.

Cant say I have much confidence right now in this group to replace Murray.

Stay tuned and try to keep the faith. All of these backs are pretty good.

 

[punchnjudy]

It would be interesting to see what everyone's thoughts are as far as how many carries per game this team will average this season.

And I agree in that I think it will be less than last season. How many less per game? Impossible to say at this point.

Last season the team averaged almost 32 carries per game. If I had to toss a range out there at this point I would say somewhere between 26-30, which would translate into between 416 and 480.

I'm too lazy to look it up but I think they averaged about 21 carries per game in '13.

I don't think it will drop much. They ran the ball a lot even in games where Murray was ineffective. I admit this is speculation, but I always felt like the commitment to the run last season had more to do with protecting Romo than the defense. Last year wasn't the first year where they had a poor defense, but they may have figured out that even just throwing the ball 5 less times per game shaves off the equivalent of two games from the schedule in terms of passing attempts. Less opportunities for Romo to get hurt.

 

[Mr Cowboy]

Teams didn't game plan for Randle last year, how good will he be when they do? If Williams runs the ball like he did in college and if, he can stay healthy, 2 very big ifs, will he be the answer? Dunbar is just another one of those players who has pictures of Jerry or Jason with farm animals, because he is getting paid for nothing.