Game turned when they put Zeke back in for Pollard

…..then I'd say Pollard's skillset is being underused.

The question that surfaced today on Undisputed......Would you want Pollard to have more carries.....or more touches?

 

Perhaps Elliott is suffering residual effects from getting COVID-19 last summer.

 

Guys who post the film on twitter are showing all 22 views of Steele missing his blocks repeatedly leading to Zeke getting blown up.

 

Moore is terrible at the run game. He has no feel for it at all. That said I don't get the impression he's all that great at utilizing them in the passing game either. Both Zeke and Pollard have shown the ability to catch the ball down the field yet we have not thrown a wheel route in over two years that I can recall. I would say with Zeke compromised for a variety of reasons ranging from perhaps Covid after-effects, the hamstring, to getting in his own head about the fumbles.. we really need to make better use of Pollard. I don't think he has the physical make up to be be an every down back.. nor does he block well enough.. but his running style is better suited for the running plays we run and his speed helps him get to the edges on the rare occasion we do try to run outside.

 

We've talked about this a few times.. I read an article stating that Covid has been shown to cause significant lung damage.. which certainly might explain why his aerobic conditioning appear to be lacking and why he seems noticeably weaker when attempting to break tackles. Which has led to the fumbles early on. He was weaker and possibly didn't even know it.

 

I think there's something to be said with having a healthy mix or 3 TE sets and spread WRs. Not an abundance of one or the other.

 

Great point....all the reason more to reduce the load and get some more touches for Pollard.....and especially in a two-minute drill.

 

As are you. Don't see how being a thumper makes you an elite RB. There are guys who specialize in short yardage situations making wayyyy less.

 

And they're way better at those situations too

 

What about when Pollard was getting blown up for negative yardage? Was that the line’s fault too or were those not shown?

 

The difference between Zeke and Pollard on those plays is that Zeke is strong enough to drag the tacklers for a couple yards and at least get back to the line of scrimmage. Pollard just kinda goes down in those situations. The line had plenty of instances where multiple guys missed blocks though. It definitely wasn't just Steele.

 

I keep hearing how Zeke always drags defenders and/or always falls forward for 3 yards. Then I look at this yards after contact expecting them to be rather impressive for the battering ram and they are just meh.

 

So we have to have short yardage specialist, because Pollard is too small to do that. We need Pollard to do the quick runs, because Zeke isn't good at that. We need somebody to block, because Pollard is too small to do that. And we need backups for all three of those in case your specialist gets hurt.

So you're saying we can have 6 running backs and all together we can pay out less than Zeke gets.

You people don't get it - Zeke is a complete running back. Those are NOT a "dime a dozen". You really think that if Zeke wasn't taken by the Cowboys at the 4th spot he'd have still been there in the second round or such? So other teams would be just as "stupid"? I guess the Rams were stupid for getting Marshall Faulk at $6 million way back in the mid 2000's, gee you'd think they would have won a SB doing that. Oh wait, they did. I guess the Cowboys were stupid for caving to Emmitt in 1993, you'd think they'd have won a SB if they did that. Oh wait, they won 2 more.

And don't give me the "it was a different era". The Saints are paying Kamara $15 million a year, the Panthers McCaffery $16 mil, the Texans are paying Johnson $13 million. For running backs. Gee, didn't know there were so many stupid teams around.

The league changes, before Emmitt no team had the regular season rushing champion until Emmitt did it. Everybody just knew that the Bill's hurry up pass happy offense was the way to go. How many SBs did they win? Defenses adjust to the offense, and vice versa. We complain about how poorly JJ runs the team, but maybe he's ahead of the curve? Even a blind squirrel finds an acorn now and then.

So quit with the "anybody can run the ball", sounds like Jerry's "any one of 500 coaches can win with this team", after Jimmy's players mostly left, how many SBs did those "500 coaches" win? Zero.

Zeke's not doing that well this year, for whatever reason, but he's too young and too good to just cast aside and pick up some scrub running back....

 

Up until Dak got hurt he was averaging I believe 2.5 yards after contact per attempt. Presumably when we had a viable passing attack he was only having to drag one or two tacklers at the line of scrimmage and not 3 or 4. Now that teams are playing all 11 defenders within 5 yards of the line of scrimmage there are simply more bodies to deal with at the point of attack. Before Dak got hurt Zeke was in the top 5 in yards after contact. I think he was second behind Henry heading into the Cardinals game. Now he's 8th and falling. I don't think that's any coincidence. No passing threat means more defenders selling out against the run. It might get better if Dalton or Gilbert can back the defense off going forward. But I aint holdin my breath.

 

All you need to know about Zeke is that in a season where he has lost his QB for 4 games and had to run behind 12 different o-line combinations.. He is still 7th in the league in rushing.. SEVENTH!! As in top 10.. even thought "he sucks." People who get it stuck in their head that anybody not leading the league "sucks" are not really even worth responding to most of the time. It reveals a complete lack of critical thinking. Zeke is top 10 in the league while having what for him is a horrible year.. And we are supposed to dump him at age 25 because of it.. Screw that.. People espousing that view are every bit as clueless as they accuse Jerry of being. Put Dak back under center, stabilize the line and watch Zeke run for 1500 yards and 12 TDs next year..

 

He was barely facing any stacked boxes this year to begin the season. It has increased recently but he wasn’t running very well early either. But his yards after contact haven’t been impressive to me at all, not just this year. Just have never matched up with the perception to me.

 

Okay let's examine YOUR perception then ..

Here are Zeke's yards after contact numbers and his league rank in his career

2020 295 7th
2019 679 6th
2018 595 5th

Pro football reference does not have the data beyond 2018 so I will have to dig the numbers out from another source later.

But it looks like over the past 2+ seasons he is consistently in the top 10 in that category. Including #2 this year before Dak went down. No one back is going to lead the league in every category.. I think we can all agree that his line has declined significantly over the course of the last three years.. No matter what stupid people say, the running back's production IS going to drop if the line's performance drops. And if there is no passing threat it will drop twice as fast.

 

The funny thing is with the room he has had to run over his career, his YAC average should actually be worse. In other words, even when he has huge holes to run through, he’d rather plow through one defender for an extra 2-3 yards, rather than make him miss (because he can’t) and get an extra 10 yards or more. He’s not a smart RB nor efficient with what he’s had to work with.

 

Can you show his average and his number of rushing attempts? If he leads the league in rushing attempts but is 5th in yards after contact, I don’t find that overly impressive. Do you?

BTW, usually I would look this up but don’t have time today.

 

I would assume yards after contract is not tied into number of attempts, only how many yards he gets after he's hit, whether it be many or few attempts...