How is it that zeke lost his explosiveness

Bullflop

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Nope. We're a couple of DT's away from glory. Maybe a DE, as I have no confidence in DLaw ever being consistently disruptive w/o injuries.

I'm hoping Diggy and Gallimore might fill the bill -- let's give them time to develop, just like we agreed to allow Joseph to do the same, OK? :cool:

I'm willing to agree that DLaw has seen better days. He's good at things other than sacking the QB, tho. We need another DE or 2 via the draft.
 
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kskboys

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I wish Zeke would stop trying to dance so much and just go at it with full steam.
Yes, now there is the issue. Z is always trying to break it instead of just going N/S and piledriving it. It's like he's a bulldozer who thinks he's a lamborgini. Someone needs to get in his head and get him to run to his strengths.
 

Bullflop

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Yes, now there is the issue. Z is always trying to break it instead of just going N/S and piledriving it. It's like he's a bulldozer who thinks he's a lamborgini. Someone needs to get in his head and get him to run to his strengths.

Let's hope Kellen recognizes that Zeke isn't cutting it outside anymore and will keep him plowing inside. Outside is for Mr. Pollard. It seems we're gradually getting to a point where he's utilizing plays that keep Pollard as our go-to guy and using Ezekiel less, rather than the opposite now. We'll likely be drafting a RB at some point in the next draft, once we've attended to other more pressing needs. I'm unsure as to how much longer Zeke will be included in our plans. I wouldn't be too shocked if we were to procure another power back to replace Zeke.
 
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RonnieT24

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Yes, now there is the issue. Z is always trying to break it instead of just going N/S and piledriving it. It's like he's a bulldozer who thinks he's a lamborgini. Someone needs to get in his head and get him to run to his strengths.

I think as the season wears on Zeke will find his equilibrium. He has always been a downhill north/south runner but most of the running plays out of this offense have him taking handoffs going sideways. If you think back to his first two seasons we were primarily an under center deep setback offense.. Now we're primarily shotgun. In doing this we have taken away a lot his strengths.. Deep back sets allow the back to see the blocking as it develops better, see the hole, make one cut and hit it at 100 mph. Shotgun runs put him closer to the line, limiting his view of the blocking AND robs him on momentum. Most of the time he's taking the handoff standing still. It's an absolute travesty of misutilization. It's fine if this is the offense we wanna run.. but we should go ahead and trade Zeke if it is.. He's being wasted in it and thus so is his salary.
 

RonnieT24

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Can you imagine Emmitt in this offense? All these sideways runs out of shotgun would ended Emmitt's career after about two seasons..
 

DCreppinBoysfan

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I’ll say this, He doesn’t get the favorable run calls that Pollard gets. Pollards was running on The strong sides whereas Zeke plays was running away from Martin
 

Oz-of-Cowboy-Country

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Zeke hasn't lost his explosiveness. It's just Pollard has come along and changed the perspective of what explosiveness looks like.
 

RonnieT24

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I’ll say this, He doesn’t get the favorable run calls that Pollard gets. Pollards was running on The strong sides whereas Zeke plays was running away from Martin

I do wonder if Zeke is left handed because almost all of his wide plays are to the left. When running wide you want the ball in your strong hand and your off hand available for stiff arming. Also it's more natural to turn with the off hand on the inside. Our best run plays repeatedly came to the right (behind Martin and Steele) but Zeke did have that one really good one up the middle.. But Zeke did what he was supposed to do which was do most of the dirty work between the tackles.. I just wish it wasn't so much out of shotgun.
 

RonnieT24

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Zeke hasn't lost his explosiveness. It's just Pollard has come along and changed the perspective of what explosiveness looks like.

It's not uncommon for a back to come into the league and LOOK more explosive than he is because he runs everything at warp speed. Then at some point they learn not to rush every single play because the coaches repeatedly tell him that "you got 5 yards on that play but could have had 20 if you waited for the blocking to develop." Then fans everywhere start claiming he's lost a step. It's idiotic but there is nothing that is ever going to happen to change it. Unfortunately for Zeke, his transition to a more patient runner has coincided with the blocking being less reliable. If he attacked every play as though there isn't going to be any blocking, hit every hole at 100 mph and he'll be better off.
 
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