Is it time to stop the running back by committee approach?

[RonnieT24]

90% of the time I can tell a run play is coming based upon our formation, down and distance and lack of motion (except motion of a TE or WR shuttles to a blocking position).

I'm an ex Al Bundy HS player, so what do you think the professionals see?

90% of our runs are also between the tackles, except for our plethora of jet sweeps.

No creativity in the run game, our running QB lost his ability after the injury.

That's our problem(s).

To be fair I suspect if you look at other teams this is true for most of them. The difference is the good running teams seem to be able to open actual holes unlike the 15 people all smushed up together look we see on most of our run plays. We need to come with some counters, traps, double teams whatever it takes to create space at the point of attack and gets the backs the the second level with some momentum instead of their having to push the pile. I don't know how you do that.. I was a running back not a lineman.. but there are guys getting paid millions to devise ways of getting it done.. and I guarantee you if I was one of them, I'd figure out ways of opening some holes for our backs.

 

[CowboysFaninHouston]

Is it asking too much to just name one starter, and give them 15+ carries in a game?? For right now, it would be Rico, sprinkle in Hunter to give him a break. This using 3+ different running backs isn't working. Please give your thoughts

RB by committee works if you have good but not great RBs...but we have 3 pieces of craap....its never going to work

 

[HungryLion]

I said this team is similarly built .. not similarly talented. I firmly believe and stand by my assertion that this group is built to play smash mouth football though. And no, no one on this current roster is as good as Emmitt. There have been maybe 20 backs in the history of football as good as Emmitt. But the point remains, this team is not playing to the strength of its offensive line and running backs and the results speak for themselves. The line is huge and both main backs are primarily power backs. I just hope we get a few games that don't get away from us so we can give the running game a chance to get going. This business of running the ball 4-5 times a quarter and spreading even that paltry load among four different guys is asinine and is never going to be effective.

I agree with you about playing to the strengths of the OL. I disagree about the running backs. We have no real good running backs. Dowdle is the definition of a JAG and Zeke’s legs just don’t have the burst anymore.

I will say I do think “running back by committee” can work…… but the biggest issue is the committee needs to be made of good running backs. We just don’t have enough talent (dowdle) or youth (Zeke). RB is a young man’s position.

 

[DeaconMoss]

Because I knew better and I hate blatant falsehoods I went and looked this up. The following is the list of backs who ran for 1000+ yards during the Brady/Belichick Super Bowl runs.

Antowain Smith
Corey Dillon
Benjarvis Green-Ellis
Stevan Ridley
Legarette Blount

The narrative that Brady had no running game and no receivers and basically won all those games by himself is even more brain dead than the whole "Dak loses playoff games" narrative.

"Corey Dillon in 2004 was the only 1000+ yard rusher for New England under BB and Brady when they won the Bowl."
Diluting the facts. Highly.
Brady won 6 titles. Only one time in the year when they won a superbowl did they have a 1k yard back. Corey Dillon 2004. Thanks for playing....

2019	Sony Michel	NE	247	912
2017	Dion Lewis	NE	180	896
2015	LeGarrette Blount	NE	165	703
2005	Corey Dillon	NE	209	733
2004	Corey Dillon	NE	345	1,635
2002	Antowain Smith	NE	252	982

 

[Mikexike]

If Turpin had 15 touches in the back field, How many go for 20+?

 

[RonnieT24]

"Corey Dillon in 2004 was the only 1000+ yard rusher for New England under BB and Brady when they won the Bowl."
Diluting the facts. Highly.
Brady won 6 titles. Only one time in the year when they won a superbowl did they have a 1k yard back. Corey Dillon 2004. Thanks for playing....

2019	Sony Michel	NE	247	912
2017	Dion Lewis	NE	180	896
2015	LeGarrette Blount	NE	165	703
2005	Corey Dillon	NE	209	733
2004	Corey Dillon	NE	345	1,635
2002	Antowain Smith	NE	252	982

Nice try but your years are off. That Pats won the Super Bowl in 2001 when Smith had 1157 yards. They also won it in 2004 as you mentioned.. but also in 2016 when Blount ran for 1161. I don't know if you intentionally tried to "forget" the fact that the Super Bowl is played in the calendar year after the season or it was an honest mistake. Either way.. you now have the correct information. You're welcome.

 

[RonnieT24]

If Turpin had 15 touches in the back field, How many go for 20+?

I agree with you about playing to the strengths of the OL. I disagree about the running backs. We have no real good running backs. Dowdle is the definition of a JAG and Zeke’s legs just don’t have the burst anymore.

I will say I do think “running back by committee” can work…… but the biggest issue is the committee needs to be made of good running backs. We just don’t have enough talent (dowdle) or youth (Zeke). RB is a young man’s position.

You may be right but I need to see Zeke getting to the second level untouched a few times and NOT churning out good yardage before I declare him cooked. On the rare occasions where he has been able to get past the line of scrimmage without a 300 pound man holding onto him the results have been pretty positive. It's clear that he has not adapted his running style to this whole "you're only going to get 4 or 5 touches" thing. He is still out there trying to punish defenders and set the tone when he should be approaching every run like we did when we were kids and we tried to house it every time we got it. Make violent cuts, duck under dudes, reverse field, every tool in the belt. The reason you don't see that type of run from most bellcow backs is that it takes a TON of energy to run that way. Also in the NFL you find that unless you're Barry Sanders running that style leads to a lot of negative plays.. Hell it even did so for him. The smarter approach is to hit it for 2,3,4 yards to soften the defense up, find the o-lineman who is owning his man and the defender who don't want none. But that approach takes time.. something guys in this sort of rotation simply don't have.

 

[jujoboys]

Of course you're right, how does any running back get into that mode when your getting lil here, some there...You need that #1 back...

It seems to work just fine in Detroit where you have 2 stud RBs. 285 yards rushing for Jahmyr Gibbs and 271 yards rushing for David Montgomery. RB by committee is not the problem. Not having any starting caliber RBs is the problem. Our RBs would be lucky to be 2nd and 3rd stringers on most NFL rosters. We could anoint Rico as the #1 back but I don't think the results are going to be any different. We devalued the RB position so badly that it is now biting us in the rear. I know the entire league has devalued RBs to some extent but we have devalued the position so badly that our punter is making more money than any of the RBs on our roster. Repeat again, our punter makes more than a valuable skill position player like RB. And the punter is only making $3 million so it's not like he has an outrageous contract.

 

[HungryLion]

You may be right but I need to see Zeke getting to the second level untouched a few times and NOT churning out good yardage before I declare him cooked. On the rare occasions where he has been able to get past the line of scrimmage without a 300 pound man holding onto him the results have been pretty positive. It's clear that he has not adapted his running style to this whole "you're only going to get 4 or 5 touches" thing. He is still out there trying to punish defenders and set the tone when he should be approaching every run like we did when we were kids and we tried to house it every time we got it. Make violent cuts, duck under dudes, reverse field, every tool in the belt. The reason you don't see that type of run from most bellcow backs is that it takes a TON of energy to run that way. Also in the NFL you find that unless you're Barry Sanders running that style leads to a lot of negative plays.. Hell it even did so for him. The smarter approach is to hit it for 2,3,4 yards to soften the defense up, find the o-lineman who is owning his man and the defender who don't want none. But that approach takes time.. something guys in this sort of rotation simply don't have.

I’ll declare right now that Zeke is cooked. Him not getting to the second level is part OL and part him being slow to the hole.

 

[kskboys]

Yeah RBBC really needs to be defined when it gets used as its taken on a wide variety of meanings. To many people, I think any situation where more than 1 RB is getting consistent work is viewed as RBBC, but the problem is thats almost every team in the league now so the terms do really need to be updated to separate tandem and RBBC.

Yeah, but that's not what it means. I was starting to think people were reaching hard to support it, but they were simply misdefining the term.

 

[kskboys]

It seems to work just fine in Detroit where you have 2 stud RBs. 285 yards rushing for Jahmyr Gibbs and 271 yards rushing for David Montgomery. RB by committee is not the problem. Not having any starting caliber RBs is the problem. Our RBs would be lucky to be 2nd and 3rd stringers on most NFL rosters. We could anoint Rico as the #1 back but I don't think the results are going to be any different. We devalued the RB position so badly that it is now biting us in the rear. I know the entire league has devalued RBs to some extent but we have devalued the position so badly that our punter is making more money than any of the RBs on our roster. Repeat again, our punter makes more than a valuable skill position player like RB. And the punter is only making $3 million so it's not like he has an outrageous contract.

2 stud RB's is not RBBC. RBBC is a football term that means you are using several backs. Generally, no one gets a thousand yds. DET runs a tandem back system w/ a pounder and a scatback. That is far from RRBC.

 

[kskboys]

I think this is the main issue. McCarthy has only slightly more patience with the run than Kellen Moore does. I never believed him when he stated " we are going to run the ball.." because he's never shown that to be his desire at any point in his career. There has been times when he's had to because he was protecting a backup QB but whenever he's had his starter he's aired it out as much as anyone in the league. Oddly enough I do think it's going to get better as the line comes together. I think people greatly underplayed the whole "two rookie starters" thing. The line looks completely discombobulated on most plays and just are not opening up much in the way of holes. To say nothing of the amount of times we've got unblocked defenders in our backfield. Teams have drawn a bead on our run formations and calls so they are run blitzing the hell out of us. I did see signs of life against the Giants though because both Zeke and Dowdle had a couple of nice holes early. But McCarthy's strange rotation seemed to rob them of any chance at establishing a rhythm and getting in sync with the blocking. As I have said many times, if the hole opens a half tick before or after the back looks at the point of attack then it may as well have not opened at all because any decent back is going to go somewhere else if the hole isn't where it was supposed to be when he looks at the point of attack. IMHO that may be the biggest problem we're seeing.. The line and the backs are out of sync.. and the only thing that can fix that is time on task to steal a Garrett-ism.

I was hoping it'd be different, but McC has the same type lame running schemes as KMo. As you said, almost as bad.

 

[kskboys]

Because I knew better and I hate blatant falsehoods I went and looked this up. The following is the list of backs who ran for 1000+ yards during the Brady/Belichick Super Bowl runs.

Antowain Smith
Corey Dillon
Benjarvis Green-Ellis
Stevan Ridley
Legarette Blount

The narrative that Brady had no running game and no receivers and basically won all those games by himself is even more brain dead than the whole "Dak loses playoff games" narrative.

Brady is an all time great, no question, but people are overrating him. IMO, Montana was better, and I watched both. Not sure Marino wasn't better.

 

[stinkface]

I’ll declare right now that Zeke is cooked. Him not getting to the second level is part OL and part him being slow to the hole.

The problem with Zeke is apparent. No quickness with no speed. He has power still, but you need more then power to be a productive. He is essentially a small fullback now. He actually been on decline for the past 4 years. He has no tread left on the tires. He probably would be out of the NFL if he wasn't on our team. He is like Dez when the body seemingly broke down overnight and everyone in the league saw it.

 

[jujoboys]

2 stud RB's is not RBBC. RBBC is a football term that means you are using several backs. Generally, no one gets a thousand yds. DET runs a tandem back system w/ a pounder and a scatback. That is far from RRBC.

You need to go back and read the quote I was responding to and then read my quote again. I was not saying Detroit was doing a RBBC. The other poster stated you needed a #1 RB and that not giving the ball to one RB consistently failed to get the RB in a groove.That is why I mentioned Detroit and their situation because Detroit finds a way to work outside a #1 RB system. The rest of the comment was directed toward Dallas and their RBBC approach. I guess I should have made a separate post or paragraph for that part. Sorry for the confusion

 

[SteveTheCowboy]

When the powers that be believe the running back by committee depth chart (link) is:

--headed by the guy discarded for salary cap consideration by Dallas and was a backup in New England, the answer is duh.

This is not the MAIN problem. Show me a play with O-line running up the field looking for someone to pancake. And the RB not following. If you can do that...then YES...I blame RBs.

But when I see Oline stonewalled....or (sigh) (yet again) run plays up the clogged middle...it's something else.

CD having to run sweeps 3 times a game....tells you we have no center-tackle blocking and have to move things outside. Dak's near safety you can see three oline empty handed...and there are plenty more examples.

You remember when Pollard was praised for his speed to the edge over zeke? Imagine if he could've just hit a hole instead of wasting those yards? It's been a problem since Travis left.

Our RB's aren't great...tis true. But blocking and scheme suck just as hard if not more.

 

[SteveTheCowboy]

I don’t think it matters who is the RB. You could install the top five backs in the league and it might garner you an extra 1/10th of a yard average. This is what the run game looks like in McCathy’s pass to run west coast offense. It averaged around 3.8-4 ypc in GB, same as here and as long as it’s hovering around there they’re happy with it. If they were interested in establishing a dominant run game then they would had gone back to the outside zone which is a much better fit for most of our current personnel.
Everyone was banging on the tables wanting to go to a west coast offense for years. Welcome to the run game in McCarthy’s west coast!
It’s the scheme, in this scheme the emphasis in the running game is to run, to run out the clock after building a lead from the passing game!

There it is people. Come on....it is obvious.

VERY lazy to just blame zeke. Pollard couldn't run up the middle in this scheme either.

MAKE SOME GD HOLES!

 

[kskboys]

"Corey Dillon in 2004 was the only 1000+ yard rusher for New England under BB and Brady when they won the Bowl."
Diluting the facts. Highly.
Brady won 6 titles. Only one time in the year when they won a superbowl did they have a 1k yard back. Corey Dillon 2004. Thanks for playing....

2019	Sony Michel	NE	247	912
2017	Dion Lewis	NE	180	896
2015	LeGarrette Blount	NE	165	703
2005	Corey Dillon	NE	209	733
2004	Corey Dillon	NE	345	1,635
2002	Antowain Smith	NE	252	982

Of course. Brady used the short passing game as a running game. Someone is diluting the facts!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[HotDog37]

Parsons runs a 4.39 40 and was a good back in high school. He's far quicker than any of the backs we have in the RBBC club.