Really Harsh Critique of Melvin Gordon

[Tobal]

Gordon reminds me an awful lot of Jamal Charles, and it's not just the dreds and him wearing #25. Gordon has a smooth running style to him, and has similar wiggle to his running. The differences are Charles has much more of a burst, and is a better and more accomplished pass receiver.

I think Gordon won't be the best back in the class (I think it will be Gurley), but I do think that he will be a player in the league. I wouldn't be the least bit disappointed if he ended up in Dallas.

The funny thing about Charles was halfway through his Junior year I wouldn't have given a 7th round pick for him... then suddenly it clicked and he started running tough and much harder. I think he decided he was going pro and had to get some good tape. I wanted the guy who played those last 6 games to be a Cowboy, but I was afraid we'd get the guy who hadn't impressed the 1.5 yrs before. His freshman yr was good, but that team was loaded and he got little attention.

 

[DBOY3141]

I have a bit of a bias against Wisconsin RBs, USC WRs and Penn St. LBs. It doesn't mean I hate every player that comes out but I usually downgrade the player a tad for that connection.

The Penn St. LB thing is probably out dated with their recent success, but for years I watched hyped LBs out of that program underachieve in the NFL.

Don't forget USC QBs.

 

[jday]

This is a really mindless article. It contains zero scouting, athletic/skills analysis, etc.

It literally begins and ends with (and I paraphrase): "I don't like the guy because he played for a school who produced a lot of busts at his position." If that's all he's got, I don't care much about his opinion. Shallow & lazy analysis.

Don't get me wrong, if you want to critique Gordon, by all means. This isn't a defense of Gordon, it's a comment that this article is meaningless.

I wouldn't completely dismiss it...he does make some good points beyond his issue w/Wisconsin RB's in general...which, in my opinion, is also a good point.

 

[jday]

We not drafting any RB round 1...the front office is not the same anymore..

I don't think you can completely rule out taking a RB in the 1st round. Don't get me wrong, I agree that the front office has been smarter as of late, but that doesn't necessarily mean they have a written rule somewhere that prohibits taking a RB in round 1. Just a few scenario's to consider:

What if:

1. The Cowboys are on the clock, no one wants to trade up for the 27th pick and the BPA on their board is a running back? The Cowboys are taking the RB in the 1st round.
2. Todd Gurley falls. You can bet the Cowboys would probably draft him.

 

[MichaelWinicki]

That's not completely fair.

He discussed a whole lot of exactly that but he provided what Gordon ran at the combine... i.e. lacking elite speed.
And he discussed that Gordon lost yardage on 19% of his carries. --a very legit concern as he will get contact int he NFL.

I wouldn't even call this critique overly harsh.
The truth is I saw where the average R1 NFL RB the last decade has produced about ~3700 yards... exactly what he is predicting for Gordon. (I believe that stat discounted AP who was suspended at the time and obviously would increase that average by quite a bit)

Outside of AP what round 1 RB has been a star for his team?
Lynch is pretty darn good in Seattle... but they didn't draft him.

2014: none drafted
2013: none ""
2012: Trent Richardson, Doug Martin, David Wilson
2011: Mark Ingram
2010: CJ Spiller, Ryan Mathews, Jahvid Best
2009: Knowshon Moreno, Donald Brown, Beanie Wells

Hmm... I count 1 guy still starting for the team that drafted him out of the entire friggin list.
That's pretty pathetic value for an R1.

You're convincing me not to take RB in round 1.

 

[jterrell]

You're convincing me not to take RB in round 1.

I am a firm believer in looking at the data.
While it can mislead you, it is far better than ignoring it.

The data here is pretty clear, RB in r1 has become a bad bet.
What we got out of Felix Jones is rather average.
And r2 and r3 backs have done really well.

I would 100000% worry about giving a guy at RB a lot of money like you do as an R1 pick then asking them to risk life or limb running with abandon and protecting your QB.
As good as Murray was, we never got anything near his best until his contract season.
No taking himself out of games or avoiding tackles last year.... --those were complaints previously.

If Dallas wanted to drop to about 35 and take a back I would consider that a win.
Pay the guy less and pick up something else useful. Or they can wait and get good backs at 60 or likely even 91. Because there are more good backs in the league and in this draft then there are teams. So teams often get good values at RB. If they don't go cuckoo over one.

The fifth year guarantee gets made a lot of, but how good is it if the cost is so high you aren't sure you want to exercise the option? --see Mo.

 

[Vinnie2u]

I don't think you can completely rule out taking a RB in the 1st round. Don't get me wrong, I agree that the front office has been smarter as of late, but that doesn't necessarily mean they have a written rule somewhere that prohibits taking a RB in round 1. Just a few scenario's to consider:

What if:

1. The Cowboys are on the clock, no one wants to trade up for the 27th pick and the BPA on their board is a running back? The Cowboys are taking the RB in the 1st round.
2. Todd Gurley falls. You can bet the Cowboys would probably draft him.

Just my opinion but CB is a much bigger need than RB.. Especially Gurley. He has not even ran a 40 yet.. We have Oscan who wants a pay raise.. Carr who doesn't want to take a paycut.. Patmon and a hurt Mo Claiborne.. And I don't even want to get into the Safeties..

 

[darthseinfeld]

My thing with spending a first on Gordon is that in 2015, he is a two down back that needs to come out in passing situations. He has no pass pro and pass catching game to speak of right now. He has the ability and will be developed, but out of the gate he is losing more playing time to infirior talents then a first round HB should.

If we drafted Gordon, you will see way more kf Darren McFadden then anyone should ever want

 

[MichaelWinicki]

The fifth year guarantee gets made a lot of, but how good is it if the cost is so high you aren't sure you want to exercise the option? --see Mo.

The thing I have with the fifth year option and the drafting of a running back is if you're running the guy 280-320 times a year and he's catching 40 passes, what kind of shape is he going to be in by the time he hits 28?

And if you've spent a first on him you probably aren't going to be inclined to run him a dozen times per game– I mean you've spent a 1st.

Now if you've drafted the guy in the 4th round or 3rd round or even 2nd round, there isn't the pressure to run the guy into the ground.

He's probably going to last longer and he'll be less expensive to resign because he hasn't put up those 1,500 yard seasons.

 

[MichaelWinicki]

Just my opinion but CB is a much bigger need than RB.. Especially Gurley. He has not even ran a 40 yet.. We have Oscan who wants a pay raise.. Carr who doesn't want to take a paycut.. Patmon and a hurt Mo Claiborne.. And I don't even want to get into the Safeties..

If there wasn't the laundry list of decent backs out there an argument could be made for spending a 1st on a RB (if one was there that deserved the selection), but there is a laundry list of good backs.

And from my view the highest rated player available at #27 could very well be a CB... which is OK by me.

 

[viman96]

This is a really mindless article. It contains zero scouting, athletic/skills analysis, etc.

It literally begins and ends with (and I paraphrase): "I don't like the guy because he played for a school who produced a lot of busts at his position." If that's all he's got, I don't care much about his opinion. Shallow & lazy analysis.

Don't get me wrong, if you want to critique Gordon, by all means. This isn't a defense of Gordon, it's a comment that this article is meaningless.

100% agree and was going to post the thing

 

[theogt]

His judgement is based on legitimate trends though. Hard to look past it imo, especially when dealing with first round picks.

He compares him to several former Wisconsin Badgers, all of whom he significantly outperformed, even outperforming them when they were sharing carries. When all three of Ball, White and Gordon played together in 2012, Gordon nearly doubled the YPC of Ball and White (10.0 vs. 6.4 vs. 5.1). If anything, comparing Gordon to those others simply shows that he is a significantly better back.

You could also compare their best seasons, when Ball had 1830 yards on 356 carries (5.1 YPC) in 2013, while Gordon had 2587 yards on 343 caries (7.5 YPC) in 2014. In other words, he had 750 more yards on 13 fewer carries. That's absurd, and shows how these players aren't really comparable at all.

 

[xwalker]

He compares him to several former Wisconsin Badgers, all of whom he significantly outperformed, even outperforming them when they were sharing carries. When all three of Ball, White and Gordon played together in 2012, Gordon nearly doubled the YPC of Ball and White (10.0 vs. 6.4 vs. 5.1). If anything, comparing Gordon to those others simply shows that he is a significantly better back.

You could also compare their best seasons, when Ball had 1830 yards on 356 carries (5.1 YPC) in 2013, while Gordon had 2587 yards on 343 caries (7.5 YPC) in 2014. In other words, he had 750 more yards on 13 fewer carries. That's absurd, and shows how these players aren't really comparable at all.

The article was not well done; however, there should be some general concern because their schedule is not strong with many Bowling Green type schools on their schedule. When they played Ohio State his average was not good.

 

[Zekeats]

This part scares me:

Gordon rushed for no-gain, or a loss, on 19 percent of his carries last season. He did not prove he has what it takes to run between the tackles, and he cannot block. He lacks the toughness it takes to be an every down back in the NFL.

 

[SilverStarCowboy]

Alright....Dallas has the Wisconsin/Alabama Oline of the NFL.

 

[jnday]

The guy could very well be right.

I was just starting to warm up to Gordon, but this article reminded me why I was a skeptic to start with.

 

[jterrell]

He compares him to several former Wisconsin Badgers, all of whom he significantly outperformed, even outperforming them when they were sharing carries. When all three of Ball, White and Gordon played together in 2012, Gordon nearly doubled the YPC of Ball and White (10.0 vs. 6.4 vs. 5.1). If anything, comparing Gordon to those others simply shows that he is a significantly better back.

You could also compare their best seasons, when Ball had 1830 yards on 356 carries (5.1 YPC) in 2013, while Gordon had 2587 yards on 343 caries (7.5 YPC) in 2014. In other words, he had 750 more yards on 13 fewer carries. That's absurd, and shows how these players aren't really comparable at all.

Sorry Theo but that is complete garbage.
Yes, the article was rather lazy at times and generalized a good deal BUT NO Gordon was not significantly better statistically than his counterparts at Wisconsin.
Ron Dayne was FAR better. He had ~25 more rushing TDs and a couple THOUSAND more yards rushing.
Montee Ball had about 30 more TDs than Gordon and Gordon only started his final season after being a back up to guys you somehow feel he was so drastically better than.
Because yards per carry means more than the depth chart apparently; i.e. why Randle was so much better than Murray right?

Ball didn't play college ball in 2013. His best season was 2011 when he had 39 total TDs and over 2200 yards from scrimmage.

Again the article you are so quick to bash points out Gordon had a high yards per carry largely versus bad defenses by rushing to the outside. He was a big yardage guy versus mediocre defenses in one of the worst defensive years in Big 10 history. And even with those large yards per carry he still lost yardage or gained zero on 19% of his total carries which is a very significant piece of data.


It is easy to say the guy makes no points when you just ignore them all.

 

[jterrell]

Alright....Dallas has the Wisconsin/Alabama Oline of the NFL.

Now all Dallas has to do is schedule Bowling Green and we are golden.

 

[Toruk_Makto]

Gordon may very well be a bust.... But it's the height of lazy scouting to say he won't succeed in the NFL because he went to Wisconsin.

Heck why not just draft every qb from Tennessee and Michigan because that's where Peyton and Brady went.

Wait it doesn't work that way?

 

[Spectre]

It's always fun to read reviews of these prospects and to argue about them on a message board with a bunch of people who just watch youtube clips and/or remember the player from a game or two (myself included).

It is funny how people will see a sure fire great player vs a overrated bust of a player.

How someone will say that a prospects greatest strength is (insert here) while another reviews lists that same thing as the same prospects greatest weakness.

Just funny how it works.

It is one thing for most of us fans with no professional skill at evaluating but acting as if our evaluations of a player is the only correct evaluation and therefore we argue about it with others....

However one would think that most professional scouts would pretty much be on the same page concerning some of these top end players. I understand some will be looking for different types in order to fit their own teams schemes...but generally one would think that a group of professionals (whether it be team scouts people being paid to provide evaluations like Kiper/Mayock/Brugler) would have a general consensus if a player is a good player or bad.

Think you may be giving too much credit to some simply in a decision-making position as a result of who-they-know, promotion, transfer, etc. There's a difference between being a 'professional' and being a pro at something (in most managerial positions). A lot of these so-called professionals suck at what they do. They aren't athletes or ex-athletes. They aren't coaches. They aren't in the spotlight or scrutinized in realtime and to the extent that physical performers are. They're often just 'connected', usually with money.
There are regular people- fans- in forums and watching youtube channels, that are better at talent evaluation than many 'professionals'.