I don't know that I would characterize Pollard as having one skill.. He's a pretty good all around talent.. we just don't use him as one. And as I pointed out, you caw on the kickoff return that he's more quick than fast. He was out in front of the cover team and got tracked down pretty easily. If he were truly "fast" he would have housed that thing. That's not a knock.. for a running back quickness is better than flat out top end speed. Of course it's nice to have both but Emmitt was quick but not fast.. Adrian Peterson and Derrick Henry are fast but not quick. Tony Dorsett and Barry Sanders were both.. But neither of them were as powerful as Emmitt, AD or Henry.. By the way, when I say Emmitt and Pollard are not "fast" it's always in the context of for NFL athletes. Any of these guys would probably beat 99.999% of the people in the world in a footrace.
Pollard ran a 4.37 at Memphis Pro Day. He has good straight line speed and acceleration.
But the reason he is so bad on kick off returns much of the time is he lacks vision.
It also hurts him on plays blown up early out of the backfield. He often doesn't see things fast enough to use his speed.
Quickness is like Cole Beasley. It's an ability to change directions and shift gears and that's not how I'd define TP at all.
He has 1 gear, fast and generally heads in one direction.
He has developed as a pass blocker and the team uses him a ton out in patterns but he hasn't shown plus hands nor great route running even though he was essentially a slot/wing back at Memphis.
I think he's a solid change of pace back from Zeke ideally used when defenses tire.
But I've said for many weeks I'd have 3 RB active and get Dowdle or someone else early carries.
Tony Pollard is simply not a starting NFL Running Back and was not drafted as such.
The key running back trait is vision. That's why Emmitt who had the same speed as me at our peaks has all those yards. I was just able to run straight at people and block them or drag them a few yards. I have zero vision. And so I played defense eventually lol.
Zeke has vision plus power but his body has taken a lot of hits and he is no longer fast. Fans love speed but it seldom lasts at RB. Good RB over any period time have vision and power. Fast (speed-reliant) RB can have very high peaks but often are out of the league in a short period too.
Zeke playing behind a JV line with a defense who is so bad you never have a lead is 10th in rushing yards and fans are melting at the thought.
