CFZ Tony Pollard vs Saquon Barkley

[stilltheguru]

I mean Pollard is talented and criminally underutilized up until now ... but Barkley (when healthy) is \ has been a generational talent. If not for injuries and being the Giants only weapon for a significant portion of his career, he'd probably be on his way to HOF career.

Finally, Pollard forced 41 missed tackles and averaged a whopping 3.82 yards after contact per attempt.

Barkley 2.78. Facts over feelings

 

[McKDaddy]

while the defense was completely focused on he & Jones & after how many ACL injuries? how bout them facts.

 

[quickccc]

From your error - hopefully you've learned to double-check your information be posting or commenting in the future.

thanks .. make it two cookies for yourself.

 

[FuzzyLumpkins]

Our RB are likely to be used a lot differently this year. We are no longer only using the RB for pass pro and dump offs to the flats.

Two years ago in the opener against TB we used a lot of quick outside passes to get receivers in space and substituted that for the running game. It was very successful yet Moore hardly went back to it and never again designed a game plan around it. MM is a WCO coach and we've seen quite a bit of it this preseason.

As for RB specific routes we have seen more angle, circle, and wheel routes out of the backfield this preseason than we did all last year.

As for Barkley he has elite speed, agility, and balance through contact. Our DT need to hold the los and eliminate cutbacks. Gap discipline as always will be key.

 

[CowboyRoy]

why would we considered moving on from Pollard after this year ?

Price tag would be the reason. Also the fact that he is getting older for a back.

 

[stilltheguru]

while the defense was completely focused on he & Jones & after how many ACL injuries? how bout them facts.

We're talking about 2023 not 2019. I don't care what Barkley was supposed to be

 

[Jake]

A note to Giants' RB Saquon Barkley - “We have our own killer speed RB too “

Speed kills .. Defenses are simply scared to death of those kind of players. I used to hear the late John Madden say: " it's two things that NFL defenses fear the most ... Speed and a running QB. "

Just as Barkley has that kind of instant fear factor speed, and has always put defense on egg shell worries
- so does our own Tony Pollard.. his speed and instant explosiveness was the likely leading reason why we chose to invest far more in Pollard and let Zeke go.

Barkley still has elite burst and long run speed, but I’m not sure he is back to pre-ACL form. He used to be so difficult to wrap and coral to tackle. On a frequent basis, defenders would constantly just slide right off of him in the open field. But I don’t see that near as often now.

But in terms of run instincts, short/goal line power, receiving skills, and elite speed, Saquon is still quite the complete package to deal with.

Pollard: this will be his first year as primary full time starter. And under new OC/play caller direction, we hope to see his full exploits vs being limited under Kellen Moore. Especially as a receiver out of the backfield.

Tony has run instincts and vision, cut back agility, underrated break tackle ability, receiving skills and of course elite burst and speed. Always felt there are only a handful of backs in his league when it came to elite breakaway speed (barkley, taylor,henry, mccaffrey, chubb, cook, kamara and ET in jax)
He's not as powerful in lower body, more difficult to tackle than Barkley, not as good in goal line/short yrd, and we'll have to see if Tony can hold up per 15-20 "touches per game as full time starter in full 17 game season.

We'll see if rookie RBs Bijah Robinson and Gibbs will enter that fray.

The big unknown with Pollard is can he handle 300 touches in a season. He's never done it before, not even in college.

We're about to find out.

 

[FuzzyLumpkins]

The big unknown with Pollard is can he handle 300 touches in a season. He's never done it before, not even in college.

We're about to find out.

Maybe MM does that but the WCO doesn't require 25 carries a game. Plus I think we will see a lot of the backups as well.

 

[CowboyRoy]

The big unknown with Pollard is can he handle 300 touches in a season. He's never done it before, not even in college.

We're about to find out.

Agreed. But even if he can, hes getting older and 10 million for a back is alot. Now if Jerry backs us in a corner like he does with Dak and doesnt bring any young talented backs in then we may be hamstrung.

Now if Pollard goes for 1800 yards and 14 TD's he may be worth 10 million. But personally I would trade him and get what we can possibly.

 

[Jake]

Maybe MM does that but the WCO doesn't require 25 carries a game. Plus I think we will see a lot of the backups as well.

300 touches - carries and receptions - over 17 games is 17.6 per game. 25 carries per game would be 425 touches alone, much less receptions.

It doesn't take much to get to 300 touches yet Tony Pollard has never carried that load. We won't know until he's asked to do it. He'll be asked for 10 million reasons.

 

[gimmesix]

I don’t know where y’all are getting your info about Pollard at Memphis. Pollard wasn’t even the #2 (Henderson and Patrick Taylor were RB 1-2) He was primarily a receiver and gadget back there.

Having said all that, I think he’ll be just fine as a 15-20 touch guy (rushing + receiving).

The days of handing a ball off to one RB 25x a game are over.

Which is why he went in the fourth round. No one could be sure exactly what he'd be as a pro. Would it be a gadget/receiving back or could he develop into more than that? Thankfully, the answer has been a good one.

 

[FuzzyLumpkins]

300 touches - carries and receptions - over 17 games is 17.6 per game. 25 carries per game would be 425 touches alone, much less receptions.

It doesn't take much to get to 300 touches yet Tony Pollard has never carried that load. We won't know until he's asked to do it. He'll be asked for 10 million reasons.

Depends on the type of touch. The load of 10 catches is nowhere near the impact of 10 runs.

He had 193 carries and 39 catches last season. 200 and 50 seems like a sweet spot to me.

The team had ~450 carries last season so maybe a few more carries but Vaughn, Dak, Dowdle, and the WCO short passing game can split the difference.

 

[CowboyRoy]

300 touches - carries and receptions - over 17 games is 17.6 per game. 25 carries per game would be 425 touches alone, much less receptions.

It doesn't take much to get to 300 touches yet Tony Pollard has never carried that load. We won't know until he's asked to do it. He'll be asked for 10 million reasons.

He should move up from 195 runs to 250 as the lead back. He had 40 catches or close to it last year and that should go up to 60 minimum. He stays healthy I have him at 1700-1800 yards and 15 TD's. And he is one of the best offenses in football. If he can stay healthy for all 17 games he could go for 2000 yards.

But can he stay healthy?

Would you take Bijon or Pollard in your fantasy league? Non PPR?

 

[plasticman]

NFL trends are cyclic. RB's will return.

As Linebackers are being replaced by safeties and DE's are being replaced by OLB's, defenses are getting quicker but smaller. All it takes is one team to build a great run blocking O-line and then put some monster 250 pounder with elite speed behind it.

The Cowboys best chances of doing something in the playoffs came in 2014 and 2016 when the NFL rushing leaders were two different Cowboys. Something similar to that will happen again with few teams able to defend against it.

 

[DandyDon52]

is barclay playing sunday ? or is he still holding out?

 

[McKDaddy]

We're talking about 2023 not 2019. I don't care what Barkley was supposed to be

you posted statistics. they can't be from 2023 as it hasn't occurred yet so I assumed they were from 2022 which is a good example of them having no other weapons.

anyone can see that Barkley when healthy is the more complete player.

 

[blueblood70]

Nowhere near the same type runners.

Right but we have a smaller version of saquon Barkley in Vaughan that's a fact they are very similar runners just once a little bigger and can take a little bit more carries the let's not act like saquon Barkley is not a player who was injury prone early in his career and one of the runners who sometimes has a lot of negative yard carries and needs that big play.. So I'll take our running back room over saquon Barkley..

But if we want to stay on Tony Pollard versus Barkley, Tony Pollard had every bit of solid season last year splitting carries with zeke as Christian McCaffrey who makes how much money and is looked at as who in this league?? I mean isn't Christian McCaffrey and Saquon Barkley compared sometimes??

so maybe you're off a bit no one saying Tony Pollard is the exact same as Barkley but he is as effective and productive that's the point the OP was trying to make we have a threat at running back and I'll go further like I said above we have a better running back room..

And I'll go a step further we have a better team...

Now back to Cowboy Fandom...

 

[Jarntt]

Tony has run instincts and vision, cut back agility, underrated break tackle ability, receiving skills and of course elite burst and speed. Always felt there are only a handful of backs in his league when it came to elite breakaway speed (barkley, taylor,henry, mccaffrey, chubb, cook, kamara and ET in jax)

I wouldn't exactly call that my top 8 with regards to elite breakaway speed...

 

[Jarntt]

is barclay playing sunday ? or is he still holding out?

Playing

 

[speedkilz88]

300 touches - carries and receptions - over 17 games is 17.6 per game. 25 carries per game would be 425 touches alone, much less receptions.

It doesn't take much to get to 300 touches yet Tony Pollard has never carried that load. We won't know until he's asked to do it. He'll be asked for 10 million reasons.

Barkley hasn't even hit 300 carries. 295 last year and 261 as a rookie in 2018 are his highs.