Not saying he should have.. Just pointing out that yet again, just looking at the stat sheet misleads the hell out of you. Pollard's 4.67 ypc in that game would have people who didn't watch the game thinking he should have gotten the ball more.. He was the less effective of the two runners that game. Not that Zeke lit it up.. Nobody lights it up on the ground against that bunch.. We knew that was going to be the case going in.. especially with Martin out. Zeke at least did enough on the ground that the Bucs could not just drop 8 and rush three.. like the Chargers did.. But your first sentence is accurate.. Both guys need blocking.. Anybody arguing that either one of them doesn't is just being stupid.
I suggest us all to keep to using our eyeball test...rather than just leading with the ESPN stat sheets.
- I'm amazed at the excuses and defense for one side or the other, one Pollard group or Zeke group, while both players are contributing in their own way, on the same team.
But it's clear to me that the perception is that Zeke is Not springing any or not enuff " splash" runs or plays while we see Pollard display burst and splash plays even in a reserve role, is sprewing .
I don't think it was anything Zeke did vs run, that was even the contributor in the Bucs game I saw it as more of his blitz blocking vs Bucs, that double whatever we could not generate in the run game.
Zeke is one of the very best, if not the best blitz blocking RBs in the entire NFL - That pays huge dividend vs the likes of
Bucs Devin White probably the premiere middle LB blitzers in the NFL.
While Pollard's blocking is more of just getting his shadow in the way a good number of times. (ala tripping flag?)
That's not a strong suit of his, no matter the effort.
But it's gonna roll right back to 2016 , when we had a Zeke that was complete in providing speedy, splash big plays along with sound blitz blocking.
