Re-reading my own posts, I think it's pretty obvious that I might not've been totally sober. I'll re-do my point.
The problem is a small group of people can't seem to understand that any ball carrier needs blockers. One player can't beat all 11 of the defenders on their own like you seem to expect them to.
Grant is the second leading rusher in the last 2.5 years that he has been a starter. If you don't get that, nothing I can type will get you to realize it. That is why that isn't worth a reply. You won't get it any way. Because you don't want to.
He did that with the worst O-line in the NFL for half a year. To me that means if we had a moderately decent line, he would have had quite a few more yards. Maybe up to a full yard per carry more on his average last year. The second half of the year he had 200 more yards than the first half. If he gets that better blocking and gets that extra 200 yards, he averages over 5 yards per last year. Is that over rated?
The kick return game is the exact same thing. We had plenty of decent kick returns. The penalties that called them back were the problem. Not the guy carrying the ball.
It should be a simple concept. If you want a return for a TD, BLOCK SOMEONE AND DON'T GET A PENALTY.
Quit looking and the little sparkly things and you might notice there is a game going on. From all indications, a pretty good one too.
"Dexter_Sinister" wrote:
I'm not ignoring blocking at all. Of course you need some blocking if you're going anywhere, but dear lord, if you watched any game last year, you saw Jordy running up to the 20 and into the back of his own men every single time.
If you saw the rotation door at PR, you must've agreed with me that it wasn't pretty most of the time. Tramon is the only one who can actually make something happen, someone who can dance around a little, but he's a starter right now at a horribly shallow position. The $1.65 would be worth it for the improvement on KRs and as an insurance policy for Tramon, alone.
And btw, on KRs and PRs, there's always some guys going to come free. That's what makes Hester and Cribbs so good. They make 3-4 guys miss on one single play if they go for the TD and then outrun them. Nelson tends to run into those people. Blocking on returns isn't as straigth forward as on normal runs.
Also, if you break a big one and it gets called back on a penalty, that usually means that that penalty might've had something to do with it. Especially if he runs into the pile every single time a flag isn't thrown.
And then for Grant. He was very, very good in 2007. So good that you couldn't let him play for the little amount of money he would get. I like that we gave him an incentive filled contract. Thing is, though, he got a huge contract on less than 200 carries. That's a pretty small sample, especially if everyone was focusing on the pass after our running game had been horrible for quite a while.
That he's the 2nd leading rusher does indeed not say that much to me. Mainly because it's a cumulative stat. This has just as much to do with getting nearly 800 carries over 2.5 years as it does with his skill. Or do you want to tell me that Grant's a better rusher than DeAngelo Williams, MJD, Ray Rice etc?
You can see a whole lot if you watch the "sparkly things". You can see that Grant has little wiggle, isn't quite evasive and doesn't exactly plow through people, either. The thing he has going for him is his speed in combination with his size. He doesn't get injured, doesn't put the ball on the turf, but he's nothing flashy. His fate is tied completely to our O-line. You could see that much in his stats last season. And there are about 5 guys in every draft who look good behind a good O-line.
I'm not saying that Grant is a bad player, but he just hasn't shown a whole lot that makes me think he's a great back or anything.
He's a Dorsey Levens who can stay healthy.