Category Running Back

RB David Wilson’s Vision: Part I Raw Skill in Action

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Virginia Tech RB David Wilson is the subject of a four-part study on his game, specifically his vision. Photo by Michael Miller.

To come to be you must have a vision of Being, a Dream, a Purpose, a Principle. You will become what your vision is.

  – Peter Nivio Zarlenga

Vision is a magical term. Even in the world of business, visionary leaders are seen as semi-fictional characters. For all of his petulance, coldness, and cruelty towards friends, employees, and business partners, Steve Jobs’ vision transformed Apple into a real life WonkaVille.

Football players with great vision also seem magical. Watch a highlight of Gale Sayers, Barry Sanders, or Ladainian Tomlinson in their prime and their performances frequently dance along the borders of the impossible. Great vision in football is said to be intuitive. Many scouts say it can’t be taught. I agree with much of the first statement, but not with the second.
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RSP Cutting Room Floor: College RB and WR Notes

0 Comments read Players, Running Back, Wide Receiver
Jarrett Boykin has NFL athleticism but the Hokie offense didn't demand him to develop NFL receiver skills. Photo by Gary Cope.

If you haven’t noticed, the RSP blog is often my catchall area to write about anything I can relate to football. Nonetheless, rookie evaluation is still far and away the headliner. With the regular NFL season in the books I’ve ramped up my film study of college players. Here’s a few odds and ends about several players I’ve watched recently. For much more in-depth analysis, get the Rookie Scouting Portfolio publication available April 1.

Western Kentucky RB Bobby Rainey is the best running back prospect you’ve never heard of. Continue reading →

Boycotting the Corner Store: A Lesson for RBs

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Other than Reggie Bush, I can’t think of a back that loved “taking trips to the corner store” more than Bills RB C.J. Spiller. Now that he’s boycotting the corner store his production is blossoming. See what I mean below. Photo by Matt Britt.

Isaiah Pead is an NFL running back prospect for the 2012 NFL Draft. The 5’11”, 198-pound University of Cincinnati senior is agile, and quick. He earns his tuition gaining yards from spread and pistol sets. This morning I’m watching Pead gain 191 total yards from scrimmage and score two touchdowns against NC State.

I’m not surprised about his performance, because I’ve seen Pead before. In another sense, I’ve seen Pead many times before. The Bearcats’ star runner shares similar tendencies of most good college running backs. However, one of these tendencies is a bad habit in the NFL. I call it, “taking trips to the corner store.”

Most of us have a favorite corner store in our neighborhood. We go there for gas, cigarettes, junk food, energy drinks, beer, lottery tickets, you name it. Nothing there is really good for us, but we can’t resist the temptation. In football I see the “corner store” as a running back’s decision to bounce a run outside. Continue reading →

The Curious Case of Montee Ball

0 Comments read Players, Running Back
Ball is a talented runner whose line sometimes masks his strengths in the same way it masked his alums' weaknesses. Photo by SSShupe.

Wisconsin has earned the moniker “Lineman U” during the decade for its excellence at the position. One of the unintended consequences with this unit’s excellence is the parade of productive college running backs that underwhelm in the NFL. Ron Dayne, Brian Calhoun, Anthony Davis, P.J. Hill, and John Clay are all examples of players that earned some degree of acclaim in college, but were exposed as average NFL athletes, at best. Continue reading →

RSP Flashback: Lions RB Kevin Smith

0 Comments read Players, Running Back
Welcome back Kevin Smith, nice to see you still had it in you. Photo by Carlos Osorio.

Here is a very brief overview I wrote in the 2008 Rookie Scouting Portfolio about Kevin Smith as an underrated player in the 2008 draft class.

Kevin Smith, University of Central Florida: How does a 2000-yard rusher qualify as underrated? When analysts and draftniks dismiss him as a baby-faced junior who is too thin, too easy to bring down, and indecisive at the point of attack. The only thing that they have right is the remark about his face—and that doesn’t win or lose football games. Smith is bigger than Darren McFadden and will likely add another 10 pounds of muscle as he matures because it’s his upper body that is on the thinner side. He already has a very muscular trunk and runs with good balance. The skills that make Smith special are his vision, hard-cutting style, and hip flexibility, which is reminiscent of no back I’ve seen since Marcus Allen.

Smith had nearly 1000 yards as a rookie third-round pick. Photo by Carlos Osorio.

Smith faced 9- and 10-men fronts and demonstrated a decisive style. I watched him have a very productive day against a stout Mississippi State defense that loaded up the box to stop him. Although he needs to do a better job of moving his legs when wrapped up, he has deceptive power and runs out of more hits and ankle tackles than advertised. The fact that he’s one of the best pure runners in this draft and he is still raw as a player makes Smith an underrated commodity.

In a few years Smith has a strong chance to be known as the best back in this class if he can capitalize on his vast talent. What will hold him back early is his need to improve his skills as a receiver. Nevertheless, Smith will excite teammates, fans, and fantasy owners with his running style. My only concern with Smith is his hard-cutting style. Some of the backs that share this aspect of his style suffered knee injuries that robbed them of their skill.

Best Offensive Play of the Year

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Aaron Rodgers is amazing. His back shoulder throws and guided-missile burners through three levels of defenders in the middle of the field can leave you speechless. But for my money, there’s nothing better than the elemental force of a running back winning a battle with a linebacker.

Especially when that linebacker is perhaps the greatest football player the NFL has seen for the past 15 years. Maybe one of then 10 best, ever. Continue reading →

The RSP Blog’s Top 20 RBs (2006-2011) Pt II

0 Comments read Players, Running Back
Study this photo of Reggie Bush, becuase this talent that made him feared in college football has often reduced him to a pedestrian player in the NFL. Photo by JSnell.

The idea of compiling a rankings analysis across several years of Rookie Scouting Portfolio publications has been a popular request by readers for years, but something I have resisted doing. For a complete explanation why please read Part I. If you want to know how my ranking of these players differs from the actual process I use for the RSP publication please read Part I. And if you want to know why I view this exercise as an entertainment piece and not a more serious analysis please read Part I.

Moreover, if you want to see players 11-20, you know what to do. See, I didn’t even need to say it.

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The RSP Blog’s Top 20 RB Prospects (2006-2011) Part I

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Ahmad Bradshaw easily made my top 20 RB prospects for the RSP. His performance on an undermanned team against superior opposition transcended his stats. Photo by Ted Kerwin.

One of the most frequent requests I’ve heard from readers over the years is to rank players at their position across several draft classes. It’s an entertaining thing to read, but I’ve always been reticent about doing it. There are a lot of approaches I could take with the ranking process and I’m not sure if any of them will feel good enough to stand behind.

I could rank by checklist scores, but I don’t believe in ranking players solely by the quantitative criteria I used to derive a score in the Rookie Scouting Portfolio publication. This is only half of the analysis that I perform. The other half is providing a detailed context behind the scoring that often fills in the gaps that the data leaves behind. Even then, there is a factor I call “The Great Emotional Divide,” which separates productive NFL players from massively talented NFL prospects. Another valid question is whether I should judge these players based on what I’ve seen from them in the NFL. If so then am I doing justice to the rookies from the 2011 class?

None of this makes me feel like I’m on solid ground. I don’t like rankings because they are highly fluid thoughts frozen during a brief period in time. Some readers may believe my business as author of the Rookie Scouting Portfolio is ranking players, but they’re mistaken.

My primary goal with the RSP is to profile these players and analyze their games. The ranking is perhaps the least important part of the analysis. It’s the conversation starter. The attention-getter. The marketing schtick. It’s the cocktail party, three-sentence summation of a complex subject that you need to learn or you come across as rude or socially awkward. As much as I value Twitter for attracting readers like you to the work I do, I’m not much on cocktail party chatter. Nothing wrong with it if that’s your thing, it’s just not mine if I can avoid it.

Ultimately, I only ranked players I studied during my time authoring the RSP (2006-2011). I decided to rank these players according to the potential I saw in them before they went pro. I don’t define potential by where I ranked them in the past, but what I think they could have (or did) become based on these factors:

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RSP Flashback: DeMarco Murray Q&A and Analysis

0 Comments read Players, Running Back
DeMarco Murray (left), pictured with Landry Jones (center) had a debut as an NFL starter that most players could only dream about. Photo by E.A. Sanabria.

 

DeMarco Murray’s 25-carry, 253-yard debut as the Cowboys starter bested Emmitt Smith’s single game rushing record for the team. As with most accomplishments of this kind, the performance tends to be the product of a confluence of factors: a weakened defense, a big lead, and talent allowed to get into a rhythm. With Sam Bradford on the bench nursing an ankle sprain and the Rams defense consistently folding early in contests, St. Louis was clearly a big part of the equation. But let’s not forget that Cowboys starter Felix Jones had only one game this year where he exceeded 60 yards rushing and the Rams defense’s worst performances against the run came at the legs of LeSean McCoy and Ryan Torain. If you combine the totals of these two backs, they only bested Murray’s output by four yards.

Murray may not go on a streak that Corey Dillon did over a decade ago during his rookie year or like Jerome Harrison’s 2009 stint with the Browns, but the third-round pick of the Cowboys is not a fluke. He was my No.4 runner in the 2011 Rookie Scouting Portfolio and a runner I saw up close at the Senior Bowl practices. He was the best back on the North squad and I heard two former running backs-turned running back coaches label Murray as a potential thoroughbred.

In a Q&A that I conducted with Murray at the Senior Bowl for the New York Times Fifth Down, I was impressed with Murray’s mature approach to the game and desire to hone his tools to become a better athlete and football player. He was one of those few players where his words and intentions matched his growth on the field.

One of the most revealing performances I witnessed during Murray’s college career came during his junior year Continue reading →

Behind the Blue Curtain – Part III: Making the Cut the Hard Way With RB Chad Spann

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While Chad Spann won't be playing in Wembley Stadium this weekend, he is there with the Buccaneers practice squad. Find out the price he paid from August through October to earn that chance. Photo by Chris Downer.

Imagine 15-years of work riding on a 60-minute performance that is only partially choreographed and half of the individuals sharing the stage with you are trying to undermine everything you do. Now imagine suffering an injury three minutes into that performance. Welcome to rookie free agent Chad Spann’s world the night he faced the Cincinnati Bengals in the final preseason game of the summer.

The Colts running back and special teams performer described his rookie learning curve at an NFL training camp with one of the league’s great offensive minds at quarterback and  in Parts I and II of this series. In the final installment of this conversation, Spann describes his injury in the Colts final preseason game and why Colts trainers were in disbelief that he managed to play an entire game at a high level.

Waldman: Tell me about the injury that you sustained, how it happened, and later let’s talk about your rehab process.

Spann: The Cincinnati game was the last game of the preseason.  It’s a game where all the young guys know they are going to get a lot of time. Guys can make the team off this game. Blair White made the team off this game last year when he had I think 15 catches and 150 yards. Also Melvin Bullitt the starting safety had 15 tackles in that last game, which helped him make the team. It was important that all of the rookies and especially Continue reading →