George
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Reimagine Moorabbin
- Aug 17, 2015
- 45,307
- 127,300
- AFL Club
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- Banned
- #226
You are absolutely right, and the owners/coaches know that with the way the league is going, the need for a standout back isn't as important as it used to be. Look at how Le'Veon Bell's situation turned out for him. Thought he could get more elsewhere and it backfired on him. There was another one too a couple years ago but the name escapes me. You are probably better off running a two back set and splitting carries or just running out of a shotgun and bringing them in for short yardage or goal line packages. The rest of the time you can usually get any decent enough guy to move it a few yards when you give it to him. I honestly think it's now more about keeping defenses guessing rather than actually winning games off the back of them - bar the notable exceptions like Henry, McCaffrey, Chubb to an extent.The other piece was better but it’s hard to find the old stuff. Pretty much only the cowboys would sign Elliott to that sort of deal, it’s all emotion with them. He’s a classic example, he arrived having had a heavy workload at Ohio state so the projection on him would be 26 - 27 he’s just another running back with yardage per carry dropping off. Interestingly they have tony pollard getting a lot more carries and he’s a completely different player and it’s working well for them. Maybe platooning him extends his career but why tie up so much cash, cowboys special.
What I found really interesting about the story I watched was they’re all being tracked through high school and college. So you need to stand out to get drafted but as a running back the higher profile actually hurts you. Get drafted sign a rookie contract and a lot will never get a big payday. The teams looking at your production thinking it’s starting to slip let him walk we‘ll draft another one.
Still it makes sense, you see it in the AFL some players carry a team for a few years and end up banged up and old before their time, Cripps comes to mind.