The NFL Running Back in 2013 An Endangered Species

                                                        

I began watching football in 1979 and the mindset back then was in order to win a Super Bowl, or at least contend for one was to run the football and to stop the other team from doing it. Fast forward to 2013, and nothing could be farther from that ideal.  There are still some top running backs in todays game. Adrian Peterson of the Minnesota Vikings, who, to me, is clearly on his way to Canton, has run for 786 yards and 9 TD, along with 24 catches.  This season has been slow for him as he usually would have had at least one game of 150-200 yards but, in fact. his high so far is 140 vs both Dallas and Pitt.  It also does not help that the Vikings are 2-7 and are playing from behind most games, so it is hard to run when that happens.  Another good running back is Jamal Charles of the Chiefs who has run for 725 yards, 6 TD, but his high game rushing is only 100 yards. He is huge as a receiver, catching 47 passes and 2 TD through 9 games.  The last dominant back that I will mention is Lashawn McCoy who has rushed for 932 yards and has a high rushing game of 184 yards, which he did in week 1 vs the Redskins.  Honorable mentions are Marshawn Lynch (871 yards with 7 TD) and Alfred Morris (825 yards and 5 TD).

 Now, back to my youth.  The late Walter Payton of the Chicago Bears was dominant in the late 1970s and early 1980s. He had 4 seasons with over 1500 yards rushing and at least 10 rushing TD in 5 seasons. In 1984 the dominant running back was Eric Dickerson who rushed for an all-time single season record of 2105 yards with 14 TDs for the LA Rams.  He had 2 games of over 200 yards that season.  Barry Sanders, to me is the best pure running back that I saw play (I was not born when Jim Brown and Gayle Sayers were in the prime). Barry ran for 2053 yards in 1997 which is now the 3^rd best season of all time behind Dickerson and Adrian Pederson (2097 yards last year). Sanders could dominate a game.

The last running back I will mention is my favorite one, Terrell Davis. Davis had a short career unfortunately, he suffered a knee injury in a game vs the NY Jets where he made a tackle on a Brian Griese interception. It’s sad because he should be a Hall of Famer, in my opinion, as he dominated both the 1997 and 1998 post seasons for the Denver Broncos and gave John Elway the running back that was lacking throughout his career. The Broncos never would have won the Championships without him.  Davis ran for 1538, 1750 and 2008 yards from 1996-1998. In 1998, when Terrell won the NFL MVP, he had 21 TDs rushing and 2 receiving.   Davis ran for a postseason record 7 straight 100 yard games. In today’s game this is very unlikely to ever happen again.

 Now, it is not like running is not important, but it is not the end all be all in today’s NFL.  The league is now geared towards passing , you can barely touch the wide receivers without getting flagged for pass interference penalties. Most of the top passing seasons in the history of the NFL have happened in the last 5 years. There have been 6 times that QBs have thrown for 5000 yards and 5 of them have happened since 2008, the only one prior to that was Dan Marino throwing for 5084 yards in 1984. Drew Brees owns the all-time record with 5476 yards in 2011 and has reached 5000 2 other times. Tom Brady and Matthew Stafford are the only others.  Now, if I told you that John Elway, one of the all-time best QBs in NFL history, only threw for 4000 yards once and Stafford has thrown for 5000, would it surprise you? On the surface yes, but in reality no.  The league wants the “star wars” numbers as Jim Irsay, the owner of the Colts, has recently said.  I feel that the league is unfair to the defenses and not letting them have a bit more leeway on covering the wide receivers. It is almost impossible to cover the best of the best with only a 5 yard bump area. Calvin Johnson, AJ Green and Dez Bryant have dominated because of this. Imagine what the all- time best receiver, Jerry Rice, would do in today’s NFL. It would be mind boggling. Back in the 1970s the wide receivers would get mugged all over the field and even up to 2003, the defensive players could get away with a lot more liberties when covering the best wide receivers or tight ends going down the field.

 
In 2013, Lashawn McCoy has the high game in week 1, rushing 184 yards. Historically, by week 10, there would have been at least one or two games where a running back would go over 200 yards and sometimes even 250 yards. When looking at the single game rushing leaders thus far, there have been some weeks the most yards rushing was barely over 100 yards. This is unbelievable, how much the philosophy has changed since the 1970s-1980s.  It’s a different game now, but it is still a great game to watch and enjoy no matter what team that you root for.

As time goes on, I believe we’ll see more of the running back by committee, where teams split the carries between 2 or 3 running backs, we will be seeing less and less of the 1500 yard rushing seasons. The QBs however, will still put up 4500 to over 5000 yards passing for the best in the business.  This is not to say that if there is a dominant running back, like Adrian Peterson, that he won’t still be great, he still will be, but there will be less and less of those running backs. For example, Willis McGahee, he was good in his career, but if there was a  backup running back that is just as good and can split the carries with him and whomever can catch the ball better out of the backfield or more importantly can protect his QB against blitz pickup, then that running back will get the bulk of the load.

The other part as to why teams like to throw the ball more is because, for teams to play defense in this league, it is easier to stop the run then it is to stop the pass. With the rules as they are, it is almost not fair how easy it is to pass. Running over the years is basically the same now as it was 35 years ago, you try to dominate the other teams defensive line and linebackers to create daylight for your running back to exploit and gain yardage.  With passing, you only have to have the offensive linemen that have the correct technique for blocking, and not have to dominate, to gain the advantage over the other team.  

 

 These are just my opinions and may be way off base in some people’s eyes.  I just hope my writing gets you to think and formulate your own opinions as this is fun for me to do. I enjoyed writing this very much, hopefully you enjoyed reading it as much. Thank you for taking the time.