NFL Draft 2015: not the year of the running back.
1998. You have to go back 16 years to find the last time the NFL’s leading rusher won the Super Bowl when Terrell Davis ran for over 2000 yards and to Denver’s second straight Lombardi trophy. Since then, only 1 other player has managed to lead his team to the Super Bowl after leading the league in rushing: Shaun Alexander. Alexander managed to rack up 95 yards but could not reach paydirt as Seattle fell to Pittsburgh 21-10. Pittsburgh’s leading rushers that game were Willie Parker, who tallied 75 of his 93 rushing yards on one play, and Jerome Bettis who managed just 43 yards on 14 carries. In fact the last Super Bowl winner to have a 100 yard rusher in the game was the Colts when Dominic Rhodes ran for 113 on the Bears in 2007.
The running game is not what it used to be.
NFL Draft 2015: Not the Year of the Running Back
Gone are the days of the NFL workhorses like Emmitt Smith and Walter Payton. Instead of using one back for every situation a team encountered, teams now have a single back for any situation they encounter. Teams don’t have feature backs anymore, they have an early down guy, a third down guy and a goal line guy – and don’t forget the backups. The 2014 Patriots were the epitome of this and won the title without a single player cracking 500 yards on the ground. They used eight different guys (with ten or more carries) to combine for 1673 rushing yards during the regular season. That’s almost 200 yards fewer than DeMarco Murray racked up by himself! Yet the Cowboys couldn’t get past Green Bay in the Divisional Round of the playoffs.
This is not to say that running backs are useless. Clearly, you need someone to tote the rock on Sundays and take pressure off the quarterback. But what New England proved in 2014 is that as long as your line can hold a block for a second or two, you can line up just about anyone you want behind your gunslinger and do some damage. Heck, New England was still 18th out of 32 in rushing and you wouldn’t recognize anyone from their backfield without Brady handing them a football.
Believe it or not, some foolish team is going to reach for Todd Gurley or Melvin Gordon on April 30th. Even with all this evidence saying that a decent team could still run Ron Dayne out there and hold their own on the ground, someone is going to trade their most prized possession on a running back (Please don’t let it be San Diego).
I know some of you out there are saying: “But, Joe, Marshawn Lynch has rumbled, bumbled and stumbled his way to two straight Super Bowls in Seattle!” And yes, that’s true. But you know why he’s here and it’s not because he set rushing records. It’s because Richard Sherman and the Legion of Boom led the NFL in points per game allowed by nearly 2 full points. The Patriots were eighth in that category as well; guess it still pays to play defense.
So, please, do your fellow fans a favor and write to your team’s GM this April and beg him not to throw away your team’s first round pick this year. Play it safe, draft a lineman, a linebacker or a quarterback if you need one. There will be plenty of usable running backs in the middle rounds and on the waiver wire this summer… Guess someone should have told Chip Kelly. Sorry, Eagles fans! Better luck next decade!
