Portis/Riggins comparison

[MTK]

And by the way he's off to the best start of his career, including those glorious Denver days. He's on pace for a career year.

[GTripp0012]

Originally Posted by Mattyk72

He's on pace for a career year.

I might have called that one.

The biggest key is that our running game is doing more and more zone stuff, which is basically a better system for the running back. Portis doesn't have particularly great vision, and it hurt him when the holes were shifting so much. Zone blocking simplifies the reads for the running back, and it's allowing Portis' athleticism to simply take over games.

The zone schemes are also taking Pete Kendall from a placefiller to a dominating force, and Heyer from one who can't run block to a pretty darn good run blocker. It's hurt Randy Thomas thus far, but I think he's starting to come on.

[MTK]

Originally Posted by GTripp0012

I might have called that one.

The biggest key is that our running game is doing more and more zone stuff, which is basically a better system for the running back. Portis doesn't have particularly great vision, and it hurt him when the holes were shifting so much. Zone blocking simplifies the reads for the running back, and it's allowing Portis' athleticism to simply take over games.

The zone schemes are also taking Pete Kendall from a placefiller to a dominating force, and Heyer from one who can't run block to a pretty darn good run blocker. It's hurt Randy Thomas thus far, but I think he's starting to come on.

So what's up with the inability to run to the right with Heyer in there? Or is Thomas more to blame?

[GTripp0012]

Originally Posted by Mattyk72

So what's up with the inability to run to the right with Heyer in there? Or is Thomas more to blame?

I don't see it as an inability as much as I see it as a preference to run weakside away from Cooley.

But, I think the simple answer to your question is that our left side has been SO good that running to the right is only a formality to keep the defense honest. If we have Samuels, Kendall, and then Sellers leading up the left side in our base formation, no defense is going to beat us like that. Additionally, on non-zone type runs, we still like to pull Thomas around because he's great at pulling.

Ultimately though, the longer a play to the right takes to develop, the more likely it is that Heyer or Cooley (or Jansen) will have a LB or DB shoot through their gap and blow up the play. Because of that, all of our big plays come on the left side, which keeps the YPC down to the right.

Zorn really like to attack the weak side of the defense, which generally happens to be our offensive left. I think that's the big reason for the lack of balance between the sides.