Ladell Betts in Saunders' offense

[Schneed10]

Originally Posted by ArtMonkDrillz

We've been talking a lot about how various players will do in Al Saunders' offense; I was just wondering how everyone thought Ladell Betts will perform this year.

I was looking over his stats for the past four seasons and I was suprised that he really hasn't been as productive as I thought. He averages 80 rushing attempts off 318 attempts a season, with about 4 yards per carry. I guess 4 yards a carry is pretty good, especially if he is in mainly for short yardage situations. Larry Johnson averaged closer to 5 ypc in KC (we can all hope Betts will turn out like that), and I think that extra yard will make a huge difference. Betts doesn't seem to be the most durable player on the roster, which freaks me out.

Maybe Saunders will decide to use Betts more in order to take some pressure off of Portis, which will keep him more fresh for the playoff push. I always worry about Ladell fumbling, even though he really doesn't do it too much, but I still think it will only help to having him rush more often.

Basically I would just like to hear how everyone else thinks Ladell will do this season.

I'm not so concerned about Ladell Betts, because if we need him to perform really well, then that means Clinton Portis got hurt.

4 yards per carry is pretty good from your backup RB. He's capable of coming in and getting the tough yards. He's never going to have a 5.0 average because he doesn't have the game-breaking speed you need to get a 50-yard TD scamper. He got that 4 yards per carry by grinding out every single play.

But like I said, I'm not going to worry about him too much. It's Portis that should be getting the attention.