Clayton on the Redskins' offseason plans

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Originally Posted by Grim21Reaper

If Portis stays healthy, Betts may get to touch the ball six times a game. Is that the best use of a guy who can carry the load? Is a second or third round pick more valuable to you when you have 7 guys getting surgery and you have holes at every level on defense? I would say so.

I think Cartwright is perfectly capable of taking over Betts' role in an offense where the featured guy, Portis, is healthy. The problem comes when Portis gets hurt. Do we run the ball less to account for that?

As long as we have 3 quality backs, we don't have to adjust our gameplan much if Portis gets hurt. We can still run 30-35 times a game.

Guys tend to breakdown if they get more than 350 carries in a season. Portis carried more than that in 2005, and wasn't able to make it though 2006. This is not surprising to me. No back should be allowed to carry more than 20 times a game consistently thoughout the season. If you are going to be a run first team, you do need two QUALITY guys to carry the football. Portis should be getting about 20 carries a game and even more receptions, but Betts is going to have to carry 10-12 times a game in a run first offense. Even Cartwright should be getting involved later in games to keep Portis from taking unessesscary beatings in running out the clock situations.