If Chargers can get a 1st & 3rd for Turner, don't we have to shop Betts?

[GTripp0012]

Originally Posted by offiss

You both get to wrapped up in numbers, well here's a number for you, Clinton went from 5.5 yards per carry in denver, to 3.8 with us, he had the lowest yards per carry out of any legitamate starter in 2004, which means any back in the league would have posted better numbers if he was force fed the ball enough times.

And don't forget he ran up huge numbers with the Broncos in 2003 against a horrible defense in the Chiefs, close to 400 yards I believe against 1 team and something like 6 or 7 rushing TD'S. he had 5 for us the whole year in 2004.

I will say it again CLINTON IS NOT A GREAT BACK! Just like I said Arrington was not a great LB. As time goes on it WILL become more and more apparent that he is what he is a change of pace back. He's still young and yet still he can't keep himself on the field, the guy isn't built for the pounding an everydown back get's unless he's running in space like he did in Denver, hence system back!

If you are trying to make an Anti-Clinton Portis argument, I'd leave Denver out of this.

As far as the 2004 argument goes, Offiss is correct. Despite the raw yardage totals being heavily in Portis' favor, Betts accrued more total value in 90 carries than Portis did in 350. Betts was more successful in crucial situations than Portis was that year, and ran up a higher YPC average. For whatever reason, Portis was an ineffective runner in 2004, racking up 1300 yards pretty much entirely due to the sheer number of carries he got that year. Bottom line is that if this was April 2005, Offiss would have a very convincing argument.

Well, I just checked my calender and it turns out that it is NOT April 2005. It is in fact April 2007. You know what this means, Offiss? It means we have two more years of data to analyze to see if this was a fluky year, or the start of a trend.

In 2005, Clinton Portis was unquestionably a top 10 runner in the NFL. Ladell Betts' year was pretty below average. Portis added 200 more yards to his season total in a nearly identical amount of carries. This blew up his yards per carry. It's actually very defenseable to say that Portis was better in 2005 than LaDainian Tomlinson. He was unbelieveable. Betts fell off the map.

In 2006, Portis put togehter a solid first half of the season at less than 100 percent. Betts rebounded from a bad 2005 to be one of the better RBs in the league. Had Portis stayed healthy, their numbers for the season likely would have been reversed.

Because of Portis' consistency these last two years, it makes no sense to dwell on the 2004 season. You can point to the 2004 season as a reason for concern, but to use it as the basis for prediction is--well, you'll see soon enough when your prediction misses by a hilarious amount.