Can Clinton Carry the Load?

[GTripp0012]

Originally Posted by 12thMan

I think you and Schneed make some good points, but it sounds like you guys are not getting where I'm coming from. Or maybe you are, but you just flat out disagree. And both are fine with me.

But my opinion, not argument, is pretty straight forward; I feel that if we can get Portis the ball between 25-30 times a game, we'll see more of the Clinton Portis we've been accustomed to. Period. I can't substantiate that with hard core stats, but I'm willing to bet, he's more productive and so is our win/loss record. I don't see what's so backwards about that.

I'm sort of following your reasoning here, but either:

1) I'm missing a big part of your argument here and unjustly critizing it
or
2) There's a pretty big hole in the argument/opinion/whatever.

Outside of the fact that giving CP 25-30 carries each of the final eight games will likely end his career going foward due to abuse on his body, there is an oppertunity cost to running 30 times a game with a single back.

Against the leagues worst defense, who consistently played with 6 in the box vs. our 3 WR sets and never ever brought up a safety into the box prior to O.T., Portis was able to average over 5 YPC in a game for the first time this season. So because he was consistently picking up big chunks of yards, they kept feeding him. This, of course, is what Schneed was saying.

However, even with the massive success the ground game was having, remember that every down we ran was a down in which we couldn't throw. Even the worst passers average a higher YPA than the best runners. You want to acheive offensive balance, but even when the running game is working, if you can't have a passing game, you end up taking a 1-7 team to O.T.

The fact that we went to O.T. does not tell you to the level that our guys physically dominated that football game, but chewing up all that clock did shorten the game enough for one kick return on the first play of the game to turn total domination into an overtime struggle.

I'm not knocking our gameplan at all, and I can't fault them with going with what was working, but looking ahead, when the oppertunity cost of giving CP 30 carries a game to get on track as opposed to 15 involves:

1) Giving a workload to CP that will most likely end the effective stage of his career and make him injury prone for the rest of it.

2) Take the ball out of Jason Campbell's hands

and

3) Shorten the length of the game allowing a few big plays to decide the course of it (while running 30 times a game)

Then at this point, even if you are right and Portis could be very effective down the stretch with 30 carries a game, I still disagree that it would be a good idea.

I'm all for running as long as it is effective, but the notion that it has to be Portis doing the running, and we have to do it until it works, do or die just seems a bit crazy to me, even if you are correct.