Game Tape: Ryan Torain

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Originally Posted by 30gut

I think we agree for about Torrain for the most part but I don't understand why you would call him ineffecitve or think he puts the team in long yardage any more then any other RB.

I think Torrain's vision and his ability as a runner are better then you give him credit for.
I'm not saying he's a special back because he's not; but he's decent.

He likes to keep the play frontside he's not looking to cutback, which limits the explosive runs he can make (on his own) in this scheme.
I also think Torrain is right not to look for the cutback because he doesn't cutback very well, which might be because of his upright running style and stiff hips.
He also lacks the top end speed to exploit the huge holes when then happen.

Torrain's best ability is that for some reason he's hard to bring down, he doesn't have wiggle nor does it look like he's running hard, but he's tough to bring down.

Torrain success as a runner comes from trusting/being dependent on the OL and his ability to stay up.

And at a 4.5 ypc carry clip he's not a bad back.


I like Keiland more then Torrain also, but Keiland is a young back who needs playing time (that he didn't get) to build confidence.

Where Torrain lacks the ability and is right not to make aggressive cutback moves I think Keiland does have the ability but lacks the confidence that comes with experience to make those risky cutbacks.
Therefore Kei often runs with the aim of picking up whatever yards are there at the POA much like Torrain.
But, I think Keiland has the potential to be more then a frontside runner.

All good points. I'll address the YPA argument here because it's something I haven't already covered above.

RBs get their value (well, rushing value, blocking/receiving are such underrated skills for RBs) in one of two ways, they must either consistently get positive yards that are also valuable, or they must provide the "shock" play, usually a long TD run, at a better than average rate. I struggle to put Torain in one of these two categories because he doesn't neatly fit.

Torain provides "shock" plays to a starving offense, which is why I believe some overvalue him in an offense like the Redskins. When Torain gets loose on the edge and moves beyond the linebackers and into the secondary with long strides, the Redskins move down the field fairly quickly. Torain has a knack for bunching his 17 yard gains together and moving the offense down the field. In the red zone, he's an average player. His skill set doesn't diminish in the red zones: his TDs scored are pretty proportional to all of his value statistics.

On the other hand, Torain would probably be better classified as a running back who gets his value from consistently getting positive yards. When the Redskins move down the field on the back of their running game, it's usually because Torain is stringing together a bunch of plays. So Torain gets and deserves the credit for these drives. But if we increase the sample to include all Redskins drives in the ten games Torain was active for, the offensive production doesn't look like it has a 4.5 YPC running back touching the football 17 times per game. Mostly because if we think of Torain as a 4.5 YPC back, we miss the boom or bust nature of his runs. Ryan Torain lost yards on 28 of his 164 (17%) carries. Clinton Portis, who was deemed too old and ineffective to earn a roster spot next year, lost yards on 6 of his 54 (9%) carries behind the same (arguably worse because it was earlier in the season) OL.

So it's not the OL that's causing Torain to lose yards so frequently. It might be Cooley and Sellers, but the reason I believe that those two are blowing so many blocks that causes Torain to be TFL is because he never cuts it up inside the tight end, so he's putting those players in a no win situation on blocking...a situation that Cooley and Fred Davis are actually winning way more likely than they should.

Like I said above, YPC is always going to overstate Torain's effectiveness on runs, but if he either stops losing yards so frequently or learns to take the ball to the house from 40+ yards out, you'll see that YPC extend over 5.0 and he'll be a positive value runner at that point. Right now, I think he's slightly negative in terms of value as a runner, although he's an above average pass blocker and he adds something to the passing attack as a receiver.