Non First Round Running Back, Who Do You Want?

[ckparrothead]

Reality is the front office has let Adam Gase down particularly at the RB position. He doesn't rate Damien Williams at all. He believes the position is a two-player position and he's only got maybe one player in Jay Ajayi. He wanted Lamar Miller back whatever the cost, then he wanted C.J. Anderson picked up, then he was going to settle for Chris Johnson, and the front office couldn't make any of that happen. At this point he might even be a little hacked off about it. That's why you hear all the Ezekiel Elliott talk, as Elliott could be the way the front office makes it up to him.

They rate Henry right behind Elliott so he is an option if they manipulate the board some via trades. Chances aren't good of him making it to pick #42 but he's in play if he does get there and they don't get Elliott in the 1st round. Otherwise they're going to take probably whichever of the backs that Gase likes the most at pick #42, and I have an educated guess that once we're beyond Elliott and Henry that will be Kenneth Dixon. But that's a guess. It could also be Devontae Booker. I know they like Alex Collins as well but I'm not sure they like him at #42. I hope it's not Jordan Howard but I guess I could see that happening too.

 

[Montana-phan]

Reality is the front office has let Adam Gase down particularly at the RB position. He doesn't rate Damien Williams at all. He believes the position is a two-player position and he's only got maybe one player in Jay Ajayi. He wanted Lamar Miller back whatever the cost, then he wanted C.J. Anderson picked up, then he was going to settle for Chris Johnson, and the front office couldn't make any of that happen. At this point he might even be a little hacked off about it. That's why you hear all the Ezekiel Elliott talk, as Elliott could be the way the front office makes it up to him.

They rate Henry right behind Elliott so he is an option if they manipulate the board some via trades. Chances aren't good of him making it to pick #42 but he's in play if he does get there and they don't get Elliott in the 1st round. Otherwise they're going to take probably whichever of the backs that Gase likes the most at pick #42, and I have an educated guess that once we're beyond Elliott and Henry that will be Kenneth Dixon. But that's a guess. It could also be Devontae Booker. I know they like Alex Collins as well but I'm not sure they like him at #42. I hope it's not Jordan Howard but I guess I could see that happening too.

Great info.

Good seeing you around here CK. Always appreciate your takes, especially on the draft.

 

[Fin Thirteen]

Reality is the front office has let Adam Gase down particularly at the RB position. He doesn't rate Damien Williams at all. He believes the position is a two-player position and he's only got maybe one player in Jay Ajayi. He wanted Lamar Miller back whatever the cost, then he wanted C.J. Anderson picked up, then he was going to settle for Chris Johnson, and the front office couldn't make any of that happen. At this point he might even be a little hacked off about it. That's why you hear all the Ezekiel Elliott talk, as Elliott could be the way the front office makes it up to him.

They rate Henry right behind Elliott so he is an option if they manipulate the board some via trades. Chances aren't good of him making it to pick #42 but he's in play if he does get there and they don't get Elliott in the 1st round. Otherwise they're going to take probably whichever of the backs that Gase likes the most at pick #42, and I have an educated guess that once we're beyond Elliott and Henry that will be Kenneth Dixon. But that's a guess. It could also be Devontae Booker. I know they like Alex Collins as well but I'm not sure they like him at #42. I hope it's not Jordan Howard but I guess I could see that happening too.

I got to watching RBs late and I've gone all the way around back to Henry in round 2. Your comment about not overthinking it is exactly what I said to myself after looking at the 12th or 13th guy. I like Perkins, though he can't pass block at all. Dixon and Booker are very solid allrounders, but with a lot of miles on the clock each. There's nothing ordinary about Zeke's athletic ability and his pass blocking, but I think a lot of his production in the run game was helped by the read option. He's still the best RB in the draft, but maybe the price to get him is too high. It's a very mediocre draft for the rest of them, from what I've seen.

Henry in the second is a good call. He doesn't break out the huge runs much, he is a big target at the LOS, where his high CoG and subtle footwork can't always bail him out and I'm not a consistent fan of his in short yardage/goalline situations. He's not a big receiving threat. But he compiles very solid yards per attempt running mostly right up the inside and must be a very attritional opponent for teams to play. When he breaks the d-line and is charging through the box, no single LB or safety is going to take him down, long legs be damned. I doubt there's a single front 7 player who comes off the field having enjoyed the encounter with Henry.

With Ajayi, it would be a "thunder and thunder" pairing to an extent. But what a crutch for Tannehill and the offense to lean on.

 

[j-off-her-doll]

Reality is the front office has let Adam Gase down particularly at the RB position. He doesn't rate Damien Williams at all. He believes the position is a two-player position and he's only got maybe one player in Jay Ajayi. He wanted Lamar Miller back whatever the cost, then he wanted C.J. Anderson picked up, then he was going to settle for Chris Johnson, and the front office couldn't make any of that happen. At this point he might even be a little hacked off about it. That's why you hear all the Ezekiel Elliott talk, as Elliott could be the way the front office makes it up to him.

They rate Henry right behind Elliott so he is an option if they manipulate the board some via trades. Chances aren't good of him making it to pick #42 but he's in play if he does get there and they don't get Elliott in the 1st round. Otherwise they're going to take probably whichever of the backs that Gase likes the most at pick #42, and I have an educated guess that once we're beyond Elliott and Henry that will be Kenneth Dixon. But that's a guess. It could also be Devontae Booker. I know they like Alex Collins as well but I'm not sure they like him at #42. I hope it's not Jordan Howard but I guess I could see that happening too.

Great points, CK. Miami dropped the ball by failing to bring in CJ Anderson, but I see no need to panic at RB. Ferguson and Johnson are solid looking RB's later in the draft, but then you have guys like Marshaun Coprich (7th-UDFA), Jhurrell Pressley (7th), and DJ Foster (7th-UDFA). Coprich looks a lot like a more athletic Paul Perkins, and I'd rank Coprich higher at this point (big Perkins fan, FWIW). Washington is a good call. You also have guys like Brandon Ross who are not even rated, and he certainly has the tools to give you productive reps at the RB position. I think he projects better to the NFL than K. Drake (for example). K. Marshall is rated in the 6th, and I'd like him there as well. In short, after the 1st and some of the 2nd RD RB's, I'm not seeing a significant drop off to the later RD RB's, and I actually prefer some of the later RD RB's. In this environment, I'd look to draft a RB in the 5th or later, and I'd target a couple more as UDFA's - or maybe look to use one of the 7th RD picks to draft a 2nd RB (if one falls that you really like).

 

[Awsi Dooger]

I like Lasco. Cal's offensive scheme is such a joke it's like they are trying to disguise and under utilize talent with all that looping and weaving crap in the backfield. I thought I might be the first one to mention him but I was impressed he's already been covered very well.

Ferguson also makes a heck of a lot of sense in the current NFL. Seems like I've been watching him at Illinois forever and generally betting against that team. Normally I don't like 5th year senior running backs because premier talent does not redshirt at that position, but in this case you are taking a later round pick not second overall like Ronnie Brown.

For a name that hasn't been mentioned I'll offer Darius Jackson of Eastern Michigan. I always kind of liked his basic upfield plant and burst, and then he tested out of the moon.

***

The Nawrocki draft guide had an awesome "Scout's Take" on Derrick Henry. It described his body as like an alien, unlike anything the scout had ever seen particularly the knee to ground ratio. Not long after I read that I saw Henry on Path to the Draft sitting in a chair. Sure enough, it was bizarre. He was the same head height as the guy seated next to him and their feet were at the exact level yet Henry's knees were four inches higher.

The scout said that in their organization the opinions on Henry were all over the map, from first round to fourth round. He said you can contradict yourself from one sentence to the next while trying to describe Henry. I get that. I've gone back and forth on him so many times I'm basically exhausted and have given up. Last I checked I was tilting toward the high end. For one thing, defenses in the NFL aren't that great anymore. All these projections of suffocating defenses in this league are trying to describe something that is not allowed to happen very often anymore, at least not until the playoffs and only for a handful of teams. If our fan base can be excited about a herky jerky guy like Ajayi I have no idea how Henry can be dismissed as not a match for this league.

Admittedly, it's been a struggle to transition away from the standards I grew up with in the running back category to how it is viewed today. When I was a kid the first thing you did in college football each fall was to identify the freak ball carrier. He was the legend, the guy who ABC spotlighted every week and all the kids pretended to be on Monday during gym class. That back was going to be picked first and transform an NFL franchise. It remained that way throughout my school years, from O.J. to Campbell to Sims, etc. There were some oddities like John McKay preferring Ricky Bell above Dorsett for Tampa Bay while virtually every other team would have identified Dorsett, who went second to Dallas after they traded up with Seattle to get the pick. Then, of course, Herschel Walker signed with the USFL otherwise he would have been taken first, and Bo Jackson was picked first but decided to sit out a year with the baseball option.

Anyway, you get the idea. In football the fixation was the glamour running back and every year in college basketball everybody looked for the dominant center, who likewise would be picked first and transform a franchise. The NBA draft lottery was created for one purpose and one purpose only, to prevent teams from tanking for that elite center.

I have to say I prefer my era. I have no idea why the forward pass exists and the 3 point line is even more disgusting.

 

[Martel13]

I have some friends in the Bay that are convinced the Raiders are taking Henry at #14. After hearing CK tell it I wanna take him at #13 now lol

 

[gregorygrant83]

Anybody have any thoughts on Elijhaa Penny from Idaho. He runs like a bull at 6'1 244. I don't know if he even gets drafted, but he sure looks like he would be hard to stop once he gets going downhill.

 

[Awsi Dooger]

I'm changing my preference from Daniel Lasco and the guys I named earlier to Kenneth Dixon.

I didn't watch any tape to prompt the switch. Instead, I ran into a thread on another forum with a focus that made a great deal of sense to me, even though it was all but ignored by the regulars. Credit to our own tannenbombs for offering the only encouraging post in the thread.

http://www.footballsfuture.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=577997

A guy named Kent Hullamania studied scouting reports after the fact for several years, determined to identify which qualities were most predictive of NFL success at running back. He isolated two: Quickness and Yards after Contact.

He apparently posted his study at the same forum prior to last year's draft and identified three backs who fit best: Todd Gurley, Karlos Williams and Jay Ajayi.

Not bad. Good news for the Dolphins.

This year he has two clear qualifiers -- Ezekiel Elliott and Kenneth Dixon -- followed by three guys with ambiguous but promising scouting reports, Jonathan Williams, Keith Marshall, and Peyton Barber.

***

I love that type of thing because it's another vehicle to be correct more often than not, while bypassing the time necessity and inherent problems of doing your own subjective study. Naturally I've tried this type of thing for sports betting purposes, and going back more than two decades.

In the early '90s a New Yorker who spent months in Las Vegas every year would pay me 50 bucks per day merely to travel to a cigar shop and pick up the specialized horse racing tout sheets. Those sheets were unlike anything I'd ever seen. Very complicated numerical analysis. One was the Ragozin Sheets. I forget the name of the other one. Anyway, I decided to study the sheets, which included dozens of factors, many assigned to each horse in each race. For example, beside each horse it might say 2, 6, 13, 17, 24. They all stood for something, described in the glossary below. For several months I charted the horses who won and tried to identify which characteristics were most vital. Three stood out, when combined. I think the numbers were 10b (maybe 10d?), 19 and 21. One indicated that the horse fit the distance of the race, one indicated it was an improving horse, and one indicated that the horse fit the conditions of the race. In other words, the horse wasn't moving up in class. Owners and trainers often will get too ambitious that way with a horse on the uptick.

That combo was certainly logical. When I put it into practice it didn't fare as well as on paper. That's typical. Basically it was a method to bet horse racing on a daily basis and not lose any money. I was trading dollars. That in itself is a triumph when you consider the hefty house take, which is many times the burden in sports betting. I gave up after a while. That sheet with the same numbers is probably still available, and I bet the system still works, and likely could be improved upon with greater study.

Several years later I used the same idea and applied it to golf betting. This time I profited tremendously for years, until the sportsbooks finally started to catch on, and the basics still work today. I've mentioned this several times: Bet golf matchups (one player to beat another player) based on superiority in both driving distance and putting. I'll never forget when I hit the calculate button on my Excel spreadsheet after entering the data for two months. That simple combo was responsible for a 74% winning percentage. And it held up when applied. I should have been more greedy.

You'll notice from the link that Kent has started to apply his ideas to other positions. It's generally more complicated than Quickness and Yards after Contact when he veers elsewhere. But I have no doubt there is tremendous potential, especially when combined with analytic findings that support the same player.

I have to say that categories like Yards after Contact are tremendously helpful, along with aspects like hand size for quarterbacks, arm length for defensive backs, and the edge rusher explosiveness studies. Overall the available information is exaggerated in comparison to yesteryear but certain advancements more than make up for it. We certainly didn't have Yards after Contact specifics when I started following football.

Hey, Quickness and Yards after Contact, doesn't that describe the running back we let escape, Lamar Miller? Those are perhaps his two greatest strengths. Seems like a blunder. I'm not sure Miller would have been described with Yards after Contact strength leaving college, but it certainly turned out that way.

 

[j-off-her-doll]

I'm changing my preference from Daniel Lasco and the guys I named earlier to Kenneth Dixon.

I didn't watch any tape to prompt the switch. Instead, I ran into a thread on another forum with a focus that made a great deal of sense to me, even though it was all but ignored by the regulars. Credit to our own tannenbombs for offering the only encouraging post in the thread.

http://www.footballsfuture.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=577997

A guy named Kent Hullamania studied scouting reports after the fact for several years, determined to identify which qualities were most predictive of NFL success at running back. He isolated two: Quickness and Yards after Contact.

He apparently posted his study at the same forum prior to last year's draft and identified three backs who fit best: Todd Gurley, Karlos Williams and Jay Ajayi.

Not bad. Good news for the Dolphins.

This year he has two clear qualifiers -- Ezekiel Elliott and Kenneth Dixon -- followed by three guys with ambiguous but promising scouting reports, Jonathan Williams, Keith Marshall, and Peyton Barber.

***

I love that type of thing because it's another vehicle to be correct more often than not, while bypassing the time necessity and inherent problems of doing your own subjective study. Naturally I've tried this type of thing for sports betting purposes, and going back more than two decades.

In the early '90s a New Yorker who spent months in Las Vegas every year would pay me 50 bucks per day merely to travel to a cigar shop and pick up the specialized horse racing tout sheets. Those sheets were unlike anything I'd ever seen. Very complicated numerical analysis. One was the Ragozin Sheets. I forget the name of the other one. Anyway, I decided to study the sheets, which included dozens of factors, many assigned to each horse in each race. For example, beside each horse it might say 2, 6, 13, 17, 24. They all stood for something, described in the glossary below. For several months I charted the horses who won and tried to identify which characteristics were most vital. Three stood out, when combined. I think the numbers were 10b (maybe 10d?), 19 and 21. One indicated that the horse fit the distance of the race, one indicated it was an improving horse, and one indicated that the horse fit the conditions of the race. In other words, the horse wasn't moving up in class. Owners and trainers often will get too ambitious that way with a horse on the uptick.

That combo was certainly logical. When I put it into practice it didn't fare as well as on paper. That's typical. Basically it was a method to bet horse racing on a daily basis and not lose any money. I was trading dollars. That in itself is a triumph when you consider the hefty house take, which is many times the burden in sports betting. I gave up after a while. That sheet with the same numbers is probably still available, and I bet the system still works, and likely could be improved upon with greater study.

Several years later I used the same idea and applied it to golf betting. This time I profited tremendously for years, until the sportsbooks finally started to catch on, and the basics still work today. I've mentioned this several times: Bet golf matchups (one player to beat another player) based on superiority in both driving distance and putting. I'll never forget when I hit the calculate button on my Excel spreadsheet after entering the data for two months. That simple combo was responsible for a 74% winning percentage. And it held up when applied. I should have been more greedy.

You'll notice from the link that Kent has started to apply his ideas to other positions. It's generally more complicated than Quickness and Yards after Contact when he veers elsewhere. But I have no doubt there is tremendous potential, especially when combined with analytic findings that support the same player.

I have to say that categories like Yards after Contact are tremendously helpful, along with aspects like hand size for quarterbacks, arm length for defensive backs, and the edge rusher explosiveness studies. Overall the available information is exaggerated in comparison to yesteryear but certain advancements more than make up for it. We certainly didn't have Yards after Contact specifics when I started following football.

Hey, Quickness and Yards after Contact, doesn't that describe the running back we let escape, Lamar Miller? Those are perhaps his two greatest strengths. Seems like a blunder. I'm not sure Miller would have been described with Yards after Contact strength leaving college, but it certainly turned out that way.

Can't remember if I posted it on the draft forum or the main, but I agree that Dixon is the RB Miami needs to target. Assuming Miami is not happy with Ajayi and a couple of complimentary pieces, Dixon in the 2nd provides the best bang for your buck, and I can see him going in the late 1st. He was a very productive runner and receiver at La Tech, and he's a TD machine. Ideally, Miami could use the 1st and 2nd RD picks on D and O-line or just two defensive players, but if Gase isn't happy with the in-house RB's, Dixon is an instant starter, and he and Ajayi are both versatile RB's.