Jrodicus said:
When you bring in extra linemen or run 3 TE sets, wouldn't it stand to reason that you would be more effective at running the ball? A few people here and on other boards have used a couple of drives at the end of those games for justification for why Brown >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> TRich and why TRich is a bust.
That's the thing though, when Richardson was the one getting those end of game carries out of big sets it was used as a reason why his YPC was so low. It was impossible for anyone to succeed on those late game runs. But when Brown gets those carries and does well with them, it's impossible for anyone not to succeed with them.
Jrodicus said:
All I'm saying is that there is more to the story on those drives than just who was carrying the ball, and the Colts' issues running the ball has a lot of other factors involoved besides just who is getting the handoff.
That hasn't really been the case.
Richardson's YPC: 2.8
Everyone else's YPC: 5.1
I agree with you that Richardson is a good buy low candidate because of his upside. But he's a buy-low candidate in the hope that HE will get better, because right now HE is the problem. He has excessively poor vision that was masked at Alabama because there was always a big hole right in the spot that the play was designed to go to (a situation that will never occur in the NFL). If that giant hole isn't there, he gets indecisive and the play fails, even if there was a big gaping cutback lane for him to run through. He also needs to drop some weight and get some of his explosiveness back because right now he gets out of his cuts about as quickly as Brandon Jacobs, who people are always screaming at when he tries to get shifty.
Trying to blame everything on the Colts or circumstance only scares people away from your whole argument, because we're to the point where the odds of all of this happening to Richardson by mere circumstance are so astronomically small that it's not even worth considering. He didn't just happen to get the 108 worse handoffs that the Colts have had this year while his teammates just happened upon the 125 best. He made those 108 handoffs the worst the Colts have had this year and several below average NFL running backs have looked much better than him when given his role.
Sure, running back for the Colts isn't a premiere spot for a RB to succeed right now. But it's not NEARLY as bad as Richardson has made it look.