Cute, but....
Is Beanie Wells Steven Jackson? No. Will Beanie get 324 carries? No. Even so, only 4 TD.
Beanie is no MJD, either. Again do you really expect 312 carries for Beanie? I hope not.
Ryan Grant? Word on the street is that GB has a pretty good passing attack. How'd he make your list?
Jamaal Charles. Yes, half a season of 6.0 ypc and 20 carries a game will help. You expecting either of these from Beanie? Let's not forget that about a quarter of his rushing total came in one game.
Fred Jackson. Bad team, Lynch only got 120 carries. Looks like you've found an exception. I hope you enjoy the 2 rushing TDs that come along with your exception to the rule.
But so far you've only mentioned individual players, while I was talking about a run game as a whole. My point was that you can't just decide to become an awesome rushing team just bc your passing game is screwed. So let's move to your team by team comparison.
StL - maybe not built to run, and the fact they aren't worse than 20th is largely due to having SJax, but even with the 20th ranking in rushing yards, SJax only got 4 TD. No one else rushed for any.
JAX - started two rookie tackles. So? Apparently they were better than the veterans, but if they'd started those veterans, what would you have said? Just bc they started rookies doesn't mean that they can't run block. Weak point.
GB - still talking about tackles. Guards and centers block, too, but we're referencing an elite passing team so this was an invalid point anyway. Tauscher and Clifton aren't exactly scrubs, either.
KC - Cassel gets more respect than Leinert. Total rushing TD was only 8.
Buf - middle of the road rushing team (yardage, but only 6 TD), but the lack of defense and offense led to few scoring opportunities. Fred had to get over twice as many carries as the next guy to put up decent yardage numbers and garbage scoring numbers.
So I'm guessing you expect Arizona to actually do much better than all those teams (except Jax which has a proven history of running success and Green Bay which has a strong passing attack). Really, you've just pointed out 3 teams without good passing games that were able to produce 1000 yard rushers with single digit touchdowns. Not that exciting, but it gets worse...
Most of the players you picked had very little duty split. Unfortunately, the beloved Beanie will be giving some carries away. Also, these teams with poor passing games failed to get their running backs into the endzone very often. Unless you plan on Beanie getting a 2:1 split with Hightower as well as 90% of the rushing TD's, I think it is time to temper your expectations unless you think Leinert is going to be very effective.
So let's hope the Cardinals dial back the comparisons to the early 2000's Steelers while the shark pool dials back those Beanie projections.
we can return to the issue of how the carries split between beanie & hightower will go down...lets back up, though...
you objected to an article excerpt/quote in which OC grimm used the word RESEMBLE, to characterize the team's intent to shift the ARI offense more in the direction of the PIT team they (including HC whisenhunt) coached for immediately before getting the cards gig...
resemble can mean, like identical twins... it can also mean, a chimp resembles a human genetically (approx 97%?)... both senses are accurate within their context, but obviously there can be a wide difference of interpretation between those respective senses (we would hope the identical human twins resemble each other more than the chimp)... since coach didn't say the ARI offense will be IDENTICAL to that of PIT, i interpreted his meaning in the latter sense.
the ARI pass to run ratio in 2009 (594 passes and 365 rushes) was i think the third most pass skewed in the league... so i don't think grimm is going out on TOO much of a limb, or it is too controversial for him to suggest, they intend to run more...
IF they have a less pass skewed offense, it could of course be possible for the offense to run fewer overall plays (warner is, after all, a possible/probable future HoFer, leinart has been far from that), but due to the greater % of run plays, this would effectively leave a bigger pie of rushing attempts for wells & hightower to divide.
the cited reasons and arguments marshalled above thread recommending pessimism that i found most compelling (ie - bloom's) seem to me to have a primarily threefold thrust (may have missed some)... PARAPHRASING (my apologies if i overstate bloom's concerns)...
1) leinart will be so catastrophically bad they will be unable to move the ball consistently, defenses will stack the LOS, etc.
imo the most serious concern... leinart looked better as a rookie, and seems to have regressed since. i don't think anybody disagrees with this, or that he isn't likely to be nearly as good as warner. this is one of the main reasons many expect them to run more (even, it would be remiss to not point out, the OC). i also expect ARI to call more high percentage pass plays (quick hitting, short and intermediate routes, passes to RBs, etc.) to build his confidence. it would be a mistake to think they will ask leinart to function within the scope of their offense exactly as warner... he has neither the experience, knowledge (pass protections, blitzes and coverages), pocket sense, arm strength, accuracy, timing, WR rapport... they will tailor their scheme and play calling around his capabilities.
2) the defense will be so catastrophically bad the offense will see the field far less, and projecting wells 2010 numbers based on 2009 is therefore fundamentally misguided.
to recap my argument above... DL - looks to be improved (1st rounder williams generally viewed as an upgrade over his underwhelming predecessors... calais campbell went from 0 - 7 sacks between rookie and soph years, looks like an ascendant talent... dockett continues to play at a pro bowl level)... LB - worse without dansby, but washington probably the best possible replacement in the draft... he was drafted in a similar place to LBs like demeco ryans, curtis lofton and james laurinaitis in recent years, who played at a relatively high level as soon as they were given the chance... dansby's best trait was probably in coverage, and that will be hardest to replace for the rookie... porter could be an upgrade over OLBs like berry/okeafor, at least cards think so... DB - maybe a slight downgrade, DRC could have upside in his third year, wilson also continues to play at a high level, the team could have done lots worse than rhodes as a replacement for rolle... i don't get the defcon-1 maximal heightened alerts... on paper, they certainly don't look like a monstrous stop unit... but not monstrously bad (circa 2008-2009 lions and rams), either.
3) hightower will continue to steal carries/touches/TDs, at approximately the same rate as he did in wells rookie year, or at least to such a degree that it will severly cap wells upside in 2010, and lead to severe bouts of inconsistency.
i could probably think of some positives stating the case for hightower, but i'll leave that to others better equipped than me...
lets look at their 2009 regular season split (what else could we, with beanie being a rookie?)...
hightower
78-283-5 rushing & 40-307-0 receiving (first 8 games)
65-315-3 rushing & 23-121-0 receiving (last 8 games) trended DOWN in rushing attempts & TDs, receptions and yards per
wells
70-310-1 rushing & 4-17-0 receiving (first 8 games)
106-483-6 rushing & 8-126-0 receiving (last 8 games) trended UP in rushing attempts and TDs, receptions and yards per
now, i'm not a stat wizard, but without attacking the initial data set with the combined parallel processing super computing might of the los alamos and national weather center installations, even a cursory examination of the numbers points to the facts that hightower's numbers went down and wells' went up in the second half of the season, pretty much across the board. they unmistakably, indisputably seemed to be going in opposite directions in the second half of the regular season (another thing that roars off the page, and his has been pointed out by others... the "clearly worse" receiving RB had 5 more receiving yards in 8 receptions than the "better" one did with 23. OUCH!)... fear of the hightower bogeyman appears under scrutiny to be about as unfounded as those directed at bigfoot and nessie.
but isn't this what we should have expected, and was predicted by many, that wells would eventually, to some degree, displace hightower's role, given that he has superior pedigree, size, power, balance, speed, quickness, agility, elusiveness, athleticism? and that a rate limiting step on his advancement would be his ability to earn the increasing trust of the coaching staff in the passing game (blitz pickup and receiving)... as he improved in those areas (4th year RB peterson an example of a player that still isn't great there) with reps and experience, it would open up the opportunity to greater playing time.
advocates of beanie, i'm pretty sure, are accounting for the fact that he cards could have less plays... i'm just not as sure the detractors are accounting for the fact beanie could improve between his first and second year as a pro (or that he might have the opportunity to get into more of a rhythm with more carries, or a more physical style from OL could wear down defenses - they did add ex-steeler/jet faneca). hightower improved his yards per carry average from 2.8 to 4.2... despite the advantage of beginning the year ahead of wells, hightower, finished behind jason snelling and justin forsett (only started a few games?) in rushing yards... despite wells handicap of light usage early, he tied pierre thomas... but it is worse than that...
why not prorate the second half numbers, based on the clear trending information we have relative to the first half (the last 8 games didn't occur in a vaccum, and can be seen in perspective)...
over a full season (projecting second half stats)...
hightower
130-630-6 rushing & 46-242-0 receiving
wells
212-966-12 rushing & 16-252-0 receiving
note that hightower's purported receiving advantage that was supposed to partially offset beanie's superior rushing ability would collapse to an actual slight deficit in non-PPR leagues... beanie would have approx 50% more rushing yards and twice as many rushing TDs... a simple tabulation of the season totals, without looking at clear split implications, completely overlooks the opportunity to uncover these kinds of trends and indicators.
where would that place wells LAST year (and again, this doesn't factor in possible, likely even, improvement from year one to two)... peterson, MJD, chris johnson and thomas jones were the only RBs to have more than 12 rushing TDs in 2009... no rookies. his rushing yards would have been around 15th (between fred jackson and knowshon moreno), hightower's closer to 40th...
but what if the cards don't go three and out as much as the doom and gloomers have it, or get behind 28-0 by half time on a weekly basis... what if they do run fewer plays than they did in the warner era, but a greater percentage runs. in the last month, beanie had a 6 carry game week 17 in a 33-7 loss to GB, two games with 17 carries and one with 15... in his first 12 games, he had only one game with as many as 15 carries - 16 in a 31-20 win over SEA week 10.
it is probably true that wells enjoyed some nice running lanes through defenses heavily distracted by warner & co... but he also had a stunted workload with warner spraying the ball all over the field like a fungo batter working overtime...
15 carries X 16 = 240 carries could be conservative...
17 carries X 16 = close to 275 carries, seems reasonable, given trend info in second half, possible improvement, stated goal of OC to run more, a beanie-centric offense more dangerous than leinart-based, etc... depending on where his yard per carry ends up, he could finish with around 1,000-1,100 yards... maybe he won't get 12 TDs, as they won't be around the goal line as much with leinart... but maybe when they are, they will run more (or throw more screens), if that is a higher percentage play than having leinart pass to a WR?
* merging ARI schedule & their over/under win line (which factor in leinart and defensive attrition) and those of their 2010 opponents...
they get not only the NFC west twice each (maybe weakest division), but AFC west once each, neither exactly known as among the aggregate stoutest divisions in run defense...
what is ARI over/under? 7.5
i realize this may not seem very scientific, and this is partly driven by evenly distributing the betting action, but apart from that, i was thinking a spread of 7-9 wins, so looks about right to me... also, anybody capable of consistently exploiting vegas probably wouldn't be here...
opponents in parentheses...
there are only 5 games where they face a team rated more than a win better (ATL, SD, NO, MIN & DAL)
7 games where they are within one win difference in either direction (SEA X 2, KC, SF X 2, DEN & CAR)
leaving 4 games against opponents they are favored by more than one win (STL X 2, OAK & TB)
if they go 1-4 against first group, 4-3 OR 3-4 in second and 3-1 in third (sweep rams and beat OAK or TB), that would be 8-8 or 7-9... which brackets the projected 7.5 number...
1 - @ STL (5)
2 - @ ATL (9)
3 - OAK (6)
4 - @ SD (11)
5 - NO (10.5)
6 - BYE
7 - @ SEA (7.5)
8 - TB (5.5)
9 - @ MIN (9.5)
10 - SEA (7.5)
11 - @ KC (6.5)
12 - SF (8.5)
13 - STL (5)
14 - DEN (7.5)
15 - @ CAR (7.5)
16 - DAL (9.5)
17 - @ SF (8.5)
* you made a categorical type statement in the thread...
- teams that don't pass well won't run well unless they have stout run blocking OLs (like the jets)... when multiple instances were brought up, you brought up many qualifiers you hadn't in your initial statement (wells isn't as talented, his carries are more divided, that back did 25% in one game, etc.)... you modified its terms after the fact to soften its more overreaching elements. jackson getting a much greater number of carries than wells is absolutely relevant to their relative prospects... but what does it have to to do with your earlier, more general statement that if you can't pass (clearly STL couldn't in recent years), you can't run without a stout OL?? what does the fact that there are differences among teams in dividing rushing attempts between multiple RBs, OR NOT, have to do with your original point?
as far as comparing the relative talent of steven jackson and wells, i follow the rams closer than any other team... what is jackson clearly better at (pedigree, size, strength, speed, elusiveness)? he is a more accomplished WR... here is his career page...
http://sports.yahoo.com/nfl/players/6783/c...8gXRiAx4hz.uLYF
didn't set the league on fire as a rookie... in his five seasons since, he has put up 1,000 rushing yards three times, 1,400 and 1,500 once each... he did average 5 yards per carry as a rookie, 4.4 yards (twice) next highest... aside from his career best 2006 season in which he had 1,500 yards, 13 rushing TDs, 90 receptions, 800 receiving yards and 3 receiving TDs, he has had 8, 7, 5 & 4 (twice) rushing TD seasons, had receiving yard highs in the 300's, and averaged less than a receiving TD in the remaining seasons...
and clearly, wells won't have to be as productive as jackson, to be more valuable than the bleakest and most pessimistic projections have it.
cedric benson has been cited elsewhere in the thread as being a better redraft prospect... he may be, though not necessarily for consistency (6 rushing TDs first half of season, 0 in second half)...
my biggest problem with attributing rigid and dogmatic labels to OLs in terms of their capabilities (ARI passed well so they must have a terrible run blocking OL) is that it is like a tautology or self fulfilling prophecy... ARI didn't run well for a few years with rapidly deteriorating edge and 2.8 YPC hightower's rookie year... so they have a bad OL. if wells is more talented than a finished edge and the average hightower, and does more with his carries, scouts will begin to talk about how ARI is a "good" run blocking team.
