Top Ten Reasons I don't like Tatum Bell this year:
1) He rushed for 396 yards and 3 TDs last year,
2) He caught just 5 balls in 9 games.
3) Bell's only 100 yard game came against a Miami team that had completely given up. Tatum Bell (123 yards), Corey Dillon (121 yards), Lee Suggs (143 yards), and Jamal Lewis (167 yards) all blew up on Miami at the end of last year.
4) He rushed for a total of an average of 62 yards and 0 TDs in back to back games against KC, Tennessee and Indy. Have fun deciding what his good matchups are.
5) He's played exactly 0 injury free games in the NFL.
6) Shanahan has shown that he will start any of his backs until one shows to be the best. We can only speculate on whether he thinks Bell has done that, but with Anderson taking reps with the first team, Clarett drafted in the third round, and Griffin coming back from an injury and saying he wants to compete to earn "his" job back, it doesn't seem like a sure thing.
7) Shanahan has shown that he will pull any of his backs if they get injured and replace them with another.
8) Alex Gibbs, the offensive line coach who put that running system in place, left two years ago. That means George Foster, who was a rookie in Gibbs last year and is not a prototypical Denver lineman, and whoever they play at right guard, are no longer part of that "great O line", while Nalen is ancient. We're starting to see enough turnover to be able to see how much of the success of the Denver running backs has been Gibbs and how much was Shanahan.
9) Denver rushed for 300 fewer yards as a team last year than they did in Gibbs' last year with the team. Meanwhile, the Falcons rushed for 700 more yards as a team in Gibbs' first year with the team, although a healthy Vick certainly accounts for a large part of that.
10) This is a free tip for those of you saying he's worth a #3 pick or a late first rounder: If you see page after page of arguments about why your first round pick will or won't be a complete bust, DON'T TAKE HIM IN THE FIRST ROUND.