pacific101":kodh5k81 said:
I am not throwing in the towel on Rawls, but let's get real for a couple of minutes here. Rawls simply hasn't been able to get his old self going again so far this season. Maybe getting busted up a couple times has made him gun shy, to put it all out there like he used to. It happens to the best. Some players realize you have to put it all in the line if you want to be successful in the NFL, others start trying to play concervative and eventually teams have to accept the magic is gone and deal with it.
Here's my take on this, guys with great 40 times, and great quickness, but not a lot of natural instincts, have to rely on their athletic ability to produce.
That means they have to run with reckless abandon, and I mean out of control, they can make big plays at times, but they can get hurt a lot. by eventually zigging when they should have zagged, or just the ankle and hamstring problems that occur when you are always over extending.
You think of the great RBs, guys with great vision and instincts, they don't look like they are running out of control, always seem in control of themselves. Even the crazy stuff Barry Sanders would do, he always looked in control of himself.
That's why backs with great vision can play 10+ years in the league, and guys who get by with great physical attributes and measurables are out in 3 years.
Early on, I could see most of the RBs we had were the kind of guys that use their raw athletic abilities to get by.
I figured Collins would beat them all out eventually, surprised it's taken so long, but maybe he's at the cusp of it now.
He is definitely an instinct and vision guy, that's how he's always produced, but those abilities don't come into play until you are really familiar with the offense, and that's taken longer than I thought it would.