adeltaY
New member
AgentDib":rbyb597t said:People outsmart themselves when it comes to running production and running backs. It's boring to talk about how important the RB is and you can sound much more insightful if you talk about OL scheme, OL personnel, OC play calling and NFL rule changes. As a result I find people undervalue the most obvious piece of the puzzle.
With our supposedly garbage OL scheme and personnel we were great in the running game when we had Lynch. Even after the rule changes the running game was good for the first three weeks last season and somehow became dumpster tier at the exact same time Carson was injured vs. Green Bay. Sure it was just three full games, but Carson had a 4.2 YPC behind the line that everybody thinks was awful and that was before we picked up Duane Brown. And even after Carson went down, Russ still rushed for nearly 600 yards on the season. It's crazy that people use that stat primarily to talk up Russ instead of realizing how completely ineffective our remaining RBs were in comparison.
At this time last year the Oakland Raiders were widely regarded to have a top 2 OL. They went on to finish with less total rushing yards than even we had because Lynch was only available for 13 carries per game and they didn't have a good #2 rusher. I know it's boring but the running back is a key element of the running game.
Our run blocking was actually pretty good in the earlier RW years. By adjusted line yards, they were 4th in 2012, 9th in 2013, 9th in 2014, and 4th in 2015 before plummeting to 26th in 2016 and 31st in 2017. Lynch was excellent, but I'm not sure how confident I am Penny or really anyone will be as good as he was back then. I think we've seen plenty of teams be successful with decent to good RBs and excellent OL. The Vikings when Cook went down, Eagles, Pats, Saints (pre-Kamara they were still a good running team), etc. I actually think a team like the Cowboys would've been better overall if they took Jalen Ramsey instead of Zeke.
To your Raiders point, they weren't amazing at run blocking even in 2016, they were 11th in adjusted line yards. They were, however, absolutely phenomenal in pass protection. That's where most of their OL rep comes from. This year was a bit shakier due to some injuries.
I don't really get your point about Russ. Most of his runs come from scrambles where the line is actually pass protecting. It's not fair to compare QB rush yards to RB rush yards for that reason.