For a good part of the season, Walker has been met in the backfield by unblocked defenders. The game on Sunday (or was it against the Jets? My memory is unclear) showed some of those very discouraging stats. He has had reason to be line-shy.
However, there are several differences worth mentioning from this past game:
- Charbonnet came in at just the right time as our line is strengthening with Olu and Sataoa coming and Lucas back
- He does not have the line-shyness to complicate easy, open (or semi-open) holes in the line
- He's a different back than Walker, for good or ill (good this past week)
- We played the Cardinals again, a team whose tendencies are better known to us
We'll see what happens Sunday night if Charbs is in the whole game against a team we do not know as well.