Black RB

[White Shogun]

I was looking through the free agent list of running backs and see a
number of once big names floating around, looking for second tier jobs.
What struck me is the fact that these black RB, some of which are
mediocre at best, are still playing in the NFL when white RB with more
talent are out of the game. Some names:



Ron Dayne

Anthony Thomas

Antoine Smith

Travis Henry



What is your opinion of these backs, vs some of the white RB out of the game such as the oft mentioned Travis Jervey?

 

[cxt7]

You can add William Green to this list, the former 1st round draft pick, The browns can't even get a 5th round pick out of him because he is on the 3rd stike of the drug policy and one more failed test he get suspended for a year.

 

[Don Wassall]

Ron Dayne is one of the biggest NFL busts of all time, but somehow is still in the league. Thomas and Smith are big and slow.


I would disagree about Travis Henry though. He's a good running back who has been displaced by Willis McGahee in Buffalo.

 

[Guest]

As Mike SHANAHAN in DEN could tell you, the RB position is pretty much interchangeable in the NFL...if a converted back-up tweener FB like Rueben DROUGHNS can just step up and have the kind of year he has (this following inummerable others in DEN, and other teams) that just goes to show that the running game has more to do with understanding and execution by the team on the field (most especially the O-line, the best of which are, ineveitably, like DEN and NE, among the smartest and most monochromatic in the L.) They had a freakin' 5'6" troll going for 1000-yards under the DEN system, before the injury bug hit him. You could feature-back FORSEY or HOOVER or any other non-black guy that's been run out the league in the last 20 years in a system like that and he'd still manage the requisite 3.9+/yrds-per...


it's really just a durability issue...general management doesn't like paying out a salary on a RB who misses games with chronic injury...better tosign a guy that's 0.1s slower on a 40, but can stay in games, pick up 3-to-5 yards, break the occassional 20+, keep the salary down, and funnel money over to big-contract franchise guys like the QBs, LTs, WRs,and defensive-team-leader LBs.


The perception in the league (right or wrong) is that blacks are just less injury-prone. Maybe it's got something to do with their relatively accelerated rates of maturation in early adolescence (less neotenous, southern-equatorial, reproductively r-type subgroups tend to be like that); differences in bone-density; the therapeutic properties of fried-chicken...who knows; it is what it is. HOOVER stepped up last year, looked good doing it, then got hurt...that doesn't help matters.

 

[White Shogun]

Jervey, your point about RB being interchangeable is well supported by
the problems that both the Colts and Seahawks are having in dealing
Edgerrin James and Shaun Alexander, even for a couple of lower round
draft picks.



I don't know, is it conceivable that either of those guys will be cut for salary cap reasons if they can't be traded?



Have you seen the quote from Edge that he thinks he should make about
$30 mil because he is consistent, and not only that, he BLOCKS, too!
Wow! After all, he says, he is back there protecting the GOD of
FOOTBALL, so why doesn't he deserve some extra $$$.



Like blocking is not in the job description for running back in the NFL?

 

[jaxvid]

How would one know if whites are more or less injury prone as runners? There aren't any.

 

[Kaptain]

All players get injured. The difference is that when a white player returns from injury he has to fight he way throught the depth chart again. A black player is given his starting job back with celebration and without question.


I also see a lack of power in the crop of nfl running backs today. Is there any team that has a power running game anymore. Looks like a bunch of scat backs to me. Power backs of the past like Csonka and Riggins won superbowls. I think a power running game would dominate nfl today particularly if you consider some of the smurf sized defensive backs and poor tackling that we all know exists. Just my thoughts.

 

[Colonel_Reb]

I agree Kaptain. A hard, strong, and straight runner would do a lot these days. He'd probably drag about 3 DB's into the end zone, and leave a few LB's flattened.

 

[White Shogun]

A few power backs come to my mind, although I'm not sure if any of these guys compare to the Csonka / Riggins of yesteryear.

Jerome Bettis

Jamal Lewis

Mike Alstott

LaDanian Tomlinson



Steven Jackson the new Rams RB and Priest Holmes also come to mind, but
they have a less convincing argument as power backs than the
aforementioned, IMO.

 

[Don Wassall]

Alstott would have been a dominant feature back. I believe he could well have lead the NFL in rushing several times, just as I believe Rob Konrad has (had) that ability.


Alstott is a natural runner. He was a record breaking runner at Purdue and was a great combination of size, speed for his size, and moves. And of course he is as powerful as they come at running back. One of his training drills in high school and college was to push the family station wagon up streets. If used as the main back at Tampa, he would have often worn down defenses in the second half and ended up some games with monster statistics. People think of him as a bruiser running it in for touchdowns from inside the five, but he had many long touchdown runs, most of them in the fourth quarter when defenses were tired. Just think if he had been coming at them all game long instead of as periodic relief for Warrick Dunn!


He did have some games where he was the main back. Sometimes he had excellent games, other times he ended up with less than great numbers, but over the course of a season he could easily have been a 1,500 yard runner. Add to that his receiving ability, and even though he has been the only white in the past 15 years to run the ball on even a part-time basis, when you consider what could have been he is another prominent victim of the caste system.

 

[Colonel_Reb]

I didn't mean to ignore Alstott. He is always fun to watch, and mows over pretty much everyone.

 

[speedster]

I remember a Mike Alstott moment from a few years ago. It was a Saturday night game and at that time there was some controversy about which RB should be getting the bulk of the carries,Alstott or Warrick Dunn.At the beginning of the game Eric Dickerson voiced his opinion and in his best ebonics he naturally sided with Dunn.His voice was filled with bitterness as he went on about how Alstott can only go up the middle and he can't go left and he can't go right and Dunn was so much faster.Blah,blah,blah.Anyway's,in the 4th quarter Alstott took over and led the Bucs to a win and was named player of the game.I eagerly anticipated the post-game interview with Alstott that I thought for sure would be conducted by Dickerson,I wanted him to eat some crow,but he pupped out and that interview was handled by somebody else.Officially Dickerson would probably say he wasn't asked to do the interview but I'd bet he begged not to do it.Shortly after that Eric was let go and spared us his non-sensical garbage

 

[Colonel_Reb]

You could always count on Alstott to do what needed to be done, which is more than you can say for most black RB's.