Peyton Hillis

[sport historian]

Yeah! He reminds me of what I've seen of Campbell too!

He reminds me of a young Jamal Lewis (his first few years in the league, like the season where he broke 2k rushing), but I was too young to see Campbell and haven't really seen any footage.

The live broadcast of the 1978 Rams-Oilers game is now on youtube. The play were Earl Campbell flattened Isiah Robertson is in Part 11. You see a lot of white players on both sides in this game. For a good part of the game, Rob Carpenter was lining up alongside Campbell.

I seem to recall a MNF game in his rookie year where Campbell ran hog wild over the Dolphins too. From my memories he flattened either a linebacker or safety in that game too and rushed for about 200 yards. Ps I just found the game on youtube if anybody cares to watch...

Campbell went 81 yards for a TD to put the Oilers ahead 35-23 with under two minutes to go. The Oilers held on to win 35-30. He had 199 yards for the night in 28 carries. As I keep saying, you can find these stats in pro football reference.

More games from the late 70s are coming on youtube. Many with the LA Rams.

 

[WHITE NOISE]

I like the ever elusive "White Rhino" better.

 

[backrow]

By Steve Doerschuk
CantonRep.com staff writer

Browns running back Hillis enjoying moment on top.

BEREA â€" Has Peyton Hillis had to give himself a little talk about not letting it all go to his head? "No,"Â￾ he said. "I always figured, the Lord giveth. The Lord taketh away. You pretty much have to stay the same man that you are.

"You can hurt yourself any day, and you can be on the bottom. I'd rather be on the top than the bottom. I've been in both places."Â￾

These are heady times for the Browns' 25-year-old big back, balanced by humbling memories.

On Nov. 9, 2009, he did not dress for his team, Denver, in a 28-10 loss to Pittsburgh. A week before that, he dressed but didn't have a carry, catching two passes for 10 yards in a 30-7 loss at Baltimore.

On Nov. 11, 2010, Hillis was named AFC Offensive Player of the Week. He ran for 184 yards Sunday in the Browns' 34-14 rout of New England, by far the best rushing day in the NFL for Week 9.

He made 13 carries all last season in Denver. He has 133 in half of his first season with the Browns.

Hillis' previous two teams did the Browns a favor. They kept him fresh for Cleveland. At Arkansas, his carries were minimized by the presence of teammates Darren McFadden and Felix Jones. In 2009 with Denver, he was behind rookie Round 1 pick Knowshon Moreno and veteran Correll Buckhalter â€" and it even made some sense, in that Buckhalter averaged 5.4 yards on 120 carries.

"Other than that quad pull early this season, my body's really felt good,"Â￾ Hillis said. "In college, I didn't get that many carries. The first two years in Denver, I didn't get that many carries."Â￾

The 2008 Round 6 pick will get carries galore as long as he stays healthy in 2010. He's working cheap, making the NFL minimum for third-year players, $475,000.

He hasn't made a peep about money. He's making a lot of noise with his pads.

With wins over the Saints and Patriots, the team is starting to make noise, too.

"We've had a real tough schedule so far,"Â￾ Hillis said. "We'll continue to have a tough schedule. That shouldn't stop us from what we need to do.

"We need to do our game. Our game is hard, power, smash-mouth football."Â￾

Guess which 6-foot-1, 245-pound running back is doing the smashing.

Copyright 2010 The Independent. Some rights reserved

 

[backrow]

good news, Peyton won AFC Offensive Player of the Week, hopefully first of many!

OFFENSE: RB PEYTON HILLIS, CLEVELAND BROWNS

â- Hillis rushed for a career-best 184 yards on 29 attempts (6.3 average) and tied a career high with two rushing touchdowns in the Browns' 34-14 victory over New England.
â- Hillis' 184 rushing yards are the second most in the NFL this season (ARIAN FOSTER, 231).
â- His two rushing touchdowns tied for an NFL best in Week 9.
â- Hillis totaled a career-high 220 yards from scrimmage (184 rushing, 36 receiving).
â- He is tied for third in the NFL with seven rushing touchdowns this season.
â- In his third season from Arkansas, this is Hillis' first career Player of the Week Award.
â- He is the first Browns running back to win AFC Offensive Player of the Week since ERIC METCALF in 1992.

 

[Toby Hillis]

Please guys when you get a second read these posts by these DWFs. You wont know whether to LOL or bang your head against the computer...I'll explain:

PEYTON HILLIS IS FINALLY GONE!!! (Thread started on Broncos message board by DWF written right after Hillis trade. Says how excited he is that the "overrated one"AKA Peyton Hillis is finally gone. Someone bumped it today, tried to get the OP and everyone else to eat crow/admit they were all wrong. The sad thing is no one can figure out "why" Hillis never got a shot in Denver...I think they need a caste education ASAP!)

WHO HAS A BETTER 2010? HILLIS OR MORENO?(Thread started, again, right after Hillis trade. Bumped and talked about today. Its beyond sad because people are asking the OP,"Is this a serious question?! Of course Moreno, hes waaaay more talented!" It was universal, near 100%!)

I am going to bed and wont be able to address these clowns till Friday; very busy next couple days. Please, someone(s) set these punks straight! Post the great Hillis article JC wrote, explain that Hillis AVG 10+ YPC as a HALFBACK(!!) out of high school, was a Parade All American, and yet was recruited exclusively as a FULLBACK for one reason and one reason alone!! I will get on them Friday night...Sorry for the long post and request butthose threads just got me steaming MAD!!

 

[foobar75]

Another excellent article, we're now starting to see this type of stuff pretty regularly:

http://news-herald.com/articles/2010/11/11/sports/nh3277793.txt?viewmode=fullstory


Quick, when you're watching Peyton Hillis run, what running back does he most remind you of?

Mike Alstott, right? Of course.

John Riggins? Sure. A lot of similarities there.

How about Larry Czonka? No question. If you watched football in the '70s, you can definitely see the mold.

To be sure, those were all quality running backs in the National Football League. Two of them are in the Hall of Fame, and they all share the same punishing running style that Hillis has displayed in his breakout season with the Browns. All were powerful, bruising backs, yet each had quick feet that belied their size and strength, and gave them the ability to elude tacklers as well as run over them.

Oh, and that other thing they all have in common? They're all white.

Think about it.

When's the last time you heard anyone compare Hillis' punishing running style to that of the freight train that was Earl Campbell? Why hasn't anyone put Hillis' name in the same sentence with the Nigerian Nightmare, Christian Okoye? Why has there been no reference to the bulldozer that was Jerome Bettis?

Each of those backs were comparable in size and strength to Hillis, and each had the speed to pull away from defenders if they got out on the edge, just like the Browns' new star. Yet no one mentions them, nor any other power backs when trying to define Hillis.

Except for Alstott, Riggins and Czonka.

Because they're white.

Admittedly, Peyton is partly to blame himself for the Alstott comparison. He wears his No. 40 jersey as a tribute to the former Buccaneers' star, whom Hillis told me during the preseason was his favorite player. Yet the stereotyping of Hillis as a "good white running back" rather than just a "good running back" was reinforced more completely than ever when I read an article this week that actually compared him to â€" wait for it â€" Tommy Vardell.

Vardell was the ninth overall pick in the first round of the 1992 NFL draft by the Browns.

"Touchdown Tommy," as he was known, scored a whopping 18 of them in his entire eight-year career.

"Punishing Peyton" was a seventh-round pick of the Broncos, and he's on pace to score 16 of his own. This year.

So what, pray tell, would prompt a comparison between these two men? What do they have in common?

Well, they both played for Browns. And they're both white.

End of similarities.

One year ago this month, while discussing the Heisman Trophy balloting in college football, a friend posted a note on my Facebook wall, referencing Stanford tailback Toby Gerhart. Gerhart was considered one of the front-runners for the award in a season in which he led the nation with 1,871 yards and an astounding 28 touchdowns. In analyzing Gerhart's potential as a featured back in the NFL, my friend wrote, "I wish that announcers could actually say that Toby Gerhart might have a hard time in the NFL draft because he is a white running back. And can he please be compared to someone other than John Riggins? Please?"

He was absolutely right.

A long-time NFL scout told Yahoo Sports in days prior to April's NFL draft that Gerhart wouldn't be a first-round pick because of his skin color. "He'll be a great second-round pickup for somebody, but I guarantee you if he was the exact same guy â€" but he was black â€" he'd go in the first round for sure," the scout said. "You could make a case that he's a Steven Jackson-type â€" doesn't have blazing speed but he's strong and powerful and versatile."

Gerhart ended up going to the Vikings in the second round, and is a backup to Adrian Peterson, arguably the best back in the game.

Getting back to Hillis, who was named the AFC's Offensive Player of the Week this week for his 184-yard, two-touchdown performance against the Patriots. He is still battling the stereotype that says white players can't be featured backs in the NFL. On a radio show in Washington D.C., Redskins running back Clinton Portis was asked if Hillis is receiving an "excessive amount of attention" for his play because he's white. To his credit, Portis wouldn't take the bait, saying Hillis is being praised for his production alone, not for his skin color.

Portis also equated the plight of the white running back in the NFL to that of the black quarterback.

For decades, it was thought by some that black QBs couldn't handle the mental challenges of playing the position at the game's highest level, and many great players were discriminated against as a result. Fortunately, time has dispelled that ugly myth, and many of the game's best signal-callers of the last 20 years have been black.

Black QBs won "equality" in part due to outspoken advocates who realized how wrong it was to assume they couldn't play the position.

Yet there has never been an actual outcry against the discrimination of strong white running backs, who are almost always slotted into the fullback role, as blockers for the seemingly more talented black tailbacks behind them.

Peyton Hillis has opened the eyes of coaches, players and fans around the league. Let's hope he's opening their minds as well.

 

[backrow]

on dawgpounddaiily they have a poll for his new nickname, Juggernaut is people's favorite option haha

linkEdited by: backrow

 

[FootballDad]

The Pasty Punisher. LOL!

 

[phil3333]

http://www.jetsinsider.com/blogs/christopher_nimbley/?p=556<div>this is a really good article on peyton,i liked the respect the jets players showed and there statement</div><div>about the plight hills faces being white and playing tb

</div>

 

[DWFan]

Thanks for posing that phil! Bart Scott's take on Hillis was awesome...can't wait for this game!

 

[Freethinker]

http://www.jetsinsider.com/blogs/christopher_nimbley/?p=556<div>this is a really good article on peyton,i liked the respect the jets players showed and there statement </div><div>about the plight hills faces being white and playing tb 

</div>

My favorite part of the article posted by phil3333. Much respect to Bart Scott who seems to call it like he sees it, for better or worse.

"It's called being a football player, you know it doesn't have to add up traditionally, he's got the intangibles. He's determined, I'm sure he's been told all his career that he couldn't be a white tailback in the NFL and be successful. I'm sure he has a unique chip on his shoulder, I know I would if people told me that I couldn't something just because of my race or my color, you know what I mean, I'm excited."Â￾ Scott said, "He's trying to prove a lot of people wrong, he's a very talented person. I think he's second on the team in receptions with 30, he's responsible for a lot of their offense. He's relentless, he's going to continue to bring it every game, he's going to give it everything he's got. You got to respect a guy like that."Â￾

 

[Don Wassall]

I was looking for a Youtube video of Hillis's big game last week but didn't find any. I did find this short one of his big game against the Jets in 2008. It only shows his three 19 yards runs and a short TD run, but notice how the announcer (I think it's Kevin Harlan) is quick each time, not during a replay but the actual run as it happens, to give credit to offensive linemen for their blocking.




[TUBE]Idqb9XroWWI[/TUBE]

 

[dwid]

I am working on a video of him right now, the announcers still praise the blocking quite a bit, even though Hillis gets defenders in the backfield quite a bit and has to make that first guy miss or break the tackle (you would think Vickers is an hall of famer by some of the announcers) but on one of his runs the announcer says "he has the speed to hit the perimeter, really shows some foot speed"

The only problem with NFL videos is that youtube can take them down and ban your account. They are very random about which videos they keep up, but its odd that they seem to take down a lot of White players, Like Matt Jones showing he can play outside receiver and has deep speed when used that way and Jordy Nelson excelling on the outside his rookie season.

I noticed some videos in a search that said Peyton Hillis week 1, Peyton Hillis week 2, etc, by the time I clicked on them they had been removed. White slot receiver seems to be the only acceptable position they keep up consistently.Edited by: dwid

 

[Highlander]

I was looking for a Youtube video of Hillis's big game last week but didn't find any. I did find this short one of his big game against the Jets in 2008. It only shows his three 19 yards runs and a short TD run, but notice how the announcer (I think it's Kevin Harlan) is quick each time, not during a replay but the actual run as it happens, to give credit to offensive linemen for their blocking.
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Yes, the same offensive line that McEminem pilloried earlier this year, saying that they were the reason why Knowshow was so ineffective running the ball last year. Funny how the offensive line is praised when a White running back is having great success and how the same offensive line is blamed when a black running back struggles to gain anything.
</div>

 

[snow]

I was looking for a Youtube video of Hillis's big game last week but didn't find any. I did find this short one of his big game against the Jets in 2008. It only shows his three 19 yards runs and a short TD run, but notice how the announcer (I think it's Kevin Harlan) is quick each time, not during a replay but the actual run as it happens, to give credit to offensive linemen for their blocking.
<div></div>
<div></div>

<div>

Yes, the same offensive line that McEminem pilloried earlier this year, saying that they were the reason why Knowshow was so ineffective running the ball last year. Funny how the offensive line is praised when a White running back is having great success and how the same offensive line is blamed when a black running back struggles to gain anything.
</div>

that is true about they always praise the line for the white back, but McDaniels did change the blocking scheme from zone to more man blocking, which his linemen aren't as suited for (more genius ideas by such a brilliant young coach), but in 2009 he used a mixture of both, Moreno looked mediocre either way and the line was still blamed. The only game Hillis got significant playing time in 09, he ran for 47 yards on 7 carries, 6.7 ypc on the same line/same scheme. In 323 attempts Moreno has 2 runs 20+ yards. Hillis has 4 this season in 133 attempts. I think Hillis would excel in whatever scheme they were running,behind any line and Moreno would still be average at best even if he had the best line in the NFL.

Do dwfs really believe someone like Jaocb Hester couldn't perform better than Moreno? Both from SEC, both ran in the 4.6 range, except Hester's initial burst is much better and runs with way more power. Moreno's career stats, 323 rushes for 1199 yards 3.7 ypc with a long of 36, (his 2nd longest was 28, and no 20+ yard runs after that), Hester's career is 57 att 210 yards 3.7 ypc with a long of 28, and Hester got pretty much every one in short yardage or garbage time where its much harder to break off big runs with the box being stuffed, and at time ran from the fullback spot where you are closer to the line. Funny how the SEC is supposed to have elite speed but even their scat backs like McCluster run 4.5 and slower. Dixon ran a 4.7+, only Ben Tate had elite speed last year at 4.43.
Edited by: snow

 

[chris371]

I am working on a video of him right now,

I cant wait till this is finished!!

 

[Westside]

Likewise, Dwid looking forward to your video!!!!!

 

[Woody]

I don't want to rag on the Browns OL, b/c I do like them, but to say it's all the OL is simply not true. The only other running back (so not McCoy or Cribbs) who is getting carrieshas 0.5ypc (Mike Bell). Ouch.

 

[GreatLakeState]

Bart Scott always seemed a tad above the typical Detroit hood ballplayer, does a lot for his old school there and stuff, so those quotes are nice to see. Although calling Peyton a "man's man" and admiring the "gun show," suprised he didn't add the ghetto phrase "no homo."Edited by: GreatLakeState

 

[Mischling3rdDegree]

So how often do we see articles about how RB X owes most of his success to the blocking of FB Y? Pretty much never. But, of course, you had to know this one was coming:

http://bleacherreport.com/articles/515949-the-best-part-about-peyton-hillis-is-lawrence-vickers

<h1 id="article-title">The Best Part About Peyton Hillis Is Lawrence Vickers</h1>
While Josh Cribbs, Peyton Hillis and Colt McCoy are the poster boys for the new Browns, there is still one player that has been pushing this team forward. Lawrence Vickers is by the far the most underrated fullback there is the game today. .... all three of those guys would be nothing without Vickers. ... Hillis is a tough S.O.B, but Vickers is tougher. Hillis is packing tape to Vickers' duct tape.</font>..

Blah blah blah same old BS.

 

[SuperSpeed23]

Bullsh*t. Hillis could run behind anyone and still put up great stats.

 

[snow]

Usually it takes a couple of years for a fullback blocking for a particular back before he gets credit, like Mike Karney with Deuce McCallister. This is ridiculous, as soon as Hillis has success his fullback gets all of the credit. Hillis did fine without a fulllback in Denver, in single back sets. In fact, on his 25 yard run against the Ravens it was a single back set.
Edited by: snow

 

[backrow]

I like Vickers and he is indeed a good fullback. Having said that, Peyton is a beast and he would do well behind anyone.

 

[snow]

Yes Vickers is a good fullback, but they are trying to make us think that Peyton is such a throwback player that he can only run behind a fullback in some type of old school smash mouth offense, when he has excelled in a single back system when given the chance. Vickers blocking does compliment Hillis but he would do fine without him. Every game I watch I hear Vickers name said by the announcers just as much as I do Hillis, did they do that for guys like Darryl Johnston when Smith ran behind him? I think not.
Edited by: snow

 

[Westside]

Just as Peyton is breaking away from the considerable chains of the caste conspiracy, they now attempt to super glue his feet together in the name of some affelet named Vickers to bring him down.

As 3rdDegree stated, we saw this was coming.