The problem as I see it is humans aren't good at nuanced arguments. We don't do well with contradiction. So with something like covid, instead of holding that masks are helpful under certain circumstances but can only protect one so much, as vaccines will do this much but not that, people align around simple categories. Masks good, masks bad. Vaccines good, vaccines bad. And the like.
Same with this. There are reasons why it may not make sense to take Saquon Barkley number 2 overall in the modern NFL even if it did make sense to draft Eric Dickerson second overall back in "83 and Barry Sanders #3 ten years later.
These things are complex and nuanced. As with any specific draft pick, won't know if it made sense to take Walker at 41 for a few years. Only hindsight can answer those questions. To the more generic question of whether it can make sense to take a runner back high in the second round in 2022, I think there's a strong argument to be made why that particular risk is as good as (if not better than) any other for particular teams (the Seahawks among them).
Those who identify the Seahawks as set at running back are ignorant and lazy, and not worthy of our time. They're taking the most facile look at the roster without curiosity or an interest in digging even an inch deeper. Anyone who knows anything about our team knows we weren't in any way all set at running back going into the draft. A 7 year old could tell you that if they're a Seahawks fan.
We begain chatting about this a year ago, everything you have said is right. Just to add football players know how important a runningback is. If you have a good one I will garuntee you he is highly respected. He is also a player that teammates would be disappointed if he could not play.
To be a great NFL back means you are going to get a lot of carries 1/3 of those carries will result in a bruise or injury that most humans could not stand. By the virtue of being so good you shorten your career as there are only so many car crashes you can survive. Okay go runningback by committee, we'll that can hamper your team. A runningback like a boxer needs to be in the battle. He has to get a feel for the defense, find their weaknesses and avoid the knockout blow. Green Bay looks like they gave even careers, but what it doesn't show is Jones got hurt, and that's why the carries were so equal.
KW3 is a true superstar in the making. All you had to do was look at Rashaad Penny's career avg to know if he stayed healthy he would be good. When he finally earned or there was room for him to start he stayed healthy. He knew where to run and how to avoid the knockout. This is never discussed but it is very hard to stand on the sidelines for an hour and then go perform. That is a young man's game. I was a starter through my whole rugby career. There were times when comingback from injury that I would spare. By the second half I didn't want anything to do with playing. Your stiff and cold not ready for action. I could go on and on but you need to run the ball just as much now as you did 30 years ago.
In closing Andy Reed is one of the best coaches the NFL has ever seen. How many times has he lost because of one reason, he stopped running the ball. The Bengals would not have won that playoff game. They were rushing 3 men any good back is going to avg 5 yards a carry presented with that. It would have killed the clock or forced the Bengals to bring people to stop the RUN ! Victoria Chris
I agree with a lot of this. RBs matter more than the general consensus thinks right now. What really has me excited for Seattle is that the OL should be improved and Walker could be SIGNIFICANTLY better than Penny. Penny's numbers from last year were excellent, but have to be taken with a grain of salt. He ended the season with 5 starts - Houston (27th in YPC run defense), the Rams (6th - and held him to 3.6 YPC), Chicago (19th), Detroit (18th), and Arizona (28th). I went with YPC because raw totals can be misleading as bad teams get run against more in total because the bad teams are losing. It's not like Penny lit it up against a long line of tough run defenses. He beat up on the bad ones and got shut down by the one good one he faced (and also as a backup the week before this run went 3.5 YPC against the Niners - 7th in def YPC). If Walker steps up, and I think he will, Penny won't play much, and I think the run game will be one of the best in the league.
It has been a long time since I was taking statistical analysis classes at WSU. But analysis was always about probabilities. The current analytics crowd for some reason believes that probabilities equal certainty. It doesn't. So, we get a lot of misleading and lazy information or takes from them.
Really enjoying the current livestream with yourself and TR -- especially the *expletive-laden* rants about the navel-gazing analytics crowd, selective stupidity in sports media and the latest steaming pile of hot takes from ESPN's resident hack-in-residence.
Stopped reading "analysis" years ago that doesn't originate with a former player or coach, as well as avoiding comments sections writ large. The value ratio in those spaces have never justified the necessary time invested. Glad you found your way to Substack.
So you're responsible for the whole phrase?!? Wow! Is it safe to say that now you feel like the guy who invented "Doodles" (poodle mixes with other breeds to stop shedding, etc.), who wishes he'd never done it?
I like Ben Baldwin well enough that I'd say he's my favourite (keeping up the British theme) Baldwin; low as that bar is. But I don't get the impression he's being completely serious when he says smarmy things along the lines of, "Numbers are facts, and I have the facts so am therefore right."
Running backs matter tremendously in the game of football, and the very rules would have to change drastically before that could ever be untrue. I don't even want to think how the 2013 Seahawk's season would have gone had Marshawn gotten hurt. Or just imagine how the game vs the Titans might have gone last year had Henry not suited up. A good running back affects defensive game planning. A truly special one changes the entire defensive alignment.
4 yard runs up the middle aren't the most exciting plays in football, but they are effective. And when RBs break a big play they're almost always more exciting than big pass plays just because of what the backs need to do to pull them off. When I'm old and feeble sitting in an old folks home, I'll still remember the call, "Look at this run! What a run!!! Marshawn Lynch! Still on his feet! Has blockers now! He's dancing his way..."
"A bunch of people on Twitter know a lot more about...(any subject) than (any expert)". It's called being a Google Graduate Expert but it used to just be called hubris.
>>No matter the era, there must be some running backs who made you become a football fan.
I was just inspired to share that my favorite RB of all time is Earl Campbell - fast, violent, and amazing!
The problem as I see it is humans aren't good at nuanced arguments. We don't do well with contradiction. So with something like covid, instead of holding that masks are helpful under certain circumstances but can only protect one so much, as vaccines will do this much but not that, people align around simple categories. Masks good, masks bad. Vaccines good, vaccines bad. And the like.
Same with this. There are reasons why it may not make sense to take Saquon Barkley number 2 overall in the modern NFL even if it did make sense to draft Eric Dickerson second overall back in "83 and Barry Sanders #3 ten years later.
These things are complex and nuanced. As with any specific draft pick, won't know if it made sense to take Walker at 41 for a few years. Only hindsight can answer those questions. To the more generic question of whether it can make sense to take a runner back high in the second round in 2022, I think there's a strong argument to be made why that particular risk is as good as (if not better than) any other for particular teams (the Seahawks among them).
Those who identify the Seahawks as set at running back are ignorant and lazy, and not worthy of our time. They're taking the most facile look at the roster without curiosity or an interest in digging even an inch deeper. Anyone who knows anything about our team knows we weren't in any way all set at running back going into the draft. A 7 year old could tell you that if they're a Seahawks fan.
We begain chatting about this a year ago, everything you have said is right. Just to add football players know how important a runningback is. If you have a good one I will garuntee you he is highly respected. He is also a player that teammates would be disappointed if he could not play.
To be a great NFL back means you are going to get a lot of carries 1/3 of those carries will result in a bruise or injury that most humans could not stand. By the virtue of being so good you shorten your career as there are only so many car crashes you can survive. Okay go runningback by committee, we'll that can hamper your team. A runningback like a boxer needs to be in the battle. He has to get a feel for the defense, find their weaknesses and avoid the knockout blow. Green Bay looks like they gave even careers, but what it doesn't show is Jones got hurt, and that's why the carries were so equal.
KW3 is a true superstar in the making. All you had to do was look at Rashaad Penny's career avg to know if he stayed healthy he would be good. When he finally earned or there was room for him to start he stayed healthy. He knew where to run and how to avoid the knockout. This is never discussed but it is very hard to stand on the sidelines for an hour and then go perform. That is a young man's game. I was a starter through my whole rugby career. There were times when comingback from injury that I would spare. By the second half I didn't want anything to do with playing. Your stiff and cold not ready for action. I could go on and on but you need to run the ball just as much now as you did 30 years ago.
In closing Andy Reed is one of the best coaches the NFL has ever seen. How many times has he lost because of one reason, he stopped running the ball. The Bengals would not have won that playoff game. They were rushing 3 men any good back is going to avg 5 yards a carry presented with that. It would have killed the clock or forced the Bengals to bring people to stop the RUN ! Victoria Chris
I agree with a lot of this. RBs matter more than the general consensus thinks right now. What really has me excited for Seattle is that the OL should be improved and Walker could be SIGNIFICANTLY better than Penny. Penny's numbers from last year were excellent, but have to be taken with a grain of salt. He ended the season with 5 starts - Houston (27th in YPC run defense), the Rams (6th - and held him to 3.6 YPC), Chicago (19th), Detroit (18th), and Arizona (28th). I went with YPC because raw totals can be misleading as bad teams get run against more in total because the bad teams are losing. It's not like Penny lit it up against a long line of tough run defenses. He beat up on the bad ones and got shut down by the one good one he faced (and also as a backup the week before this run went 3.5 YPC against the Niners - 7th in def YPC). If Walker steps up, and I think he will, Penny won't play much, and I think the run game will be one of the best in the league.
If running backs don't matter, how come so many are in the HOF?
It has been a long time since I was taking statistical analysis classes at WSU. But analysis was always about probabilities. The current analytics crowd for some reason believes that probabilities equal certainty. It doesn't. So, we get a lot of misleading and lazy information or takes from them.
Really enjoying the current livestream with yourself and TR -- especially the *expletive-laden* rants about the navel-gazing analytics crowd, selective stupidity in sports media and the latest steaming pile of hot takes from ESPN's resident hack-in-residence.
Stopped reading "analysis" years ago that doesn't originate with a former player or coach, as well as avoiding comments sections writ large. The value ratio in those spaces have never justified the necessary time invested. Glad you found your way to Substack.
Thanks, Kenneth. Looking forward to seeing how KW III fares in his rookie year, as well as beyond. Ya just never know...
So you're responsible for the whole phrase?!? Wow! Is it safe to say that now you feel like the guy who invented "Doodles" (poodle mixes with other breeds to stop shedding, etc.), who wishes he'd never done it?
I like Ben Baldwin well enough that I'd say he's my favourite (keeping up the British theme) Baldwin; low as that bar is. But I don't get the impression he's being completely serious when he says smarmy things along the lines of, "Numbers are facts, and I have the facts so am therefore right."
Running backs matter tremendously in the game of football, and the very rules would have to change drastically before that could ever be untrue. I don't even want to think how the 2013 Seahawk's season would have gone had Marshawn gotten hurt. Or just imagine how the game vs the Titans might have gone last year had Henry not suited up. A good running back affects defensive game planning. A truly special one changes the entire defensive alignment.
4 yard runs up the middle aren't the most exciting plays in football, but they are effective. And when RBs break a big play they're almost always more exciting than big pass plays just because of what the backs need to do to pull them off. When I'm old and feeble sitting in an old folks home, I'll still remember the call, "Look at this run! What a run!!! Marshawn Lynch! Still on his feet! Has blockers now! He's dancing his way..."
I want to believe
"A bunch of people on Twitter know a lot more about...(any subject) than (any expert)". It's called being a Google Graduate Expert but it used to just be called hubris.
Solid article - T Y V M!