Ryan Matthews...

Did a good job of continuing his interview during the game while a team mate sprayed water all over his arm and legs It was pretty funny.

(He looked good and I have him on my ff team I drafted for already)

Yankee_In_TX said:

Did a good job of continuing his interview during the game while a team mate sprayed water all over his arm and legs It was pretty funny.

(He looked good and I have him on my ff team I drafted for already)

Click to expand...

I don't know. I didn't watch the game but 13 rushes for 46 yards for a 3.5 ypc isn't exactly setting the world on fire. Especially with one of his rushes being 16 yards.

The Pencil Neck said:

I don't know. I didn't watch the game but 13 rushes for 46 yards for a 3.5 ypc isn't exactly setting the world on fire. Especially with one of his rushes being 16 yards.

Click to expand...

I don't know. Carry that out to a full game of maybe 25 carries, and you have over 100 yds. That would be tremendous in that offense.

JB said:

I don't know. Carry that out to a full game of maybe 25 carries, and you have over 100 yds. That would be tremendous in that offense.

Click to expand...

Carry that out over a season and you've got 400 carries and a broken running back. IIRC, every time a running back has gone over 375 carries or so, they've been crap for at least a year or two after. I don't think anyone's ever recovered from that sort of load.

An occasional game with 25-30 carries is fine but if your RB averages that, you've just ruined him. Even in his heyday, the great Earl Campbell averaged less carries than that. He averaged 24.9 carries a game for 15 games in his best year (his 3rd year) and he was never quite the same after that. Larry Johnson had that year with 416 attempts and he was done by the time he got to the post season.

The Pencil Neck said:

Carry that out over a season and you've got 400 carries and a broken running back. IIRC, every time a running back has gone over 375 carries or so, they've been crap for at least a year or two after. I don't think anyone's ever recovered from that sort of load.

An occasional game with 25-30 carries is fine but if your RB averages that, you've just ruined him. Even in his heyday, the great Earl Campbell averaged less carries than that. He averaged 24.9 carries a game for 15 games in his best year (his 3rd year) and he was never quite the same after that. Larry Johnson had that year with 416 attempts and he was done by the time he got to the post season.

Click to expand...

Michael Turner when he went to the Falcons also got a boatload of carries (Upper 300's if I recall right) and was pretty much injured/ineffective the next year (2009).

b0ng said:

Michael Turner when he went to the Falcons also got a boatload of carries (Upper 300's if I recall right) and was pretty much injured/ineffective the next year (2009).

Click to expand...

Turner's kinda weird.

He definitely broke down. He went from 376 attempts to 178 attempts. But his ypc actually went up. He only played 11 games, though. His attempts per game went from 23.5 down to 16.1. Looks like the coaches were fighting to keep him fresh.

It will be interesting to see if he's able to recover.

I was looking around at a bunch of RBs and it's rare for a guy to get 375+ carries. But there are a few guys who did it and then didn't totally collapse. Emmit Smith averaged up in the 350-360 carry range and had more than 375 once and then got 50 less carries the next year and then 60 less carries the year after that and then was back up into the 300's. LT had 372 carries his second year and did OK after that (but he didn't break the 375 carry barrier). Bettis had 375 carries one year and then his ypc went down and his attempts went down for a couple of years but he was still able to pound out over 1000 yards a season.

Eric Dickerson was a HOSS. He had over 375 carries 4 times in his career. He broke down after a 400 carry season and it took him 3 years to recover. Then he came back and had a 388 carry season. Damn.

So, it's not the hard and fast rule that I'd heard. But it definitely applied to Larry Johnson. Shaun Alexander had 370 carries and was toast after that. Eddie George had 400 carries in 2000 and he was never the same after that. Edgerrin James had 387 carries in 2000 and it took him 2 years to recover. Jamal Lewis had 387 carries in 2003 and then was out 4 games and only rushed for half the yards the next year and took a couple of years to come back.

Preseason stats really should not matter one bit. They're usually playing behind offensive lines trying to get their act together or missing a couple of starters. I hardly see impressive running stats by anyone in the preseason.

Ryan said:

Preseason stats really should not matter one bit. They're usually playing behind offensive lines trying to get their act together or missing a couple of starters. I hardly see impressive running stats by anyone in the preseason.

Click to expand...

And that's true, too.