does irish think were stupid, or does he not value the position? WOW Mr. Irish.....a real life 1000 yard back..
Hilliard is a one speed back with no creativity and no elusiveness in the hole. He'll hit it up there full speed and will break the occasional tackle but that's about it. He reminds me a lot of a bigger Karim Abdul-Jabbar.
Not only do I disagree, but I also feel he runs harder than a lot of backs in this draft. He has the ability to be a good #2, especially if we spread it out more. If anyone hasn't seen his college highlights and are only basing their views on his limited body of work in Miami, then you might want to watch this. He's no Cam Wake, but the situation may be somewhat similar in regards to playing behind 2 vets who were possibly taking more snaps than they should've seen. IMO he can have a Mike Tolbert type season for us. [video=youtube;nMWZpM0TxbI]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nMWZpM0TxbI&playnext=1&list=PL3F7509DDA86E81A5[/video]
Recall that dude from 07? The running back Cam Cameron brought in, Chatham was his name? That is who Hilliard reminds me of a bit, Chatham had ate himself out of the NFL but when he was focused he was a decent running back.
I had a big problem with the way they used Hilliard in 2009 when Ronnie went down. They could have done a better job using him to spell Ricky in many opportunities yet chose to wear Williams down and use Hilliard mainly on third down. That was a great chance to develop him. It drove me nuts. In 2010 we rarely cared enough to try and get the running game going. He was used exclusively on ST. I still think it was a mistake to not give the guy more carries when the you needed a second back to come in and run the football. Not shocking though considering how Henning ran his system. You keep a young running back with potential and don't use him. Go figure.
Cameron was pushing Ronnie and I'll still stick to my opinion on the situation. Cam made Brown a better back. The only good thing he really ever did here.
I do not agree, Lex Hillard goes down too easily. I was impressed by his catching out of the backfield.
Hmm, you know there are two positions Ireland has not missed on, Running Back and Linebacker (though Carpenter is now a journeyman), in Dallas they found Jones and Barber, so if he likes him his track record is there is a reason for it.
Forget Hilliard.....I just wanna see Kory Sheets healthy. I'm tellin you this guy could be a star. I have Purdue season tickets and the guy was pretty awesome. Strong runner, shifty, and fast. Thats who Ireland should be talking about.
On how many carries is the question. If he was terrible and only gained 3 yards per carry he could get 1000 yards if we gave him the ball 334 times. A more realistic number of carries would be 250. And he would have to average 4 yards per carry to get 1000. Based on what I've seen Hilliard runs pretty hard, meaning that he seems to have some speed and power. So I don't think he would be terrible at getting the majority of a team's carries. But he doesn't seem to be very agile or very fast in the open field, though to be fair he probably hasn't been put in many situations that would display those things. I could probably live with him being our Brandon Jacobs type back while we bring in a quicker back that can be a decent receiver. But I don't think he will get enough carries to become a "1000 yard back", whatever significance that is supposed to hold in a 16 game season.
Disagree with you here, Trowa. If the NFL has proven anything the past decade or so, a team can win with an average RB. You cannot win with an average QB. And it would be a stretch to call Henne an average QB. Food for thought - Green Bay is in the Superbowl with Brandon Jackson, Kuhn? and James Starks at RB.
Trent Dilfer, Brad Johnson, Eli Manning, Ben Roethlisberger in his first super bowl and to a lesser extent his second. All average QBs.
Would like to see both Hilliard and Cobbs replaced this year with some backs that actually have some upside.....we need to bring in a LOT of RB's this year and probably keep one of either Ronnie and Ricky..
I want our Oline good enough to where you can push your walker through without seeing so much as a scratch.
IF Ireland said this then I am concerned about our GM position.. exactly who does he think he is fooling? I mean besides some message board jockeys. Does he really think that GMs are going to think.."oh yeah Miami is sold on Lex Hilliard"..right as #15 is coming and Ingram is in sight , and pass on him or trade out? Well if Ireland is serious then be ready for 6-10 or maybe 8-8 seasons at best. If not this is the worse smoke screen ever.
IMO Ireland probably said this in response to the majority of the mocks that have us taking Ingram. He's done this every year to imply that whatever position everybody assumes we need isn't necessarily the position we'll pick in the first. I assume he feels it helps during negotiations to trade up or down should they occur. It's also probably not impossible since 1000 yards has become so watered down. But I doubt Ireland or anybody else would feel good about Hilliard as the feature back.
I think it's ridiculous for us to discredit Hilliard based on a lack of touches, I mean how would we have felt at the beginning of the season this year if we went into it with Peyton Hillis as our number one back? Yet, now I think that everyone on this board would have no problem having him back there. I'm not comparing the two they are different runners, but hopefully you get my point. Earning playing time is much more challenging when you're behind two guys that have had the success that Ronnie and Ricky have had in the past. Not that this means much, but someone at NFL.com compared him to Marion Barber coming out of college: http://www.nfl.com/combine/profiles/lex-hilliard?id=256#tabs:tab-analysis
But he had touches in 2009 and did nothing with them except prove that he's slow, has poor vision, is an inadequate pass blocker and can be a receiving threat out of the backfield.
A good point, not saying Hilliard can be anything like Barber, but to just slam the guy with so few touches seems out of place.
Trent Dilfer and Brad Johnson QBd their teams to victory prior to the rule enforcement changes that came in 2005 that have given huge advantage to passing offenses, so let's stop mentioning their names. Eli Manning is not a great QB, but he's better than average. And seriously, are you really trying to say Roethlisberger is an average QB? He's never been average. He's been a very good QB in this league since day 1. And today he is only a few steps below elite.
who knows what we really have in Hilliard .... only thing in his favor is that this regime didn't deep 6 him - so he must show more than we've seen in his limited snaps over the last couple seasons. is he a star in the making -- i think not ... but i will give him that he has size and doesn't dance around like our current tandem. as others have intimated .... 1K doesn't really mean a whole lot in a 16 - oh, wait - 18 game season ....
My opinion of Hilliard is not based on his number of touches. It's based on the skills he's demonstrated when he has touched the ball.
You might but I doubt Ireland does. 1k yards a season is not that impressive, but if you take whatever he can give you close to 1k and add it to another back giving you the same it becomes much more valuable. Pretty sure that is what he means about Hilliard. Agreed on the front office HC split. He's said something to this effect at least twice recently and that's just the few things I have read of Ireland's quotes.
I don't understand why anyone considers this that extraordinary a claim. It's not that ringing of an endorsement if you think about it, it's more along the lines of identifying that he's got the ability to hold up for 250-300 carries and average more than 3.5 yards a pop.
I can't speak to the vision, that may be a fact, but pass blocking with most running backs usually improves as they go on in their career. The fact that he was coming out of an FCS school has to make his learning curve a little bit bigger, especially with the difference in the speed of the defenses. Also speed really isn't as important as we as fans like to say it is. I believe Arian Foster ran a 4.7 at his pro day and he was pretty good this year. But with that said I will default to you about him having poor vision that is a trait that can't be hidden regardless of ability.
Well, I'm probably one of the few who like Hilliard and thought he did an okay job in 2009, I suspect in rotation he could easily top 1k yds. Much depends on the Oline, I think Lexxy has the talent to do it, whether he has the opportunity is another thing altogether.
Yeah I mean people are talking about how unimpressive 1000 yards is in today's NFL, but really with the way that we split carries I think that it's fairly impressive considering Ronnie led our team with 200 carries. (But no I do not think that he could run for 1000 yards with 200 carries) The problem I see right now is that I think we have a split in the vision that our GM and our Head Coach have for our team.
Not at all. He was one TD drive away from being considered one of the best superbowl QBs of all time if he won his third. I was thrilled he didn't, as I hate the guy and don't care for the Steelers. Despite the turnovers, he helped put his team in a position to win at the end despite the huge deficit. He is not an elite QB though. He would have had to win the game to reach that status. But regardless, Trowa, my original point in all this which you seem to have conveniently moved on from is that a QB is far more important to the success of his team than a RB. So let me ask you this: Now that Green Bay won a superbowl with a great performance from Aaron Rogers with their 3rd string RB starting the game who posted only 52 yards rushing, do you want to change your stance of finding a better RB than Lex Hilliard is more important to the Dolphins than finding a better QB than Chad Henne?
well i would much rather it be our 6th round pick from a couple of years ago than a first round pick this year that might only get a few more yards
