The underutilizing of Ronnie Brown

He's a year off a very serious surgery.

 

I've been thinking that he must be injured. I wonder if his acl injury is starting to nag him again. I certainly hope not. But it is encouraging that when Ronnie isn't getting the carry that Ricky and Cobbs are doing something with the ball. We have 1 great running back and 2 good ones. Whoever has the ball we're moving it on the ground and that's what matters.

 

Reminds me of the gripe some of my Cowboy fan friends have had under Parcell's tenure with regards to Julius Jones and Troy Hambrick.

 

I keep maintaining that Ronnie's No. 1 success metric is getting through a full season.

Any reps, production, etc... are just gravy at this point.

I suspect that he's proven his worth to Parcells and Sparano and will get an even bigger share of the load once he's fully recovered in 2009.

 

If he hurt his ribs on the TD run...that explains some of the caution with the # of carries for atleast this game.

 

I forgot about Troy Hambrick...That guy was a joke.

 

Well Brown did get 10 carries after the injury on the TD run.

The reality is that he got 15 carries, which is not really that low of a total. He just didn't produce that many yards.

That's probably due to patchwork offensive line that was already pedestrian in the run-blocking department (Ricky didn't do much better overall).

Brown has had flashes of brilliance this year, but he probably won't return to his 2007 form until next year.

 

I agree, but Parcells and Co. had the same philosophy in Dallas, they like to share the work load between their runningbacks to keep them fresh. Since 2004 the Cowboys haven't had a RB rank in the top 10 in rushes, infact I think the highest rank was 14 and total # of rushes was 267. This year Barber is already on pace to beat that total and Ronnie is projected to fall just a bit short. I would love to see Ronnie get more carries and be in during the biggest situations because he is obviously the better of the two, but the FO sees it differently atm.

 

Watching him run infuriates me at times. I'm sure it's doing the same to the coaching staff. The man gains yardage when he barrels through the line. At other times he studder steps three yards in the backfield and barely makes it back to the line of scrimmage. Worse he sometimes loses yardage. I've got more of an issue with Ronnie Brown than the man calling the plays becasue each time you see Brown run for no gain, he loses the confidence of the play caller. A perfect example was 3rd and 2 last week. The entire football world with the exception of Ronnie Brown knew we needed two yards.

 

We are so fortunate to have 3 really good backs in Ronnie, Ricky and Cobbs. I'm sure the coaching staff senses when these guys need breaks or need to keep pounding it. They talk to them on the sidelines etc. Like it was said before, Ronnie is coming off of serious knee surgery, so there is no need to have him carry the whole the load when we have two other good, capable backs. No sense putting all your eggs in one basket.

We want to win now, but we also want to build a team that will last and have more success in the future and distributing the ball around and not killing one of our best players coming off major knee surgery by giving him the ball too much is a good way to start IMO. I think we have a staff that knows what they're doing.....finally.

 

Tomorrow is December 1st, Ronnie is not on the IR, so far, so good.

Our Oline is officially "a mess", Ronnie and Rickey just are not going to dominate a game like they did in October with Andy Alleman and Ndukwe leading the way.

OC Henning has been pulling rabbits out of the hat for us so far, we lost our #1 Wr and Bess didn't miss a beat, that is not easily accomplished, so if Ronnie isn't getting the 20+ touches running and receiving, we still are winning games, so they may know what they are doing.

 

I will say, because of the depth and quality of our backs, I try to look at total team yards rushing and time of possession vs. specific player carries.

In that sense, if we are getting a solid Avg Yard per Carry and the fewer touches keeps them on the team longer I am happy for it.

 

I could not have said it my self

 

That is a good way to look at things, and we don't know how well our three Rb's are doing things like blocking or running the right route or catching the ball, those little things make a Rb so much more important then just what Adrian Peterson brings to the table.

And our Fb's especially Polite have really stepped up and contributed more then most folks realize, that was a money catch for a 1st down late in the game by Polite.

 

I watched good runs by four different running backs today. I don't care if 2-3 or 4 players pick up 20-50 yards as long as the team total and scoring trips show success in the end.

 

I have been one of Brown's biggest supporters, and so I'm with all of you on this one. One thing I came away with following today's game (and seeing it in person...woooot) is that right now, at this time in their season, the Miami Dolphins seem to have an aversion to running between the tackles. Sweep after sweep. End arounds. You get the picture. They're going out of their way to run east and west before going north and south. This is not an attribute I would normally associate with a Parcells regime. Which makes me wonder: Is there a REASON for this trend? Is there a REASON Brown isn't getting the carries he deserves?

I think it's possible that our interior line play (Satele; Ndukwe; Smiley), collectively, is not conducive to an offense geared at running up the gut. And who do we know that is particularly skilled at running between the tackles? Yep, Ronnie Brown.

Ricky Williams on the other hand is better on the sweep plays and end arounds, as I think his field vision is superior to Ronnie's, and it shows. There were at least two plays today, in key situations, when Brown missed a crease/hole as wide as a truck. I just don't think that he's suited to be a "find a crease and hit it" type back. He's more of a "burst through the hole and decimate everyone in the defensive backfield" type guy.

As such, I think Sparano and Co. are doing what they do best and are running their offense to hide a glaring weakness, and they're winning while doing so. I don't think they're keeping the ball from Ronnie because they don't believe in HIM, they're just not running the ball to his strength because they don't believe in the INTERIOR LINE.

Just a theory. Thoughts?

 

Wasn't there an article about Sparano and his obsessive nature to count how many snaps a player gets? Could have something to do with it.

What aggravates me is the lack of receptions Ronnie gets. Put him in space... The only good thing Cam did last year.

Why don't we run the screen pass more? It's a safe, effective play. That's ALL NE runs for christ sake. 2nd/3rd and long? Screen pass for the first...

 

Sounds right to me St Louis, plus we did not have a FB to help make a hole up the gut until the last few games, and now we've lost Smiley, at best draws and close to runs like Te dump offs is all we can really muster at the moment.

Put it this way, their MLB was Mr. Irrelevant, and no one went off running up the middle today, that speaks volumes as to our troubles.

 

Don't take this the wrong, because it's not a personal attack.

Sometimes perception just doesn't meet reality. Brown is one of the best backs in the league in terms of yards after contact, and that includes breaking tackles in the backfield to get back to the line of scrimmage.

I've broken down play-by-play of his carries that result in no gain or negative yardage for several games, and most of the time (as expected) it's due to penetration in the backfield. But for some reason, folks insist on blaming Brown for "dancing", "indecision" "bad vision" etc...

What makes this "perception vs reality" argument even stronger is that when Ricky Williams gets stopped for a loss (like he did today) folks somehow forget about it or attribute it to bad offensive line play, etc...

I'm way too tired to pull the play-by-pay data and pour through it, but I promise you that your frustration is at least partially influenced by some sort of preconceived notion you have about Brown.

There are countless examples of Brown doing the exact opposite of what you've accused him of.

Now is Brown a perfect back? Hell no? Could he sometimes pick better cut-back lanes or hit the hole vs. wait for blocks to open up? Sure.

But the same could be said about every other back in the league.

 

I agree with Hugo somewhat.

In addition it seems that Henning wants to spread the ball around to as many players as possible.There doesnt seem to be a feature player.

They have Cobbs as a third down back and he has been good but I cant help think that Ronnie would be better in that role as he is an excellent receiver .

While Henning is the OC I doubt we will see Ronnie as a feature back.By that I mean a Ronnie that pounds a defense into submission .

 

I do not feel he is the best back on this team.

He did well in that Patriots first game and perhaps one other, but he cannot carry a game like an Adrian Peterson type back can.

I prefer a back like Ricky Williams or Patrick Cobbs.

Don't get me wrong. I want to be proven wrong with my assessment of Ronnie, but thus far I have no hard evidence to prove he is a "great" back.

d-1

 

Hugo,

I have no preconceived notion about any player. As a matter of fact, I'm one of the last people (per post) to throw out critique of individual play because I know that it takes more than just watching a game.

I don't care who you (running back) are. You don't lose yardage. I am one that believes that you can fall for two yards as long as someone didn't let a defensive lineman come free. Our offensive linemen seldom whiff on a block. We do not run much in the form of zone blocking so we don't one cut. What we do is get a hat on a hat and run downhill.

So here is what I'm willing to bet. I'm willing to bet that he loses yardage (by my standard of less than 2) more than he gains yardage when he starts dancing. This means that he places us in 2nd and 9 position. This means that he places us in a 3rd and 8 position. Dancing is crushing to an offense. I don't care how many positives you think you can find from it. It will never amount to the total loss within the game. The total loss can never be accounted for as the entire structure of playcalling changes as a result of negative yardage. YOU see a positive for a negative. I do not. I see the game plan being changed by the fact that we can't gain 2 yards when we give him the ball on a dive. Hell fire man! A quarterbacks can leap for two yards (on occassion) when the defense is expecting a QB sneak. We can't rely upon a running back selected number 2 overall gaining the same?

Now you say that you have watch him play by play on video. I have no reason to doubt that. But I do have reason to doubt where you place your yards after contact. The phrase (YAC) is ambiguous itself. I mean who was responsible for the contact? Did he run into the line, stop, and look to the outside? That's what I have seen consistently and it's a freakin' Pop Warner mistake. Do you count that as yards after contact? That contact is ALL his fault. How in the hell can you attribute that as a benefit of his carry. I mean he stopped for pete's sake. How in the hell can the rest of the team be responsible for a back not moving his feet forward?

My statements do not boil down to a preconceived notion. It boils down to what I see on the field. Ricky Williams has worked behind horrible offensive lines for his entire career. As a matter of fact, I would dare say that this line is better than the line that Williams gained 2000 yards behind. The thing that Ricky does (that Ronnie occassionally does not do) is take the 2-3 yards that is there. Ronnie will look at those two yards with the mentality of "that's not enough". I say yes it is. You say keep looking for yardage elsewhere. That is the difference.

 

you prefer patrick cobbs to ronnie brown......not sure what to say about that.

 

I don't really feel like 15 carries is THAT low. He wasn't really tearing it up so I can't say he deserved that many more today. All of our other RBs are still productive so I don't mind how things are right now.

Let Ronnie heal and if he starts to catch fire in a game then unleash him.


One thing I would like to see him used for more is receiving though. He's a great receiver and with Camarillo gone, why not use Brown more in the passing game?

 

That's what bothers me the most. Ronnie could easily lineup in the slot and take the pressure off of our WRs. Running screens against Buffalo could help a bit as could lining up Ronnie Brown in the backfield with Ricky on the left and right of Pennington. If Ronnie goes out into the slot either we've got a mismatch with a CB, Ellison or possibly Whitner. If Whitner is blocked out of the play we've eliminated a big part of Buffalo's run stopping potential.

 

Honestly, i blame it on the line. Right now, they're not giving any of our running backs holes to run through. Like StLouis said, they run east and west because of our line. I'm sure next year with a healthy Smiley and Thomas, our running game will rank in the top 5.
Our Running backs are to talented to not dominate games.

Also, i agree with what like2god stated. Parcells philosophy is to share the workload between two runningbacks. keep them fresh, so in the end of the game we can run down the opposing team's throat when they're tired.

So I doubt we will ever see Ronnie brown lead the league in rushing, or be top 5 for that matter. 1000 yards and 10+ TDs seems more accurate.

 

As long as we win, it really doesn't matter to be honest. At this point we seem to be riding Chad Pennington's arm most of the time. People might be surprised but we're in fact one of the highest yardage teams as far as passing in the league.

 

I would agree, and am fully prepared to accept whatever running back method, our newly revered, and benevolent VP of OPs elects to implement, this season be damned.

..and yet, while there may well be a measurable advantage to our current R&R+Cobbs² rotation to perhaps avoiding injury, in the back of my mind is an unshakable quandary that begs to ask, "At what sacrifice to production?"

Considering our history, and the "moderate" production we've had this year thus far running by committee, if its all the same, and if Ronnie hasn't re-aggravated the knee, from here on out, I'd be all for assigning one primary back per game.

I don't think theres any doubt we'd see a boost in production if we simply allowed Ronnie or Ricky or possibly alternate weekly as the featured back, allocating to each their own game, to find a rythm as a primary back. Maybe spelled only by Cobbs, while the other virtually recoups for the following week.
Ricky has mentioned on numerous occasions in the past, his stronger motor in the second half, and in fact exhibited as much in prior seasons. It wouldn't surprise me if Ronnie preferred this as well. (any unknown injury notwithstanding).

Not to discount the earlier points made regarding the poor play of the OL, which I fully agree with. Our options there however currently appear limited.

 

You could also decide to simply feature a back based on the team that you're facing. Now I'm not sure exactly which would be better against Buffalo, but Ricky seems to have great success running on the tackles and outside. Ronnie is fairly balanced on the other hand.

I would seriously suggest considering the way that Ricky has gang raped the Bills before and considering Ronnie's injury, we should probably feed the ball heavily to Ricky early and often and then continue into the fourth. Ronnie should be used at the same time in the open field as a receiver. Wins are more important than his Pro Bowl to be honest.

 

Personally I think that RW is being underutilized. I expected the Phins to pound the rock with RW this year, not RB, because of RB's injury and how good RW looked in TC. Now we're weak up the middle- Smiley out, Donald Thomas gone all year, and Satele is just average with little drive blocking ability. Personally I kind of like Alleman, but now with Smiley out I don't look for much increase in the running game. Wait until next year, with DT back and hopefully a better center.

 

That only became Bill philosophy when he no longer had a real 1# RB.OR if the best back on the team isn't really that much better then other "Like here".Or like almost all of Bill's other teams, other then the ones with Curtis Martin on them.

Ya never saw Curtis Martin share the workload.

I think L2G was thinking that was Bill's philosophy when the Bill was just playing the cards he was delt.

And if that was really Bill's "philosophy" then Bill would of never traded for Martin when he took over the Jets.

 

It's not Parcells philosophy as it is something that's been adopted league-wide lately. My problem with it, as KB used to address is that RBs need the first five or six to get their feet wet. There's a reason that twenty carries is a great spot for a running back. If Ricky reaches twenty this week it'll be superb.

 

Even better.

They've both proven time and again to have have great hands and playmaking ability as recievers, infact I can't recall the last time either one dropped a pass of significant yardage.

 

You had me all the way until you said that this year's line is somehow better than the line that Williams gained "2,000" yards behind (I think it was 1,853 or something like that).

That line was extremely solid but didn't get Pro Bowl accolades because none of the guys had marquee names. This line, while solid at pass protection, has struggled to run out of conventional sets (regardless of the back) all season long.

And again, if you look at Ricky's production this year, he's been stuck for a loss (according to your own definition) just as often as Ronnie. How do you account for that? Is Ricky also afflicted by this dancing disease? Of course not. It just means that both Ricky and Ronnie are often stacked up behind the line of scrimmage and either
a) run into the asses of their own lineman, who are a yard or two behind the line of scrimmage
b) get hit by one or more defenders immediately after getting the ball
c) attempt to bounce it outside only to be mauled by a gang of unblocked defenders.

Lastly, Ronnie is not 100% yet. Take a look at the way he ran last year, behind a very pedestrian line, and you'll come to the realization that Brown was arguably the best back in the league at avoiding negative runs. He's been slightly less effective this year, but even still, if you go through each of his runs, you'll realize that more often than not, the guy turns a bad run into a good run.

Heck, his touchdown yesterday is a perfect example. Most backs would have been dropped for minimal gain after taking such a big shot. This guy managed to spin off and fall forward into the endzone.

 

If Ronnie got 20+ carries a game, then got hurt (which is likely for a guy touching the ball that often), we would be up a creek without a paddle.

Look at the contributions we have gotten this year from guys like Cobbs, Camarillo, Bess, Ginn, etc. When you try to give someone 20+ touches a game, you really are limiting what players like that can do for you, and how they develop.

I think right now, the Giants are the best offensive team in the league. Now if you look at their RBs, they don't give Jacobs more than 15 carries a game usually. They have two other capable RBs in Ward and Bradshaw. They put one of those two in, and the running game doesn't miss a beat.

Now you look at a team like the Redskins. They fed Portis all season, made him the focal point of the offense. Now he gets banged up, and the offense can't get anything going.

 

Yeah, although I don't like the fact that he isn't getting many touches I guess I do agree with being a little careful with the guy. If we do make the playoffs though, I expect Ronnie to have a bigger role given he's our best playmaker... At least I'd hope so.

 

Hugo, I do not want to mislead you (or anyone else for that matter) with my comments. I do not think that Ronnie Brown is a "bust" or anything else that leads to the conclusion of an inferior running back. I really think he is a stud. I just don't give credence to the amount of carries argument put forth by some and I don't like what I originally mentioned that gave you cause for concern......

This crap is entirely unacceptable. I'll take the consistent two-three yards per carry versus the gamble (outside) for one explosive play in every other game. In a way, I could be accused of a desire to take the player out of the game as I want it run the way it was on the diagram. I do not want the individualism that will attain the occassional TD. It's far too inconsistent for me.

 

I hear ya, bud, and I definitely didn't think that your point of view was that black and white.

But here's my only push back to this latest assertion.

On these boards (and at many water coolers) you've got two prevailing anti-Ronnie sentiments:
1) Ronnie has "no vision" and just falls into the pile and/or into his lineman and/or into oncoming defenders
2) Ronnie "dances" too much. He should just run the play as it is designed

In my opinion, this is a lose/lose scenario.

As mentioned, Ronnie is one of the best backs at getting yardage after contact in the backfield/line of scrimmage. He showed that on the touchdown run yesterday and has shown it all season long.

However, there will be times when he will be dropped for loss, regardless of whether he runs the plays as its designed or tries to cut back or break outside.

That's just the nature of running the football in the NFL. It happens to Ricky, it happens to Adrian Peterson, and it's going to happen to Ronnie.

And unfortunately, it's happened too much, but not because necessarily because of any deficiency that Ronnie possesses. It's just the result of sub par run blocking.

It happens to Ricky just as much, but for some reason he gets a pass.