humpback said:
JFS171 said:
humpback said:
zftcg said:
I think this is a classic stay-away situation until we have some clarity (of course, that's easy for me to say since I own both Vereen and Bolden). The fact that people are talking up four different people suggests that no one really has any idea. And it's entirely possible that, even after tonight's game, we still won't have clarity.
I'd say it's likely that we still won't have much clarity after tonight's game. We may get some clarity on who is going to fill which role, but then you still have to guess which role is going to be featured each week.
That's a good point - in seasons past we've definitely seen the Pats gameplan with the backfield when all were healthy. Bolden's a better receiver than Ridley was, so perhaps he can carve out a little more consistency from that perspective.
As far as this year, Ridley averaged 15.7 carries per game (a number that includes his 10 from last week when he missed 4 minutes of the 3rd and the entirety of the 4th quarter and also includes a miniscule 5 carries when the Pats got shellacked by the Chiefs and were down BIG early).
16 carries a game is enough to be productive in an offense that strong. Certainly there's risk of gameplanning going away from the "big" back, but it seems to be more consistent this year than in years past.
I agree that 16 carries a game would be enough, but it isn't consistent. Ridley had 8, 25, 19, 5, 27, then 10. Not all of that is just on the Pats toying with us, obviously game situation will play a big part as well, but that's the problem with RBs with such defined roles.
That's why I said AVERAGE. His 5 carry game was explainable IMO - they got utterly smoked out of the gate.
Last week he had 10 before his injury. Bolden got 7 carries (by the
play-by-play on ESPN); 6 by the stat sheet (which doesn't make any sense) and a 7/8th carry was called back due to a false start on LaFell. Thus, last week, the Pats gave the "big back" at least 16 carries and wanted to give as many as 18 attempts.
Again, it's on average... but if they're not getting smoked out of the gate like week 4 vs. the Chiefs, there's a clear role for a big back. Take away that game (randomness happens) and even with week 1 where they let the Dolphins come back and watched Brady throw it 56(!) times, the big back role is
averaging 19 per week. Including week 1 it's still
averaging 16.7 per week.
IMO it's enough to be productive if one guy has it. If it's split up, then all bets are off.