Pretend you are the Skins' GM...

Those numbers simply do not match the play by play for the season. Do you have a link? I don't have my notebook on me, but I think I had Torain at 27% or something. I did the comparison to Portis and Keiland Williams, and found that neither was anywhere close to Torain in terms of lost yardage.

I don't care about his YPC when the distribution of runs sucks. Call me when he gets to 5.5. If he's anywhere as consistent as you say, adding a yard per carry should be a breeze. Just break like two long runs and cut out the 4 and 5 yard losses. At that point, he's one of the better RBs in the league.

I think any running back on our roster deserves a shot now that we've seen what Torain can do.

Now that we've seen what Torain can do? Wow.

I stand by my question to you, the self-proclaimed game-film guru...have you watched any Redskins games? Behind arguably the worst O-line in football, Torain made some great runs that were all on his own abilities without much help in front of him.


But it's not like we couldn't have found Jarmon a spot on this team if we really tried. Point is, we weren't going to really try: he was going to get cut. Torain may get the benefit of the doubt because he was a Shanahan acquisition (aka a "good player" in the eyes of the FO) instead of a Cerrato acquisition (not always a good player).


We tried. We also tried with Andre Carter, Rocky McIntosh and every other 4-3 defender who proved that they were not fit for the 3-4.

We can all thank God you're not running the team. ;)

Now that we've seen what Torain can do? Wow.

I stand by my question to you, the self-proclaimed game-film guru...have you watched any Redskins games? Behind arguably the worst O-line in football, Torain made some great runs that were all on his own abilities without much help in front of him.





We tried. We also tried with Andre Carter, Rocky McIntosh and every other 4-3 defender who proved that they were not fit for the 3-4.

We can all thank God you're not running the team. ;)Let's put it this way: if I did not watch a second of Redskins football this upcoming season, I would still understand what happened a lot better than you would. You strike me as the clueless type.

Calling the Redskins O-Line last year "arguably the worst in football" shows a very poor understanding of the world outside of the Redskins. May we all speak so confidently in hyperbole as to hope that no one is actually able to read and comprehend what we are actually saying.

The offensive line has a ways to go, but if it was arguably the worst in football, I don't think you could possibly be excited about it now that four of the five guys are back, and we added Chester.

Actually as it turns out, other teams have bad offensive lines too. Who knew?

Keep in mind, Rabach was here, plus we had a lot of injuries to Trent Williams, Jammal Brown and by the time Torain took over for Portis, we had a patchwork offensive line already, so your "4 out of 5 back" statement is not completely true...those 4 did not play all season and the one we lost actually upgrades the line by removing him. Let me guess, you're a Rabach fan too. :D

I'm not the only person who noticed the Skins line was bad last season:


NFL Stats: by Team Category (http://www.nfl.com/stats/categorystats?archive=false&conference=null&role=TM&offensiveStatisticCategory=OFFENSIVE_LINE&defensiveStatisticCategory=null&season=2010&seasonType=REG&tabSeq=2&qualified=true&Submit=Go)
ACTUAL STATS, ranked 28th overall, yielded 46 QB sacks (5th most) and a LEAGUE-WORST 110 QB hits.

FOOTBALL OUTSIDERS: Innovative Statistics, Intelligent Analysis | 2010 OFFENSIVE LINES (http://www.footballoutsiders.com/stats/ol)
30th in run blocking, 24th in pass blocking

Offensive Line Rankings (http://www.fftoolbox.com/football/article.cfm?article_id=630)
32nd overall

O-line rankings: Talent and depth rare finds - NFL - Yahoo! Sports (http://sports.yahoo.com/nfl/news?slug=jc-olinerankings061810)
29th overall

2010 Offensive Line Rankings - Part 1 | ProFootballFocus.com (http://www.profootballfocus.com/blog/2011/07/12/2010-offensive-line-rankings-part-1/)
28th overall, Run Rank 25th, Pass Rank 28th, Penalties Rank 26th




Again, I don't understand you. You call ME clueless but you're defending the horrible O-line from last season and then degrade Torain's abilties so much that you'd trade him to a division rival for an aging CB?

You better have your house checked for radon.

Keep in mind, Rabach was here, plus we had a lot of injuries to Trent Williams, Jammal Brown and by the time Torain took over for Portis, we had a patchwork offensive line already, so your "4 out of 5 back" statement is not completely true...those 4 did not play all season and the one we lost actually upgrades the line by removing him. Let me guess, you're a Rabach fan too. :D

I'm not the only person who noticed the Skins line was bad last season:


FOOTBALL OUTSIDERS: Innovative Statistics, Intelligent Analysis | 2010 OFFENSIVE LINES (http://www.footballoutsiders.com/stats/ol)
30th in run blocking, 24th in pass blockingLOL. Talk about not being able to read. That says 24th in run blocking and 22nd in pass blocking. Carolina, Arizona, and Chicago were in-arguably worse up front last year, and Pittsburgh was probably not quite as good as we were. After that, if you really hated our OL enough to argue that they were just 28th best in the league, then go for it. Just don't bring your biases into my Torain argument. I don't want them here.

You also managed to grab a before the season ranking of OL in your analysis of 2010 OLs. I could tell you which one it was, but I'm going to be be a jerk and make you go and actually read your own links.

I'm confused. I keep reading the original post and I just don't see where it says let's drag everyone into a "I'm smarter than you" conversation on whose stats do the better job of proving Torain's worth, or lack thereof.

Those numbers simply do not match the play by play for the season. Do you have a link? I don't have my notebook on me, but I think I had Torain at 27% or something. I did the comparison to Portis and Keiland Williams, and found that neither was anywhere close to Torain in terms of lost yardage. Unequivocally, I believe this to be a problem isolated to Torain, not a scheme or offensive line issue.

I don't care about his YPC when the distribution of runs sucks. Call me when he gets to 5.5. If he's anywhere as consistent as you say, adding a yard per carry should be a breeze. Just break like two long runs and cut out the 4 and 5 yard losses. At that point, he's one of the better RBs in the league.

I think any running back on our roster deserves a shot now that we've seen what Torain can do.You may want to check the notebook, the Play-by-Play numbers come from Yahoo's game logs. I reviewed each game for 2010. Portis was 54/227/4.2 with 6 neg runs (11%), KW was 65/261/4.0 with 9 neg runs (13.8%).

While RT's neg run % is slightly higher, his higher YPC justifies the neg runs. Keep in mind last year was RT's first season of action and I expect improvement not only in his performance, but in that of the OL. You can't ignore one stat (YPC) and then rely completely on neg run %. RT isn't Chris Johnson with absurd breakaway speed and long runs of 50+, or Barry Sanders who would get neg runs all the time. RT can be a primary back and in his second year in the system, he'll improve.

Until someone steps up and takes the primary RB role (or RT can't stay healthy) it is RT's to lose.

EDIT: To SS's point.....no way I'd package RT in a trade for A. Samuel.

I'm confused. I keep reading the original post and I just don't see where it says let's drag everyone into a "I'm smarter than you" conversation on whose stats do the better job of proving Torain's worth, or lack thereof.Tell me about it...

I can help you be less confused though: Monkeydad has to keep wildly changing the subject in an attempt to show both his passion for football and his limited grasp on literacy. It's all very amusing to me.

Fight fight fight fight!!!!!!

You may want to check the notebook, the Play-by-Play numbers come from Yahoo's game logs. I reviewed each game for 2010. Portis was 54/227/4.2 with 6 neg runs (11%), KW was 65/261/4.0 with 9 neg runs (13.8%).

While RT's neg run % is slightly higher, his higher YPC justifies the neg runs. Keep in mind last year was RT's first season of action and I expect improvement not only in his performance, but in that of the OL. You can't ignore one stat (YPC) and then rely completely on neg run %. RT isn't Chris Johnson with absurd breakaway speed and long runs of 50+, or Barry Sanders who would get neg runs all the time. RT can be a primary back and in his second year in the system, he'll improve.

Until someone steps up and takes the primary RB role (or RT can't stay healthy) it is RT's to lose.Okay, I probably just have my baselines wildly wrong. I said 3/10 carries lost yards. That was factually incorrect. It was much closer to 2/10.

It doesn't change my argument any: it's still an obscenely high amount compared to the team average. Torain still is nothing if inconsistent from carry to carry and even from quarter to quarter. But it's still a pretty inexcusable error on my part to miss by 10%.

I am not ignoring his high YPC average, I am just pointing out that the distribution of his runs leans heavily towards ineffectiveness. And it's telling to me that a vocal minority has been unwilling to accept that point while most of the people reading this thread are thinking to themselves "yeah, Torain is pretty boom-or-bust from what I remember."

I'm surprised that no one has tried to piggyback on JR's argument that chain moving RBs are valuable. I know you mentioned it, but if I was trying to build the case for Torain as a starting NFL RB, that's where I'd begin.

So much built up labor dispute tension. Season is starting real soon folks! I promise it will be alright.