RB Shonn Greene doesn't plan on changing his battering style anytime soon » By Manish Mehta Shonn Greene shot me that I-know-you-didn’t-say-what-I-thought-you-said look when I broached the topic about tweaking his running style to better preserve his body. The Jets have a stingy defense and a promising young quarterback, but Greene is likely the most irreplaceable piece to its championship puzzle. For a run-heavy team with Super Bowl aspirations, it’s imperative that the bruising second-year running back stays healthy. So, I proposed a few hypothetical scenarios designed to avoid contact and keep Greene on the field for the duration of the season. Each of my suggestions was summarily dismissed. “We don’t run out of bounds,” Greene told me. “I’ve been taught that all my life…. I don’t think that’s going to help the way I play by doing that. If I just go out and do what I do, everything else will take care of itself.” “That’s what I do,” he added. “I play the game of football. You can’t worry, ‘Oh, what if I do this? What if I run out of bounds?’ No, that’s not the game of football to me. Football is a hard-nosed game.” The mere mention of avoiding contact may be blasphemous to Greene, but it’s no secret that the Jets middling offense from a year ago will lean on him with Thomas Jones out of the picture now. Don’t be fooled by the myriad pass catching options like Braylon Edwards, Santonio Holmes, Dustin Keller, Jerricho Cotchery and LaDainian Tomlinson. At the core, the Jets are still a run-first team. “When it comes down to it, everybody knows the New York Jets are a ground and pound football team,” Greene said. “That’s what Coach (Rex Ryan) always talks about. We got all these pretty guys on the outside now that can help us. But when it gets down to it, we are a running team.” So, it’s crucial that Greene remains on the field after getting nicked up with rib and ankle injuries during his rookie season. To be fair, Greene’s battering running style had nothing to do with the ankle injury suffered during training camp -- he hurt it during a pass protection drill -- but his hard-charging ways could be cause for concern. “You have to teach him when to avoid, when to go down and when not to take on three people just so he can get through a season,” running backs coach Anthony Lynn told me. “That’s an education process.” In many ways, Lynn wants to tread lightly to ensure that Greene doesn’t sacrifice his aggressive style for the sake of preserving himself. “He hasn’t changed very much at all,” Lynn said. “I like his style. I don’t want him to change very much at all. He’s going to take some shots, but he also gave a lot of shots. So, I like that attitude he has running the football. He has great body lean -- the guy’s always falling forward for extra yards. But there are a couple times when you have to take a guy on the edge and maybe not so much down the middle because I do want to get him through 16 games.” Lynn admitted he won’t belabor the point. “You just make him aware of it,” Lynn said. “As guys play and run in this league, they get wiser and more aware. It’s something that they learn over time.” Greene’s value to the team was evident by the end of his rookie season. Consider the statistical breakdown: Greene touched the ball just 10.5 percent of the time during the regular season before tripling his involvement (30.8 percent of the team's total offensive plays) in the Jets’ three playoff games. That postseason percentage would have been even higher if he didn’t suffer a rib injury on the first drive of the second half during the AFC Championship game. Greene played 55 percent of the snaps in the wildcard game against the Bengals and 52 percent in the divisional playoff win against the Chargers, according to ProFootballFocus.com. During the regular season, Greene’s highest participation was 40 percent during the Week 16 win at Indianapolis. In fact, there were only five regular season games in which Greene played at least 20 percent of the snaps. He played in 81 snaps in 10 postseason quarters (2 ½ games) after just 132 snaps in 14 regular-season games. (He only touched the ball in 13 regular-season games). There were also few surprises with Greene last season. When he was in the game (regular season and postseason), he touched the ball 65.6 percent of the time. Reduced to simplest terms, Greene needs to stay healthy for the Jets to reach its lofty expectations. To that end, LaDainian Tomlinson plans to give Greene some sagely advice in the near future. “That takes time,” Tomlinson told me. “He’s a young guy. That stuff happens with experience as he sees how things are going with his body. You always make sure you pass along knowledge to a guy like Shonn. Sometimes if you don’t have another guy, you do learn on your own. But that’s what I’m here for… to talk to him about things like that.” Maybe so, but will Greene heed his advice? The Jets’ Super Bowl hopes may depend on it. NOTE: Greene's weight is a non-issue as far as the coaching staff is concerned. He gained 11 pounds after the season, but has come back down to 233 pounds. He was 232 during last year's playoffs. Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/blogs/jets/2010/07/rb-shonn-greene-doesnt-plan-on.html#ixzz0sytqmSOv
I love Shonn's style. It's so good to see after TJ's weak style of running. He fights for every yard, just like Cole used to.
I;d still really like to see him paired with another young beast, maybe one who can catch the ball, maybe one on the outs in Buffalo.
Great article by Manish. Greene's a beast, I couldn't imagine him running any other way. Although hopefully LT teaches him a few things as well.
Ball security for one, I know it got better. For the first few games I'm still going to cringe a bit if we are deep in our own territory. I know LT trains his ass of too, so hopefully he can add some more muscle.
This is why I hope Conner really develops the way I think he will. I keep hearing the talking heads saying how LT will be used for goal-line. Screw that. Put the Big Greene Machine behind the Terminator lead-blocking and you got a 500 pound pain train coming at you.
We all know that we need Greene healthy to make a run at the SB. It was a good article because we now have Shonn's perspective on weather he thinks changing his style to try to preserve himself would be part of the plan for this year. I hate it when players try to change style and become something they are not. This is good work by the writer and I really liked Shonn's answers
I think Brandon Jacobs fell off because he thought he needed to change his running style. I don't want to see Greene get hurt, so hopefully he can learn a couple things that will help him stay healthy, but I definitely hope he doesn't lose his punishing running style... especially between the tackles.
I dont know...I like the aggressive style but I dont want to see any of these guys all fucked up before they're 50. Shit...have you ever seen any interviews with Earl Campbell? That poor bastard cant even walk up his own stairs. I know part of it was the amount of carries he had but he was also a guy who tried to truck everyone. I also think these guys have to know when the play is over. If its 2nd and 3 and you pop off a 5 yard run dont try to bust through 3 defensive players once they wrap you up...save yourself and the ball.
That's why they make the millions of dollars though. I do feel bad for the old timers, the league really should take better care of the guys that paved the way for the NFL to be the top American sport.
I guess that's part of what Lynn is saying about learning with experience, exactly that sort of scenario where game sense acquired over time tells you that you made the yards and you don't need to risk your game on gaining two more.
I think I just jizzed my pants a little. Can't wait to see him runing people over for a full season with Connor as lead blocker. That is goign to be painful to even watch.
I'd feel a lot better about Shonn Greene's mindset if he hadn't pull himself out of the most important football game of his life because of a bruise. Inflicting and playing through pain? That's football. Taking unnecessary hits just for the principle of it? That's masochism.
^^^^^^^^ JCotch, totally on board. Except (respectfully), I didn't think he pulled an "Abraham" .. Loved the kid's moxie on that muddy field as an Iowa Hawkeye vs. Penn St. (single-handedly beat up the Nitney Lions even if the kicker got the credit for his 31-yarder-extra-point-game-winner), but we DO need his battering ram style come down the stretch. Addressing your "pull himself out of the most important football game" argument....let's hope S. Greene's not going to pull a John "I got an upset tummy-vs-raiders-playoff-game Abraham tampon-fest of a no-show come (playoff) crunch time. IMHO, Greene's got more "team-oriented-'sack'" than that. And to that end, I feel good about his "team" moxie. I only hope he's able to withstand the regular season so as to deliver his "blast" style come the post-season.
