If you consider Jones as a younger back then Shonn Greene is miles ahead of him at the same point in his career. "Blah blah blah, Cardinals offensive line. Blah blah blah" /forgets Jets current OLine troubles. EDIT: By the way, I'm all for giving Joe McKnight a shot at carrying the ball. Provided Schottenheimer doesn't think he can send him up the middle on 75% of the first downs.
I'm all for letting McKnight carry the ball more. I'm also all for screens to McKnight and using his skillset. He's shown the ability to make plays on ST, so why not turn him into what everyone wanted - the next LW?
As mentioned the O-line is definitely the major problem, and it's hard for anyone (sans Barry Sanders ) to perform when dodging defenders in your face as soon as you receive the handoff. That being said, the times that he has had a little space he has looked SLOW (or at least slower)...... in the past he has been a slow starter, but has the lack of a full offseason hurt him? Also, someone mentioned "shying from contact". I think it's the opposite. He hasn't shown any jukes to do so, and often tries to just run the guy over (to no avail). Someone should tell him, he is not Brandon Jacobs. That being said, with all the upfront pressure they've been facing, maybe someone with more elusive quickness would be more successful, allowing them to dodge the potential initial contact, opening up room to the reach the 2nd level. When Greene was successful, he had holes to get past the initial pressure and was able to face a secondary with a full head of steam, making him hard to stop.
The line in Greene's rookie year was very good, and probably made Greene look better than he is. The line in this year has been poor, and probably makes Greene look worse than he is. Tomlinson is averaging 3 yards a carry this season, last season it was 4.2. Greene is averaging 3.1 yards a carry this season, last season he was at 4.1 in 2009 Greene averaged 5.1 a carry, Thomas Jones was at 4.2. It's the offensive line. Go ahead and plug McKnight in, and in 4 weeks if the line doesn't get better people will think McKnight is a bust.
People seem to forget what Greene can bring to the table. What kind of skills he has shown in big time games. Yes, we are still waiting to see those things throughout the regular season, but I really think that everything is working against him right now. Not really his fault when he is constantly running into a brick wall. The few times they have ran him on the outside, he seemed to have enough speed to actually net some yards. Otherwise, it always seems like a brick wall is in front of him.
I'm not saying he shies from contact. He takes tackles head on. However, he goes down on first contact, just like TJ. I don't know whether Greene and Jones are in the same class or not. I do know that neither likes to break tackles. I think this is probably mostly right. McKnight's speed isn't going to overcome a lot of the line problems, but it may help a little. I like Greene, and I think he has a place on this team. However, we don't have a DMC or AP who can be your true #1 back. We need a tandem setup, where Greene and someone with a different style compliment each other. LT isn't young enough to be that guy, unfortunately. Though if he were, we wouldn't need Greene. He can get as many yards on the outside as it takes for a LB to catch him. It's not less than LT would, but it's not first down play-making yards either.
I say give McKnight at least a shot. It seems to me he was one of the few guys on Sunday actually making plays (forcing the fumble on the opening kickoff, taking that KO return for a TD, and a few others). If you ask me he's earned his chance. It can't be any worse than what our ground game looks like now. What happened to the Greene from his rookie season where he would steamroll right over defenders for extra yardage? I understand our oline plays a part in our running game, but he just doesn't seem to be running through defenders like he once did.
Now it is. But I wanted atleast 1 win out of the 3 road games we are dealing with now. Hopefully this weekend we can get the 1.
Impressions can be wrong, but it seems like the Jets run up the gut a lot, and with Mangold out that just seems perverse. Greene has shown a burst when given the ball on a pitch. I think McKnight could get a couple of those a game, and he may be able to make a man miss and break off a long run, so I agree with him getting some touches. With 15-play drives looking unlikely with the o-line in its current state, we may need to try to become a big-play offense for a while. McKnight would bring something to the table there.
I think McKnight deserves some carries but I don't blame Greene at all for the poor production. A running game is mainly a product of your O-line and how teams defend you. We have had poor line play and teams always see the jets as a run first team and focus on shutting that down first. I still feel like he is agressive and runs hard. The only thing you don't want in a back is hesitation and I don't see that in Greene. Greene has had no holes to run through not his fault.
FWIW, I thought Greene answered some questions today. He had holes to run through, and he kept running hard, and he made some plays. He needs to keep running like this. New England's front 7 is a total mess right now without Mayo, but he ran hard and broke some more tackles. I said the next 3 weeks were huge for Greene because if he didn't run well, there would be problems. Well, he ran well today.
Between that and your defense of Shotty, it's tough to defend anything you say. But, not gonna say everything you say is wrong but those 2 things, gotta question em.
Greene is a more explosive runner than Jones, but like Jones, he needs holes from the offensive line to be able to make anything happen, or it can be painful to watch.
As I just said in the Cimini thread, 86 yards on 21 carries (4.1 YPC) is good?! People hated that TJ only got 4 YPC but at least he did it every week. Greene did it once and suddenly he's great? It's utterly ridiculous that people think this was some revelatory game for him. 4 yards a carry with Mangold against the league's 13th ranked rush defense is a big deal?
Greene is what he is, a guy that runs hard and loves contact. He's alot like green-Ellis for the Pats. Don't expect big plays, but hard running. For a ball control team he is a good fit. McKnight has speed but I don;t want him touching the ball 25 times a game. They would make a good 1-2 punch though. Greene saw the holes well yesterday and hit them hard. Thats his job and he does it well enough when the line opens a hole. The bigger problems with our offense yesterday were still pass protection, bad throws and worse drops. Untill we can scare team a bit through the air 8 in the box will be the norm.
I'm on the same page with you. I don't dislike Greene, but people need to accept who he is. He's not "feature-back" material, which is how everyone appears to view him. He would be great as a tandem back. My current preference is to give McKnight the opportunity to show whether he can be the other half of that.
