I don't see anything wrong with Leon being our #1 back, though he needs to build some mass on those legs if he's to stay durable. Barry Sanders and Joe Morris were both little guys (Joe doesn't really belong in the same sentence with Barry but...) but their legs were about the size of Leon's body. He's shown a lot for a rookie, but he definitely needs to get bigger down low. Having tree trunks under his smaller upper body will make a world of difference. Hopefully, he's got a "bigger, stronger, faster" program set up for the offseason. I love the fact that many times it looks like he's down, a la Barry...but he's not. And he's got great horizontal leaping ability (Raiders game). I'd take the risk if we didn't get a marquee rb. But just another average rb over him? No way. And I'd much rather keep him and our first round pick rather than have Michael Turner or anyone else that's being floated around. Of course, I'm also a Noles fan so I'm biased in this case. If he'd played for The U...this might be a different story.
adding muscule to his frame might take away from his ability to be elusive and juke people. i like him as the change of pace back have our main back whose big and could beat up the line and linebackers then throw leon in to take it to the next level on them
Today's training regiments take into account both flexibility and strength. Tiki Barber is a recent example of this. Guys are training for explosiveness as well as pure power. There probably is a point where he might get "too big" but flexibility and agility is certainly growing today. Things like yoga, plyometrics, and pillates have always or are now becoming very popular for athletes to train with. That said, that could take a while to happen and well...how likely is it to happen? Just because Tiki did it doesn't mean every guy with his kind of size will. I liked Leon alot from the minute we drafted him. He's got everything you'd want in a franchise RB except the size. It sucks, but the likeliness of him becoming one is pretty small.
yeah he has been the biggest surprise to me this year one of the better rookies we acquired in a long time. my thing is i dont want to beat him up if he's not ready to take the abuse then we shorten his career. tiki didnt start playing the way he does to the latter part of his career. leon is the real deal i just want him around for years and years to come. also what we lacked this year IMO was that one two punch it was like either this running back is on and this ones not and vice versa. i want it to be where we put the next back in there and he just takes over from where the last one left off. this is wishful thinking but i would want our run O to be in the top 10 this year. if that happened i could see us keeping chad around alot longer because then the teams would have to respect his play action.
Prediction for 2007: With the addition of either a better right tackle or a blocking TE, Leon Washington rushes for 1,300 yards. Yes, he's that good. When he wasn't, it was because, yes, the line was overmatched.
I think we're set at RB this year with Washington and Houston splitting the carries. Without Blaylock/Barlow hogging carries, we'll have a chance to see what we have in terms of backfield talent. If D'Brick and Mangold continue to improve, and our run game still sucks, we know we need to upgrade at RB in 08. It's too early to tell whether or not we need a different RB.
speaking of blocking TE's check this guy out his name is rodney hannah out of houston university runs a 4.55 40 with a 40in leap weighs 255lbs 6'7".5 http://condraft.com/story.php?id=450
I agree that when the line is overpowered, Washington seems to be taken out of the game. Most running backs are though, so this isn't his fault. I'm just not convinced he can break tackles yet. He can sure as hell make people miss, it just seems that if someone get's a hand on him he's done. Basically I just don't want to see the one man show we had with Cmart. Yes, Jordan came in too spell him once in a while, but Cmart was a real workhorse who could lower his had and move a pile a bit. Washington, too me, is not in that same mold. We need a guy that'll make a D-line shit themselves in a goal line situation. A guy that makes defenses die a little bit inside when they see him get the ball. I guy who can break tackles, and wills.
Out of any RB available for the Jets...Bush is by far the most overrated. Tony Hunt is quickly moving up there though.
we still can draft our rb early in the draft this guy is a steal of the draft we get him in the later rounds 5-6-7 somewhere around there
get the burner. make leon our kevin faulk-esque back and our running game will be one to be reckoned with.
The problem with Leon lies in his ability to: a.) grind out the clock at the end of a game and b.) grind out yards in the redzone. Look back at the playoff game and look at how many times we were in the redzone with a chance to score a crucial touchdown. Our running game got us hardly any yards inside the redzone and therefore didn't give Pennington any lanes to throw the ball. The most important part of a football game is captializing inside the redzone. Without a running back that is able to do that, we have no chance of winning.
These things are not leons fault. It's been said 100 times, but first we need better run blocking to a) drive the d-line back and open holes b) force the defense to respect the run. Penny's less than powerful arm doesn't allow him to throw into the tight spots created by the short field in the redzone. You rarely see big throwing lanes in the redzone. c) because no one respects the run, the PA pass that penny is so good at isn't respected or called as much. I'm not saying Leon is a prototype short yardage or goalline back, but the points you made are not because of a shortcoming of his.
Ok, I'll admit that we don't have the best run blocking O-Line but a starting calibar running back should still be able to find some holes and pound out 4 or 5 yards a carry in the redzone. It seemed like Leon wasn't getting the type of push that we need from someone in there. He's fine between the 20's but once you go inside the redzone yards are much harder to come by. If Penningtons arm is so bad for the redzone then why is he one of the top rated passers between the 20's. Entering this season he was 41-0 (TD to Interception) ratio inside the redzone. I believe he threw 2 interceptions this year and I am not positive how many TD's. However, these are excellent statistics and show that he is a top redozone passer. Your last point doesn't make a whole lot of sense. The point of playaction is to run to set up the pass, not vice-versa. When Curtis Martin was behind Pennington he was an excellent playaction passer, and as you mentioned he was proclaimed one of the best in the league. Is it just a coincedence that Leon entered and all of a sudden Pennington isn't as good at it? The playaction pass would be called all the time if Leon was able to get 5 tough yards inside the redzone. That would get the LB's thinking run and creeping up so Pennington could use his accuracy to pick apart the defense on the outside.
I don't really remember him getting a whole lot of redzone carries to be honest. I don't know if you can attribute all or even a lot of his decline in the redzone passing to the lack of a solid running game but there seems to be some correlation. It seems that without the defense respecting that run, he has troubles to me. This could also be attributed to the new offense and rookie offensive coordinator, who knows? My point about his PA passing was just to comment on our troubles in the redzone. I agree that Leon probably isn't the redzone back we need. Neither is anyone on our roster IMO.
hes not a blocking TE. hes a Gates/Gonzalez football convert that someone will have to take a chance on. and his 4.55 is estimated. id like to see him put it up. but i said in the thread he was meantioned take him in the 5th rd and dont look back.
This is a good post... particularly the embolded sentence. We're going to need the back you describe (an up-the-middle back), but not at the expense of replacing the RT first, I'm afraid. But if we can accomplish this (a RT... through F/A perhaps?), then I'd like to see us acquire a changeup RB (changeup to Washington's style), something along the lines of a Brandon Jacobs. A big bastard who comes at you and you just know he's going to punish the hell out of you as you attempt to tackle him. A guy who'll wear you down to the point you have no legs left, and then here comes Washington again to the outside and you just don't have the strength to try to catch him. And as far as Leon goes, the only time he really struggled this year was in the last several games, where we were using him up the middle often and into heavy traffic. Looking back, this was probably because we had no choice. It may have also been because the Defenses wouldn't have been expecting him to be used this way either. But in either event, it's a misuse of Leon's juking and missing talents to be using him in this fashion. He needs a little space to really shine and doesn't do well in tight traffic and I agree that when they get their hands on him, they have him. With a better line, however, he'll look that much better. He's got the speed to get through the small holes before most guys even realize he's gone.
Agree completly. In another thread on this topic I stated I'd rather go into the season with Washington as the featured back if it meant we held on to our fist round pick and used it to try to help out either the O or D-line. If there's a tackle at 25 that justify's the pick then great, but I agree it needs to be addressed one way or the other. Work the lines out and everything else will fall into place.
It's all about time. Tiki and Brian Westbrook needed a couple seasons to build up to become a number one back.
