I see it repeated ad nauseam on top fantasy football sites; seemingly every guru with an opinion and a digital soapbox offers the same advice: stay away from the NFL’s Mike Shanahan and his stable of rotating rushers. They all cite the fact that it’s difficult to predict which guy will get the most touches out of the Washington Redskins backfield from week to week.
In truth, the talking heads are right. Shanahan is to NFL running backs what Tony LaRussa is to major league relievers. You just don’t know where he’s going sometimes.
But for the Redskins, a running back rotation is the only way to go. This year and beyond.
Fantasy guy, turn away now. The rest of this article will offend…maybe even hurt. If hearing that Shanahan’s anti-fantasy ways are taking root elsewhere burns the ears, then you just can’t handle the truth. Heck, the fantasy football geek inside me can barely handle it. But the other half, the part that craves winning football and big shiny trophies, real ones, not the digital kind, knows it needs to be said. Mike Shanahan has it right.
In an era where players are less healthy, feel more entitled, and more games are won or lost in the film room than ever before, a running back by committee is the smart way to go.
“Blasphemy,” cries the wily fantasy vet who started Ryan Torain in Week 8, fresh off a bye week and seemingly the Redskins’ feature back. “Shanahan is the devil!”
Sorry folks…it’s not true. The man is smart. And he’s not alone.
Back in the old days – you know, the 80’s, 90’s, and 00’s – almost every team had a feature back, a change of pace guy, and that’s about it. The main rusher usually carried the load by at least a 3:1 ratio, usually more.
These days, many successful teams follow the Shanahan principle of rotating carries on a more even basis.
The Carolina Panthers , Green Bay Packers , Dallas Cowboys , Houston Texans , Indianapolis Colts , Kansas City Chiefs , Miami Dolphins , New England Patriots , and New Orleans Saints all employ backfield “time shares” with several of them having three players spending extensive time at the lead back position this year.
Each system has generated a productive ground attack in 2011, at least on a per carry basis. All, with the possible exception of New England, have known injury risks that they’re trying to keep healthy. The Patriots rotation may actually be the closest thing to what Washington does. Theirs is more of a game-day tactic than a risk aversion plan, though a bit of that silly “stay healthy” stuff is surely built into the thought process.
Don’t each of those teams have a feature back, you ask? Well yes, it’s certainly hard to argue that Torain, James Starks, Arian Foster, and BenJarvis Green-Ellis have not been the most productive of the players they share the load with. So why split time?
The most obvious reasons are to keep them fresh and reduce the possibility of injuries. Fewer plays equals fewer hits, thus less stress on the body. A secondary benefit to the injury slant is that should a key runner go down, his stand-ins, having more game experience than they might have had on the same team ten years ago, have less of a learning curve to overcome.
NFL offenses are very complex, even for a running back. Many potential stars don’t see the field because they can’t pick up a blitz. Guys that play, even if it’s just a few snaps a game, have an advantage over guys that don’t. They know the offense. Maybe they’ve only run plays that were designed specifically for them but at least they have their game legs under them and can hit the ground…well, running.
The committee approach also promotes internal competition. At the pro level, talent gaps are not as wide as we often believe them to be and sometimes what separates players of such incredible skill is desire. Why has Fred Jackson survived years of being pushed to the offseason sub-conscience of every Bills coach, emerging in 2011 as an elite dual-threat after fending off the likes of Marshawn Lynch and C.J. Spiller, recent top picks who were handed the starting job before completing a pro practice? Simple…they weren’t that much better than him to begin with. The guy that wanted it more stole the job.
But the biggest benefit? Shanahan and other coaches like him do far more than keep fantasy guys guessing. It’s all about slowing down the next opponent and if they don’t know for sure who they’ll see back there, they have little choice but to game-plan for multi-back scenarios. Maybe too many. One can hope.
Teams don’t get to spend much time in pads during the week these days, so every second lost planning to defend a rushing style or a set of plays designed for a specific runner is time lost working on how to shut down the other guys that might carry the load on any given series. Unique combinations like Green-Ellis, Stevan Ridley and Danny Woodhead, each with a different size, skill-set and running style, create big-time mismatches.
Those things considered, Washington’s backfield talent and Shanahan’s approach seem to be a perfect fit. And since it’s worked for him in the past and now works for some pretty successful NFL coaches, I’m inclined to believe that over the course of a long season, the rotation is the best way to go. Especially with Tim Hightower lost for the year. How valuable are Roy Helu’s 36 touches out of the third string slot now?
So fantasy guy, go get your stud back somewhere else. Then you can relax and give the old coach a break. At least Shanny never told a guy to go in the game and he didn’t hear him. He’s at least got that over LaRussa.