IDK, you can make an argument that the 2012 version of Ridley was far better than Blount. And that isn't being a homer at all.
I was one of the few Blount supporters from the start of the season, but we are talking about a very small sample size where Blount was a stud. He had two great games and a few more very good ones.
Ridley in 2012 was one of the top RBs in the league that year and had over 1,263 yards and 12 TDs.
And if you are waiting for Ridley to break out, you must have slept through 2012 where he was 7th in the league in rushing yards and third in the league in rushing TDs.
I swear. Ridley has fumbling problems last year and people totally erase his stellar 2012 season from their memories. If he can return to 2012 form, no one will care about Blount.
I didn't sleep through 2012. Ridley was an effective RB in a high-powered pass-first offense. His 4.4 YPC was a full .3 YPC below Blount's career mark, and he got those numbers running behind a good OL against defenses whose primary objective was to stop the pass. Meanwhile, Blount got his numbers in Tampa and on a Pats team where Julian Edelman was the top receiving option. If Ridley was a better RB, then he would be putting up numbers dramatically better (and certainly far more efficient) than Blount's, considering the context.
I like Ridley. As I said, I think that at worse he's an adequate starting RB. But he's never been anywhere close to a top 5 RB. If you think that he was a top 5 RB in 2012, then I'm sorry, but that's pretty much the definition of homerism. Quote his bulk stats all you want, but if you ignore that he compiled those stats as a complementary threat alongside one of the best passing attacks in recent NFL history, then you're coming from an innately biased position. In fact, I would argue that there are at least 10 RBs, probably more, who could have put up superior stats with Ridley's role in that offense.
I'm genuinely curious, though: which two of these guys do you think Ridley was better than in 2012, in order to make him a top 5 RB?: (yards from scrimmage, YPC, rush + rec TDs)
Adrian Peterson: 2314, 6.0, 13
Marshawn Lynch: 1786, 5.0, 12
Arian Foster: 1641, 4.1, 17
Doug Martin: 1926, 4.6, 12
Alfred Morris: 1690, 4.8, 13
CJ Spiller: 1703, 6.0, 8
Ridley: 1314, 4.4, 12
Every one of those guys had at least 300 more yards from scrimmage than Ridley did, all but one had as many or more TDs, and all but one had better YPC. Ridley's yards, YPC, and TDs, without context, ranked him as a fringe top 10 RB. Once you account for context of the offenses that these guys all played in, he's in the mid teens, which would make him an average-ish starter. Hence why I said that he's an adequate starting RB.
And conversely, if you think that Ridley has broken out and is an established, upper-tier NFL RB, then I'd accuse you of sleeping through 2013, and apparently missing the fact that lost four fumbles in 188 touches, got benched multiple times, lost his starting job to Blount, and had 4.3 YPC (decent, but you'd expect better on such a limited workload, and Blount was a full 0.7 YPC better running mostly behind a worse version of the same offense).
