This is insane. Ridley is the best RB the Pats have had in a long time. Can anyone name another RB who averaged 4.5yds per carry over 555 carries. A guy who runs hard and is decent on the GL and short yardage despite not being a prototypical "big RB".
....And as for the fumbles, all RB's fumble the ball. BJGE has had just ONE fewer fumble than Ridley over the last 2 years. BTW- where is the outrage about Julian Edelman's 5 fumbles in just 36 PR's last season compared with Ridley's 4 in 178 touches. \
BTW- Adrian Peterson has fumbled at LEAST 4 times in SIX of his 8 seasons in the NFL, in fact in 4 of them he fumbled more than 4 times.
Sure we'd like him to do better. People forget that ASmith fumbled 4 times in 2001, but only twice in his next 2 years combined. fumbling is NOT a terminal illness. It is something that you can improve on. But sometimes it "just happens". If he fumbles only twice this season, I'd deem it a success.
We should only criticize a RB for a fumble IF his technique in holding the ball was bad or careless. Imagine if Brady was criticized as much for every pick or fumble he's made over his career. In fact, IIRC, Brady had a serious problem fumbling the ball early in his career. (And upon further review, Brady had 60 fumbles over the first 6 years he was a starter, and only 29 the next 6).
We are so enamored by what is the recent "flavor of the month" we often forget what we have under our noses. With Vareen and Ridley the Pats have 2 very strong and versatile RB's. If one of the rookies can upgrade Bolden I'd be fine with that. If not, I'll be fine with Bolden too.