Idle thoughts - the differential edition

Rob0729 said:

How many of his carries were in the last drive against a lot of back ups? This is what I am saying. He got 30 of his yards in garbage time when the Dolphins packed it in on the final drive. This is the same thing about people going overboard when Garoppolo came in during garbage time vs. the Chiefs and had a 147.9 QB rating on seven passes (he completed 6 of them for 70 yards and a TD) and people were talking about trading Brady and starting Jimmy G next year.

Gray did some really good things on Sunday, but only on a handful of plays. I will judge him like I did Jimmy G in garbage time, it is a promising sign that he can perform well against the back ups but it doesn't mean he is ready to start.

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You just love making excuses.. You are sounding like Deus now.
What you don't get is that most people aren't going overboard on Gray. Most people are saying that the offense has consistently done better in the running game with him in there. That's all. You have blown that up into some ridiculousness.

BTW, Miami still had their front 7 starters in at the end of the game. Not sure why you claim that it was back-ups unless you are holding it against Gray that Miami has had 4 of their top LBers out..

robertweathers said:

It will be interesting to see how Murray does after his hand surgery. Obviously breaking a bone in the hand is not a good injury for a RB to have.

Funny- their top pass rusher is Jeremy Mincey. Hes carved out a nice career for himself.

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As has Sterling Moore, starting 7 games for them at CB.....

Patsfanin Philly said:

As has Sterling Moore, starting 7 games for them at CB.....

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I saw that! Hes done ok for them.

He'll always conjure up good memories with the time he was here.

DaBruinz said:

You just love making excuses.. You are sounding like Deus now.
What you don't get is that most people aren't going overboard on Gray. Most people are saying that the offense has consistently done better in the running game with him in there. That's all. You have blown that up into some ridiculousness.

BTW, Miami still had their front 7 starters in at the end of the game. Not sure why you claim that it was back-ups unless you are holding it against Gray that Miami has had 4 of their top LBers out..

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Consistently done better? He ran a lot in the Chicago game (mostly in garbage time) and got yards (17 carries for 86 yards although he did run better early in the game than later in the game). He ran slightly less in the Denver game (again mostly in garbage time) and got 33 yards on 12 carries. He exploded in the Colts' game. But other than that, he has never carried more than 3 times in a game. We are talking four games where he carried the rock over 10 times and in three a large portion of his carries were in garbage time.

And Miami did not have their front seven at the end of the game. Wake was out and Shelby was in for him. The LBs were the same because they had 4 LBs inactive including two starters. But even if all the starters were in, do you really think they were going full force down 28 points with a little more than 2 minutes left in the game when the drive started?

Again, I don't think the Pats should bench Gray. I think he should be in the mix. I just don't get all the people saying he should be the lead back and killing the Pats for not giving him a lionshare of the carries. People point to his YPC as why they should have him start over Blount but fail to mention that Blount had 6.5 YPC vs. Detriot (12 carries for 78 yards) and 5.8 YPC vs. GB (10 for 58 yards). He only struggled to get big YPC vs. San Diego (where we have no idea if Gray would have been more effective) and Miami.

Rob0729 said:

He ran a lot in the Chicago game (mostly in garbage time)

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Mostly in garbage time? He ran on three of NE's first four plays and had nine carries before the end of the first quarter.

According to footballoutsiders, Gray's game this past weekend was the 5th most impressive by any RB in the entire league in week 15, which takes into account defense faced and situation (down/distance, score, etc.). This may say more about the quality of rushers this past week than anything, but it also puts to rest any dispute as to how meaningful Jonas' carries were.

Rob0729 said:

People point to his YPC as why they should have him start over Blount but fail to mention that Blount had 6.5 YPC vs. Detriot (12 carries for 78 yards) and 5.8 YPC vs. GB (10 for 58 yards). He only struggled to get big YPC vs. San Diego (where we have no idea if Gray would have been more effective) and Miami.

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This misrepresents of the case for Gray. It isn't about ypc at all, its about consistency and running style, both of which he has in spades over every other RB on the team at the moment... by a country mile. Blount is outstanding in the open field, but plodding behind the LOS. Vereen is just a mess toting the ball right now.

No one thinks Gray is the second coming of Curtis Martin, but he is the best runner on the team right now.

Oswlek said:

This is a blatant misrepresentation of the case for Gray. It isn't about ypc at all, its about consistency and running style, both of which he has in spades over every other RB on the team at the moment... by a country mile.

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The running style is what's impressed me most so far.

Oswlek said:

Mostly in garbage time? He ran on three of NE's first four plays and had nine carries before the end of the first quarter.

According to footballoutsiders, Gray's game this past weekend was the 5th most impressive by any RB in the entire league in week 15, which takes into account defense faced and situation (down/distance, score, etc.). This may say more about the quality of rushers this past week than anything, but it also puts to rest any dispute as to how meaningful Jonas' carries were.

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Ok, about half in garbage time. He had 5 carries for about 30 yards in garbage time.

Rob0729 said:

Ok, about half in garbage time. He had 5 carries for about 30 yards in garbage time.

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I'm totally befuddled as to what this means. Don't RBs on good teams get plenty of garbage time carries? How many of Blount's rushes against Detroit were in a tight contest?

He has very good feet, he cuts and picks up his feet to avoid tacklers...very nifty. Blount isn't nifty at all, he's a plowhorse who gets stuck behind the line much of the time.

Oswlek said:

This misrepresents of the case for Gray. It isn't about ypc at all, its about consistency and running style, both of which he has in spades over every other RB on the team at the moment... by a country mile. Blount is outstanding in the open field, but plodding behind the LOS. Vereen is just a mess toting the ball right now.

No one thinks Gray is the second coming of Curtis Martin, but he is the best runner on the team right now.

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I agree that Gray hits the hole fast which is good in some situations.

Blount isn't plodding behind the line, but his style is a big back running like a smaller shifty back. But he is deceptively fast.

I think the biggest problem in the first half last week was that they were using all their RBs in one back sets when they needed a lead blocker out of the backfield. When they started that, the running game got better.

Oswlek said:

I'm totally befuddled as to what this means. Don't RBs on good teams get plenty of garbage time carries? How many of Blount's rushes against Detroit were in a tight contest?

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Personally, I have a had time judging a a back as a lead back when he doesn't carry the ball at least 15-20 times a game. But when you carry it 11 times and five of them are in garbage time, it is really hard to judge.

Everyone points to the YPC, but unless the Pats run any of the backs at least 15-20 times a game, those numbers can be misleading to judge any of them as lead backs. When you run the ball as little as the Pats have recently, RBs numbers can be skewed.

Even if you count the garbage time carries, Gray had as many carries as most team's 3rd down/change of pace back. If the Pats committed to the run and ran him 15-25 times when the game matters, his production could be very different.

The guy shows promise, but I am not convinced that a lot of people in the game day thread was right that they should have pounded the rock with Gray for most of the game. If they did, he might have done far differently than the handful of plays he played.

Rob0729 said:

Blount isn't plodding behind the line, but his style is a big back running like a smaller shifty back. But he is deceptively fast.

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If you don't think Blount is plodding behind the line then we aren't going to reconcile any disagreement.

Gray to me is a bigger version of BJGE. He's going to give you positive yardage and knock some people down but he's never going to break a big one. I'm not saying that in a negative manner.

Oswlek said:

If you don't think Blount is plodding behind the line then we aren't going to reconcile any disagreement.

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He doesn't hit the hole decisively like Gray does. But I wouldn't say plodding. It isn't like he is slow to get to the line. Plodding is more like a Brandon Bolden who is slow to the line. Blount gets to the line quickly and then will try to cut to make a bigger play when at times he should just hit hole or he might decide to juke before he gets to the line when he should just run forward. That isn't plodding.

Blount is a small shifty RB in a big bruiser body. It allows him to make big plays, but it also makes him have bad plays too. But he is anything but plodding.

Rob0729 said:

Personally, I have a had time judging a a back as a lead back when he doesn't carry the ball at least 15-20 times a game. But when you carry it 11 times and five of them are in garbage time, it is really hard to judge.

Everyone points to the YPC, but unless the Pats run any of the backs at least 15-20 times a game, those numbers can be misleading to judge any of them as lead backs. When you run the ball as little as the Pats have recently, RBs numbers can be skewed.

Even if you count the garbage time carries, Gray had as many carries as most team's 3rd down/change of pace back. If the Pats committed to the run and ran him 15-25 times when the game matters, his production could be very different.

The guy shows promise, but I am not convinced that a lot of people in the game day thread was right that they should have pounded the rock with Gray for most of the game. If they did, he might have done far differently than the handful of plays he played.

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You are still misrepresenting the case most people make for Gray. I don't know of a single person who thinks he should get the ball all game, just that maybe more than 1 would be appropriate... or perhaps a handful before halftime?

YPC is misleading with Blount, less so with Gray because he is so consistent. The only case that can be made that Gray's numbers of inflated (which is what you really mean by "misleading") is the heavy workload against Indy.

The problem is that Jonas has looked the same as he did against Indy in nearly every opportunity all season. It's not like you can play the Bolden game where one game skews the numbers, Gray's YPC is pretty much the same with and without the Indy game.... and more importantly, he's flashed the same ability. Even against Green Bay, where he only had a single carry, it was evident that he had something that Blount didn't.

At this point, small sample size isn't really an acceptable rebuttal to Gray's performance. He's been substantially better than Blount - more explosive, better reading his blocks, more violent in the hole and nearly so against DBs. The primary negative that could be exposed with more playing time is ball security, which is obviously a big one. I've heard from people who know more than I that Gray has some potential issues with how he carries the ball, so it is something to look at moving forward.

everlong said:

Gray to me is a bigger version of BJGE. He's going to give you positive yardage and knock some people down but he's never going to break a big one. I'm not saying that in a negative manner.

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Gray is quicker and far more violent than Benny ever was.

Oswlek said:

You are still misrepresenting the case most people make for Gray. I don't know of a single person who thinks he should get the ball all game, just that maybe more than 1 would be appropriate... or perhaps a handful before halftime?

YPC is misleading with Blount, less so with Gray because he is so consistent. The only case that can be made that Gray's numbers of inflated (which is what you really mean by "misleading") is the heavy workload against Indy.

The problem is that Jonas has looked the same as he did against Indy in nearly every opportunity all season. It's not like you can play the Bolden game where one game skews the numbers, Gray's YPC is pretty much the same with and without the Indy game.... and more importantly, he's flashed the same ability. Even against Green Bay, where he only had a single carry, it was evident that he had something that Blount didn't.

At this point, small sample size isn't really an acceptable rebuttal to Gray's performance. He's been substantially better than Blount - more explosive, better reading his blocks, more violent in the hole and nearly so against DBs. The primary negative that could be exposed with more playing time is ball security, which is obviously a big one. I've heard from people who know more than I that Gray has some potential issues with how he carries the ball, so it is something to look at moving forward.

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So when Gray had 2.3 yards per carry vs. Denver that is indicative of him? You are talking about a guy with 83 career rushes. We cannot make definitive statements about him.

And saying the sample size isn't a good argument, Laurence Maroney says hello. Look at his production his rookie season vs. the rest of his career. Funny, the PFW guys are making the same argument right now on PFW in progress.

And we can make a definite statement about Gray in one rush in the Packers' game?

Oswlek said:

Gray is quicker and far more violent than Benny ever was.

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Given their mass difference I'd say the violence was proportion to their size. I don't think he's any quicker. I like law firm and want them to use Gray more so I don't want to get into a debate of splitting hairs. If you think he's slightly faster I'm fine with that.

Oswlek said:

Gray is quicker and far more violent than Benny ever was.

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I will agree with that. But that doesn't mean he is good enough to take the role that BJGE had her his last year. BJGE almost never made a negative play. Almost always got positive yards. I don't know if Gray can do that.