BB kinda kills the OLine on 'EEI

[Synovia]

Tim Hightower in Arizona could be Maroneys twin- he runs the exact same way and he's in a simular offense, with an O-Line that is built for pass blocking. The thing is he was drafted in the 5th round. And i guess that will always be the problem- he's not worth the pick you used to get him.

Again, completely wrong.

Tim Hightower has a success rate 15% lower than Maroneys. He fumbles 10 times as often (literally). He loses yardage much more often, and has much less succesful runs. He has a career 3.1 YPC.

he's not similar to Maroney in any way.

 

[WelshPat]

I was talking about the style of their running, and have you seen Arizona o-line? No wonder he has so many negative runs. Numbers don't tell the whole story.

 

[BradyFTW!]

So basicly in this thread a few say Maroney is awful and a few others say he is very good. The truth is somewhere in the middle so he's probably just an average back. Was that good use of the early 20th draft pick they used to get him? Probably not.

Off topic a little, but the "the truth must be somewhere in the middle" line of thought is fundamentally flawed logic, and for example gets exploited all the time (by both parties) in political discourse. You also see it in negotiations of all kinds- start off at an extreme position just as a tactic, because you can effectively 'move the middle' by making your actual, rational opinion be the middle ground between your absurd position and a sensible counter-position.

For example, if a few of us collectively agree that the Pats are a very good football team, and a couple of ******ed Jets trolls claim that they're a bunch of overrated whining cheaters who get all the calls from the refs and are otherwise talentless hacks, it's not valid to say that the truth is somewhere in the middle: that the Pats are marginally talented, only somewhat overrated whiners (but not cheaters). If one side starts off from a fundamentally wrong position, then moving the middle will just lead you further off into an incorrect extreme.

 

[Synovia]

I was talking about the style of their running, and have you seen Arizona o-line? No wonder he has so many negative runs. Numbers don't tell the whole story.

He doesn't run similar at all. Hightower has lots of negative runs because hes a bad runningback. Maroney doesn't have lots of negative runs because hes a good one.

Yes, Arizona's line is worse than NE's, but not by enough to say that Hightower is similar to Maroney.

Maroney probably has to deal with a tackler in the backfield about 90% as often as Hightower. The difference? Maroney gets back to the line of scrimmage. Hightower takes a 5 yard loss.

 

[BradyFTW!]

I was talking about the style of their running, and have you seen Arizona o-line? No wonder he has so many negative runs. Numbers don't tell the whole story.

Numbers tell a pretty compelling story in this case. Hightower kinda sucks and Maroney's good. Go by numbers, go by scouting reports- go by whatever you want, the answer's still the same. They're not comparable at all, and Hightower sucks. If the Pats could have him for free I'm not even sure that I'd want him.

 

[WelshPat]

^I guess so. I think it's right in this case though. 700 yards a year is pretty average.

 

[WelshPat]

Sorry guys i gotta disagree on this one. I think 'Zonas O-line is a lot worse than the Patriots one. Maroney is better than Hightower yes but i don't think it's a wide margin. Joseph Addai had an 1000 yard season and i think of him the same as Maroney, average.

 

[BradyFTW!]

^I guess so. I think it's right in this case though. 700 yards a year is pretty average.

That's a whole different debate, because now we're talking about respective roles in an offense: ie, what did we draft Maroney to be? You're looking at bulk stats, which is a pretty crucial (imo) mistake. In this offense, no RB will ever get huge bulk stats. Why? Because of a combination of a) BB's insistence on RB rotations and b) Welker.

The reason why Maroney doesn't get a ton of yards is not because he isn't a terribly effective runner; it's because he doesn't get a ton of carries. Now, we can debate whether that's because of scheme or because Maroney isn't trusted, and if you're arguing the latter point then I guess that still goes back to what you're saying, so my question is- is that what you're arguing? Do you think that Maroney doesn't get a lot of carries because he's not trusted to carry the load, rather than because Belichick doesn't want to put any one RB in that position regardless of trust/talent?

 

[BradyFTW!]

Sorry guys i gotta disagree on this one. I think 'Zonas O-line is a lot worse than the Patriots one. Maroney is better than Hightower yes but i don't think it's a wide margin. Joseph Addai had an 1000 yard season and i think of him the same as Maroney, average.

We get that you disagree, but you still haven't articulated why. Just like you haven't articulated why Hightower is only marginally worse than Maroney. I watched a lot of the Cardinals last year, and Hightower was bad. My eyeballs said it, the stats say it, and the scouting reports all say it. On what grounds are you asserting that he's even a decent RB? (which he would have to be to be at all comparable to even an average RB)

 

[Synovia]

^I guess so. I think it's right in this case though. 700 yards a year is pretty average.

Yards per year is pretty irrelevant.

 

[WelshPat]

My point is that i don't think you got good value for what Maroney with that draft pick. I don't think the guys sucks, as i said i think he's just an average back.

One thing i really disagree with what you posted:

"In this offense, no RB will ever get huge bulk stats"

You don't think Peterson would get huge numbers in this offense?

 

[Synovia]

My point is that i don't think you got good value for what Maroney with that draft pick. I don't think the guys sucks, as i said i think he's just an average back.

And you're wrong on that. He's clearly an above average Back, and pretty much every statistic indicates that.

Honestly, I agree that he wasn't a good value, but thats because I don't think any running back is worth a first round pick.



And no, I don't think Peterson would put up huge numbers in the Pat's offense. Bellichick wouldn't let him on the field because he'd get Brady sacked too often. He's an atrocious pass blocker.

 

[WelshPat]

"I watched a lot of the Cardinals last year, and Hightower was bad. My eyeballs said it, the stats say it,"

Yes, and i've seen Maroney have games where he was bad. It may have been injury, i don't know. I just can't call a back thats never had over 700 yards a "good" back, unless he was like, a 3rd down back.

 

[WelshPat]

"And no, I don't think Peterson would put up huge numbers in the Pat's offense. Bellichick wouldn't let him on the field because he'd get Brady sacked too often. He's an atrocious pass blocker."

He would get 20-25 carries a game and get a 100 yards most of time. And no Rb worth a 1st round pick? Wow.

 

[BradyFTW!]

My point is that i don't think you got good value for what Maroney with that draft pick. I don't think the guys sucks, as i said i think he's just an average back.

One thing i really disagree with what you posted:

"In this offense, no RB will ever get huge bulk stats"

You don't think Peterson would get huge numbers in this offense?

I don't think he'd get even 2/3rds of the way to the 363 carries that he logged for the Vikings last year, so no, his bulk stats wouldn't be huge. Both because an offense led by Tom Brady will never run as much as an offense "led" by Tavaris Jackson and Gus Frerotte and also because Belichick understands that running your talented young RBs 350+ times per year = JAG by the time he's 28 (see: LaDainian Tomlinson, Larry Johnson).

On a per-carry basis, Peterson would probably be as effective here as in Minnesota, more or less. Their line run-blocks much better than ours, but defenses wouldn't be able to stack the box with Brady at QB and Moss at WR. His bulk stats would undoubtedly shrink (say 1100 or 1200 yards instead of 1750), though. They'd be better than Maroney's, since he's obviously better than Maroney, but wouldn't be anywhere near where they are in Minnesota, where he's being overused by a stupid coach.

 

[BradyFTW!]

"I watched a lot of the Cardinals last year, and Hightower was bad. My eyeballs said it, the stats say it,"

Yes, and i've seen Maroney have games where he was bad. It may have been injury, i don't know. I just can't call a back thats never had over 700 yards a "good" back, unless he was like, a 3rd down back.

Maroney has had bad games, sure. Every RB on the planet has had bad games. That's not the same as being a bad RB, which Hightower is. Hightower's average game IS a bad game, because he sucks. If your method of evaluating a RB begins and ends with total yards, then sure, I can see why Maroney's a tough one for you. The rest of us prefer to dig a little deeper though.

If you think that Peterson would get 25 carries per game for the Pats, though, then I dunno what to tell you. I can say with confidence that he wouldn't, and could give you a number of reasons why, but even if I was wrong it still wouldn't say much, since nobody's trying to claim that Maroney's even in Peterson's ballpark.

 

[spacecrime]

I think therein lies the issue for many of us fans. If Maroney was a third or fourth round pick - he would be considered decent and a good value. However, he is a first round pick and expectations are high. He has not met, nor will he meet, the expectations that people have for a first round pick.

This is about as dumb a comment as I've seen.

Where a player was drafted is irrelevant once the season starts. Value only counts the day you get the guy, and ends that evening.

Right now is value is what he can provide to the team THIS SUNDAY compared to what someone else can provide THIS SUNDAY. If you want to figure money into it, Maroney's value skyrockets as his salary is rookie minimum.

If player X is better than player Y then he is better. Period. It doesn't matter that player Y is almost as productive but was drafted way later. Oh yeah, great. So he gains .9 yards on fourth and one, but so what - he was undrafted. .9 yards is great for an UDFA.

Forget draft selection spot.

If Maroney, Morris and BJGE were all free agents, and you could sign one to a one-year deal for the same $$, then Maroney is the guy you want.

To say Maroney's 4.1 ypc isn't as good as Morris's 3.5 ypc because Maroney was drafted higher is truly dumb.

Who cares where a guy was drafted. How many yards can he bang out this Sunday?

That is all that matters.

Is this what all you Maroney bashers are hung up on? The fact that he was a first round pick? And that if he was an UDFA you all would be fine with him?

Geez, if the is a bigger bunch of maroons in the NFL universe, I'd be surprised.

 

[BradyFTW!]

Honestly, I agree that he wasn't a good value, but thats because I don't think any running back is worth a first round pick.

100% agree. Short learning curve + short shelf life + abundance of talent = not a whole lot of value. Not to say that they never pan out to be worth it, but I would always invest my first rounders in scarcer commodities that take more time to cultivate.

 

[Synovia]

Yes, and i've seen Maroney have games where he was bad. It may have been injury, i don't know. I just can't call a back thats never had over 700 yards a "good" back, unless he was like, a 3rd down back.

Why does yards in a year matter? Why does it keep coming back to this?


For one, Maroney has had more than 700 yards rushing, and more than 900 yards total offense every season where he hasn't been IR'd in the first month.

Second, his lack of total yards is a factor of getting hurt often, not a factor of not being good.

 

[WelshPat]

I think Petersons carries would go down but his average would go up. And in 2005, the Edge got 360 carries for the Colts in what is a pass first offense so yes, i think 20-25 carries a game would be realistic.

And on the Hightower thing, I'l put it like this, I think if Maroney was in 'Zona, his stats would be pretty simular to Hightowers. You are going to disagree which is fine, we'll never find out the answer.