I respect and understand your thoughts on this, however ....
I first became curious about why the Pats didn't pay more for a "better" RB a few years ago, and began digging into ground game effectiveness versus pay rate. Here are some of the things I've discovered:
Over the past eight seasons (2009-2016), beginning with the Maroney/Morris combo:
- "lead" rushers for the Pats have averaged only 15 carries and 60 yards per game
- for six of those years, the Pats' ground game averaged 9th in the NFL in total attempts and 11th in total yards
- for six of those years, the Pats ranked in the top 6 in rushing TDs
- for FOUR of those years, the Pats in the TOP 3 in rushing TDs
So, the Pats' ground game overall has been consistently more than adequate using "underwhelming" RBs at relatively low pay, except for two extremely anomalous seasons: 2014 and 2015.
In 2014, with a rotation of FOUR different RBs each hitting pretty close to the 15/60 mark (and an initially "unsettled" OL), the ground game ranked only 13th in attempts, 18th in yards and 12th in TDs. And yet the Pats still won the SB.
In 2015, with an injury-wracked OL and Bolden (unfortunately) being pressed into late-season duty as the #2 behind Blount, the ground game ranked 25th in attempts, 30th in yards and 11th in TDs.
Of course, such injury "disasters" happen to all teams at one point or another, even to their top RBs (which is why Bolden was pressed into service in 2015, and also why the Ravens turned to Burkhead late last season). However, factoring out the ridiculous number of Pats' injuries in 2015, there's still one glaring difference between the Pats' ground game stats in 2014/15 and the other six seasons. Scar wasn't the OL coach.
IOW, the OL probably makes more difference to rushing success than the RB.
Without trotting out a lot of statistical details, few other notes:
- Four of the top-10 rushing teams made the playoffs in 2016, including the Pats (#7) and ATL (#5).
- Four of the BOTTOM-10 rushing attacks also made the playoffs.
- The rushing yards/game for all of them declined in the playoffs (NE dropped from 117 to 104 in the SB. ATL dropped from 121 to 104.)
- Only 5 of the 12 teams with lead rushers who went over 1000 yards during the regular season made the playoffs (ATL and NE each had one).
- Only 4 of the 22 teams with RBs making over $1.4M APY made the playoffs. Two of those teams were one-and-done. The other two lost their first game.
- ATL and NE spent the least on RBs of all the playoff teams.
IOW, there was very little correlation between high-end lead rushers and regular-season/post-season success. And there was virtually no correlation between RB pay and regular-season/post-season success. And it's been this way for several years.
So, it's not at all the case that the Pats, and the Pats alone, have been "getting away with" anything remarkable. That said, yes, with the cap inflating so rapidly now, it only makes sense that the salaries of Pats RBs would rise a bit. But, clearly, paying more does not cause more success.
-----
One further note with regard to the potential for Burkhead to replace Bolden on ST as well as become the Pats lead RB ...
- Out of the 31 Pats' players who played over 47 total ST snaps in 2016 (3 per game), only ONE non-OL was a regular participant in the offense - Develin (9.4 ST snaps/game, 14th overall on the team).
- This is pretty typical of all NFL teams. Aside from RBs and WRs who might double as returners (very few total ST snaps) or FB's/TE's who may help block on extra points and FGs, virtually no team risks its offensive starters or regular offensive rotational guys with significant ST snaps.
- When Burkhead began seeing significant RB snaps for BAL toward the end of last season, his ST snaps dropped off to near zero. It was the same with Bolden in 2015. In 2016, Bolden returned to having the fourth most snaps per game on ST (18.9).
The point here is that, if Burkhead is signed to be the Pats' lead rusher, he WON'T also be replacing Bolden's ST snaps. It will be only one or the other.
First off, I respect the time you put in to create your post and prove your point.
With that being said, Almost none of those numbers carry any weight, at least in my eyes.
Running back numbers at first glance are very black and white, and very often tell even half of the story. Bringing up top 10 rushing (by teams) and bottom 10 rushing doesn't give the whole story. Look at it this way.
These are the top 10 rushing teams by Yard per game
#1 : Buffalo - Quality running backs, quality line, injury plagued receiving core, and a sub par QB. They ran a lot because that was a strength and they had too.
# 2 Dallas - Balanced team, HIGH quality line, good QB play, and a high elite RB on a rookie contract (yet still had a 4 million cap hit for Zeke) High rushing numbers because it was their strength
# 3 Tennessee - Quality RB cast (most on rookie contracts) Decent QB ( who averaged 23.2 rushing yards a game himself) Quality line, Horrible WR group. They had high numbers because they had to run, and Maroita also contributed to those stellar numbers.
# 4 San Francisco - Horrible QB and horrible WR core. To simps put it, they had high numbers because they didn't have any other choice.
# 5 Atlanta - MVP type QB, 2 solid RB's (on rookie contracts). This balanced team along with good RB's is the reason they are this high.
# 6 Oakland - MVP type QB, Solid Line, decent RB's, high Quality WR core with high quality QB and despite decent at best RB's = better then average rushing numbers.
# 7 Houston - Horrible QB play, decent RB cast. = They were essentially forced to run often
# 8 : Pittsburgh - Quality QB play, Quality O-line, elite WR's and a ELITE RB (on a rookie contract)
Honestly I could explain the next 4 all the way to NE at # 12.
The reason NE ranked almost middle of the pack is because a combination of Sub par Rushers aided by the fact that they have an elite WR group and a MVP QB that gets them ahead in games and doesn't allow teams to stack the box, thus making sub par RB's (i.e Blount)'s jobs easier.
I won't waste my time explaining the teams in the bottom 10, that made the playoffs because 3 of 4 of those teams are lead by elite or borderline elite QB's ( GB, Detroit, Seattle) and the other being the Giants.
If you noticed I used rushing yards, and not scoring numbers, because Scoring numbers are even less of a indicator to RB success. Let me explain why, and dive it to the numbers that truly stick out and tell the story.
Out of all 18 of Blounts TD, only 3 came on plays of more then 10 yards.
Out of those 18 TD's, 12 came when they were leading compared to 2 when they were trailing (granted we were leading in most games) but thats still a HUGE difference.
15 of his 18 TD's game witin opponents 10 yard line, in which 12 of those came from less then their 5 yard line.
In those drives, Blount averaged 3 carries for 10 yards (3.3 ypc) (far below average) This is HUGE
10 of his TD's came in 3+ Tight end sets (receiving losts of blocking help) and 17 of them came on plays where they had zero pre-snap motion (clearly running the ball down their throat, mostly in short to goal yardage situations)
To summarize all those numbers, Blount was FAR from the real reason of his shiny numbers. Its easy to put up shiny numbers when you have a supporting cast that is doing most of the work and making your job much easier, and getting you down the field to score those TD's. A season average YPC of 3.8 (not great) only further proves this.
If I had the time, Im fairly confident I could go back and dissect the past 3-4 seasons, and find similar trends to our rushing numbers.
When you have a Elite QB, and stellar receiving core, it jades rushing statistics greatly. Yes we can get away with doing so, but its not the best approach, and is essentially taking a huge risk. By opening up the check book slightly, we have a lot to gain. Im not saying we need to sign AP, or draft a RB in the 1st, but spending slightly more then we have in the past, gives us a much better security blanket.
As far as Burkhead goes. I don't think you pay him expecting him to come in and play 60-70% of the snaps. You bring him in viewing his upside as a rusher and hope he can play and excel in a rotation taking about 50% of them. Where giving him a 3/7 contracts like I proposed makes sense is, by his ability to be a quality ST player, along with filling in as a depth backup in the slot WR role, TE, and FB, you essentially get a 4th or 5th player in all of those positions, along with a RB who has tremendous upside, and at worse case, a high quality special teamer. If you could add 1 serviceable backup at all of those positions, for less then vet minimum (about 250k a season) wouldn't you do so? Essentially thats what Burkhead offers.
