Quote:...is the lack of an effective running game. Yeldon's statline for the game against the clots looks good... 22 attempts for 105 yards. However, 36 yards came on 1 particular run in overtime. That means if you exclude the outlier, he was 21 for 69 or a hair under 3.3 yards per carry. That's not getting it done and Blake Bortles threw 50 pass attempts this game. For this team, that combination is a recipe for a loss much more often than not. That being said we were still in a position to win the game if we had a decent kicker and we should have still walked away with the win which is what makes this loss so much more painful.

Until this team is able to establish a running game consistently, this will be a familiar theme for the rest of the year. Blake Bortles is not Tom Brady or Peyton Manning. His presence on the field doesn't diminish the importance of the running game like those two Hall of Fame QBs do. I'm not here to assign blame to Yeldon, the O-line or the coaching as I'm sure any subsequent posts will make various cases for or against each of those. But I think it's fairly obvious this is the biggest problem for this team right now.

I agree that the running game needs much improvement, but watch out using average yards per carry as the primary statistic to measure a running back's performance. Most RB's in the NFL pound away in 2 or 3 yard efforts, then have breakaway runs of 20, 30 or more yards, which, obviously, improves their per-yard average.

Adrian Peterson, for example, who leads the league with 372 yards on 75 carries ( 5.0 yes/ carry) has had 3 breakaway runs totaling 118 of those 372 yards. Take those 3 runs away and his average drops to 3.5 for the remaining 72 carries.

If there is a valid criticism of Yeldon, I think it's that he seems to lack the breakaway speed that can turn a 9 yard run into a 45 harder..

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