CP not a power back?

[TheTotalPackage]

Portis can run tougher and harder, with more ability than almost any guy in the past decade. size has absolutely nothing to do with being a power back. he delivers as many crushing hits as he receives, and still drags the guys for that extra inch, even if he's already got the first down and more. he is most certainly a power back, he can hang with the greats.

i disagree. while i acknowledge that he does have some of those attributes, those same crushing hits and dragging the guys for the extra inch take more of a toll and fatigue him than the defense. portis was extremely banged up at the end of the season.

another point that i have to make is that clinton portis has sacrificed a lot of his leverage to gain those extra yards. c.p. adapted his style to better suit the offense by leaning farther forward than he did in Denver. the result is that he gains some yards after contact, but a lot of times he could've just shifted or juked and blown past the guy. to fit in a power offense, he had to sacrifice a lot of his shiftiness, and power backs don't necessarily have to do that IMO

[RIDETHEWALRUS]

It seems a lot of people are missing the point here. A power back is a player that almost exclusively runs down hill, requires several guys to touch him to go down, and is a viable goal-line threat.

Portis, while he does have good strength, does not fit this mold. He needs to find seams when runnning between the tackles. While on occassion he will drag players with him, he is often taken down on the first hit. While CP had excellent TD totals in Denver and picked it up here last year, he hasn't been an efficient goal-line threat. The reason Mike Sellars has caught so many TDs is because Gibbs has not been comfortable letting Portis run into the pile when on the goal-line. CP needs space to exhibit his power.

This is very different from power backs such as Alstott and Bettis who run straight at the pile and somehow push a 300lb DT back a foot or so to get a TD.

To those of you who say that size does not matter when determining who is and isn't a power back, YOU ARE WRONG. It is significantly more difficult for CP (at 215 lbs) to run into and knock back a 300 lb DT than it is for Bettis (255 lbs) because of simple physics.

CP may have heart when running the ball, and often times he doesn't show quit, but dragging a 200 lb safety and a 230 lb LB a few yards doesn't make him a power back. It makes him an excellent all around back with good power for his size.

[HoyaSkins28]

hes a power/speed/elusive/gibbs/amazing running back.

[RedskinsSuperBowl21]

He's just a fine running sob. He has it all. There's nothing else to say. He even has a decent arm.

His cousin is Josh Portis a promising young QB who joined the terps workouts this offseason

[Sinclair]

hes a power/speed/elusive/gibbs/amazing running back.

very well put!

[Thinking Skins]

In Denver he wasn't a power back. He had more of a Tatum Bell type style. But he came here and Gibbs said I need a guy who can run up the middle, so Portis said "I'll run up the middle".

I think he's learned pretty well.

[Enter Apotheosis]

In Denver he wasn't a power back. He had more of a Tatum Bell type style. But he came here and Gibbs said I need a guy who can run up the middle, so Portis said "I'll run up the middle".

I think he's learned pretty well.

The "Tatum Bell Style" you speak of is what all Denver backs with a lot of speed do. All Broncos backs are simply instructed to make one cut and GO. What go means depends entirely, of course. For Tatum and Portis it meant to speed off into the sunset, for Anderson and Dayne it means to run over a couple of guys.

Portis' game in Denver had a lot more balance than Bell's has right now. CP has always been capable of running through a tackle and was more consistent from run to run. The reason Shanahan doesn't trust Bell to run every down like he did CP was because Bell is not an every-down kinda guy... he averaged almost 6 ypc most of the season but only because Mike Anderson wore down the defense enough for his speed to be deadly.

Clinton Portis could do it all himself.