Courageous, Dumb, or Both?

[KDawg]

Feeling the hit may very well feel physically worse. But the force is the same. Remember, when you hit the "sweet spot" like a baseball bat you may not feel it as much, but the force applied is the same.

[Bang]

Larry Brown's style did lop years off his career, as did the medical techniques and knowledge of the day.

Guys with torn knees like his are given more time, better care, and better rehab to get back to playing strength. Back then they rubbed some dirt on it. In that video, you can see him hobbling off when now they'd have a 10 minute stoppage of play, air casts would be applied, a cart..

As Bill Cosby once said about football.. "PICK YOUR BRAINS UP OFF THE FIELD AND GET BACK OUT THERE!"

That attitude has changed.

There are runners who run as violently who might not suffer the same fate.. Adrian Petersen isn't what I'd call a "finesse" back, and we all know what he just did.

Just an observation on the conversation.

~Bang

[MassSkinsFan]

After watching the Larry Brown clip that Dan T posted, I clicked through a few more. I ended up watching a bunch of Riggo highlights and noticed that his situational awareness seemed really well developed. It looked to me like he would fight when it made sense and just let the play end when it was less important, as opposed to LB who tended to just keep going until he was upended. It's funny because I always thought of Riggo as a punishing runner who never quit, and looking at highlights I see a back who punished people but didn't go overboard unless it really mattered.

 

As for Shanny's yearbook commandment I think it's probably a case of an unenforced platitude that he can fall back on in situations where you should not go out of bounds. I guess I'd have to be on the team to know if he means you can NEVER do that (or you'd face his wrath). But my sense is that it's about the spirit of his RBs and is enforced only on guys he considers soft. Of course that's a guess.

[jcolan1]

Well put in the OP.  This sheds more light on your view than in the other thread where we discussed this.

 

While I still feel many RBs fight through tackles and lower their shoulder in to smaller defenders, I can agree that many will go down to avoid the unnecessary big hit in situations where these is nothing gain or there will be no way to defend themselves (think CB clinging to a guy's ankles, LB about to drop the hammer).

 

As for it being courageous, dumb, or both, I think most people have nailed it when they said it depends on the situation.  In the example above, I would want my RB just to get down (preferrably diving forward), but if he is running a stretch to the outside, and Ngata is running from the inside of the the line towards the sideline, I would expect my RB to gain as many yards as possible before being tackled.

 

'Situational awareness' was a phrase I saw someone drop earlier which seems to descibe what most would agree is the best approach.  I would consider that to include a RB's ability to avoid the big hit not just by getting down or going out of bounds, but doing things such as changing his angle of attack to make what was going to be a big hit now a more pedestrian hit.  Does that make sense?

[Oldfan]

jcolon  Does that make sense?

 

Yep.

 

A fight manager wouldn't tell his boxer never to duck a punch.  He would never say, "Next time, I want to see you pounding his fist with your face!" There are situations like that in football where the RB is going to get hit hard if he doesn't duck. For the RB, maybe there's one or two of situations like that a game.