CB did us good

Well...

White has a 4.2 ypc over his carries and Henry has a 4.4. Normally I'm more skeptical of a ypc for a back when he has so few carries because on big run on a 3rd and forever can really skew his stats. However, White rarely (if ever) runs on 3rd and long so his ypc is pretty indicative of his running against regular defenses. Furthermore, if you take out the stats for his 2 games in which he got only a single carry, his ypc is over 4.3. Pretty close to Henry's.

If you look at the games when we have the new OL (and don't count the game he had one carry), he had avg's of 4.3 (9 carries) vs Dallas, 6.0 and 8.8 ypc (on a combined 12 carries) vs IND, a 5.0 (7 carries) vs Houston, 3.6 (7 carries) vs the Jags, and a 2.1 (carries) vs Philly. We can see that against 2 top 5 run D's (Dallas and the Jags), he outperformed their avg ypc given up. He gashed Indy as expected but also surpassed their avg (5.4) by a wide margin. Although Houston's run D is in the bottom 3rd of the league, he also outperformed their avg too. The one game he underperformed in was the Philly game where he far underperformed their avg.

Henry on the other hand, had 6.5 and 4.7 avg's vs Indy, a 5.6 vs Wash, a 1.9 and a 4.4 vs Houston, 3.5 vs the Jags, 4.0 vs Balt, 7.9 vs Philly, and a 2.3 vs the Giants. In his 2 games with the Colts, one was overperformed and the other underperformed (though still GOOD). He overperformed vs WASH, Balt and Philly (by a lot). He barely was over the Jags' avg and one of the Houston games. He was below YPC vs Houston (once), the Giants, and the Colts.

Overall, White looks to be a solid back and does look to have serious talent. However, durability questions will linger til we see him get the bulk of carries in a game or even hit the 20+ carry mark in a game. I'd like to see that one of the last few games. He's had 6 games (not including our first few with the original OL and KC at QB). 4 of those games he has a 4.3 ypc or above. One game was 3.6 vs the Jags and one subpar vs Philly. Not bad.

Henry has been good overall. He's been inconsistent at times, but he's also gashed some of the best D's in the league. And with our passing game, that's saying a lot! Minus the same first few games, Henry avg's 4.0 or better in 6 (out of 9) games. One game at 3.5 (v the Jags) and 2 subpar games.

Short of durability, I see nothing to lead me to believe that White can't be an excellent back.

Despite Henry's very good season, I'd only keep him at a reasonable price (below starter money with incentives to gim him a nice pay day if he reaches them). More than likely though, he'll get better offers (decent starter money) from someone. If so, I'll wish him well.

I prefer to keep Brown if possible (also less than starter money). I think this MAY be one of the reasons the Titans buried him on the depth chart this year. He's not likely to get a big offer so maybe the Titans CAN bring him back cheap. On the other hand, would you want to come back if you were CB? Advantage is...you know VY is a budding star and the Titans are on the way up AND White hasn't shown he can carry the load yet. Downside is, White will be given every opportunity to win the starting job.

If both guys go (PLEASE DON'T OVERSPEND TO KEEP THEM REESE), we'll be able to find a solid backup easily enough. As I said before, we can grab a Garrett Wolfe type in rnd 5 and grab a vet RB after June 1 if not before. And we've had good luck with FA draftees and vet pickups before!!!

Gut

 

4.2 withg limited touches says alot...........because LW is going to break off big runs late in games after the pounding takes it toll.............he has not had that chance yet.

 

Agreed...

But it's not like he just got touches when we were up big or came in on 3rd and long to run a draw play.

Even still, his carries ARE too few to get much of a read on other than he looks like a feature back to me. My only 2 questions on him are can he stay healthy and can he be a dependable pass blocker?

The flip side is that Henry hasn't hit 1000 yards since '03 and has had sub 4.0 ypc the last 2 years before this one. He's also one drug suspension away from being a huge problem.

Brown is very good but is injury prone. So there is risk no matter where you look. Hovever, White has the size to be a durable back and doesn't have big injury concerns from USC. He also doesn't have a drug problem that we know about and he WILL be on the roster next year.

All signs point to him getting the chance to start and we'll see if either Henry or Brown want to be here. If they don't, we shouldn't overpay to keep them. Morelikely, we'll draft 1 RB and sign a vet cheaply to back up LenDale.

Gut

 

LW knocks tackler backward all the time.............no else does

 

Lendale strikes me as a guy who improves with more carries, and will really wear down opponents in the second half; unfortunately, he hasn't gotten the ball enough to prove or disprove this.

However, I'm also very concerned about some issues that were never a problem for him at USC; he's been injury-prone since arriving in Nashville, and he's had some ball security issues of late....two unforced fumbles in the last couple games. (IIRC, he had only one fumble last year at USC.)

I still think Lendale will be a stud, and a huge part of the offense...it just may not happen as quickly as we'd originally hoped. Even if he's not lighting it up this year, give him a full offseason to get healed up and get into shape...I think he'll be turning a lot of heads next year.

 

nine is correct...........he is the type of the back who will be great late in games..............a finisher.

 

That's an assumption and statistically speaking there are too few data for White, imo, to seriously make any statement whether he will be able to maintain or improve that average given 4 times the workload.

 

I'm going by the fact that he was a stud RB coming out of USC and hasn't done anything to prove otherwise yet. He simply hasn't gotten the playing time to show us what he can do.