This article is part of our NFL Reactions series.
I apologize for the delay, I'm a bit delirious with a fever and am experiencing even worse ADD than usual.
There were a few novel events this week, but I think the most interesting subjects at the moment are ones of season-long arcs, specifically with three of the league's standout running back prospects. In the cases of Nick Chubb, Aaron Jones, and Kerryon Johnson we have three running backs who seem capable of stardom pending nothing more than their teams' willingness to stop obstructing them. The reasons and motives for the obstruction differ a bit in each case.
With Chubb I think there's solid evidence that we have a fixed competition for the purpose of executing a stealth tank by keeping the rookie – barely selected outside of the first round – in shrink wrap until next year, with an off chance at showcasing the obviously lesser Carlos Hyde into some sort of trade market in the offseason. No one should have been surprised by the skills Chubb displayed a week ago, when he took three carries for 105 yards and two touchdowns, and I doubt the Browns were among the surprised. If they were surprised, you'd think they would have adjusted their initial plans to accommodate more room for Chubb. Yet in Sunday's ugly 12-9 win over Baltimore, Chubb saw just three carries again. After receiving another 17 carries Sunday, Hyde is up to 100 carries for 348 yards and five touchdowns, with 10 targets resulting in
I apologize for the delay, I'm a bit delirious with a fever and am experiencing even worse ADD than usual.
There were a few novel events this week, but I think the most interesting subjects at the moment are ones of season-long arcs, specifically with three of the league's standout running back prospects. In the cases of Nick Chubb, Aaron Jones, and Kerryon Johnson we have three running backs who seem capable of stardom pending nothing more than their teams' willingness to stop obstructing them. The reasons and motives for the obstruction differ a bit in each case.
With Chubb I think there's solid evidence that we have a fixed competition for the purpose of executing a stealth tank by keeping the rookie – barely selected outside of the first round – in shrink wrap until next year, with an off chance at showcasing the obviously lesser Carlos Hyde into some sort of trade market in the offseason. No one should have been surprised by the skills Chubb displayed a week ago, when he took three carries for 105 yards and two touchdowns, and I doubt the Browns were among the surprised. If they were surprised, you'd think they would have adjusted their initial plans to accommodate more room for Chubb. Yet in Sunday's ugly 12-9 win over Baltimore, Chubb saw just three carries again. After receiving another 17 carries Sunday, Hyde is up to 100 carries for 348 yards and five touchdowns, with 10 targets resulting in just 15 receiving yards. Chubb's 13 carries, meanwhile, netted 148 yards. Hyde has a history of getting nicked up, and the Browns seem intent on working him to the point of escalating that risk. Chubb could get his foot in the door in that scenario, but I would guess only in that scenario, and he might go back to the basement the second Hyde is healthy again. All three of Hue Jackson, Gregg Williams, and Todd Haley are beholden to the will of John Dorsey for various reasons, and none is in a position of leverage, so if a half-tank is the order then they'll shut up and march. Although Dorsey would never admit to such a strategy, there are obvious merits to it. The Browns were unlikely to compete this year, so winning at the expense of draft position with no postseason to show for it is sometimes worth avoiding.
In Jones' case we don't have an issue of ulterior organizational motives, but rather a classic case of a coach who can't discern his best interests. Mike McCarthy isn't an observant person, and his process is basically just a series of reactionary impulses. He's a button masher rather than a strategist, and to make matters worse he's a timid button masher. Mike fears change, and he tends to resist it except for when desperate. The bad optics of today's loss in Detroit just might make Mike desperate. He went from overworking Ty Montgomery to a comical extent in the first month of last year to hardly using Montgomery at all anymore, because Montgomery's durability troubles made Mike desperate enough to turn to Jamaal Williams, and at that point Mike had his new status quo to latch on to. Williams is an objectively inferior runner to Jones (and Montgomery), which someone can infer easily enough just by looking at his 751 yards on 207 career carries (3.7 YPC). Jones, meanwhile, is closing in with 595 career rushing yards (5.7 YPC) despite seeing a carry volume about half of Williams'. These points don't matter to McCarthy, but they can help us figure out what to expect the next time McCarthy gets desperate. Unlike Chubb, I think there's a light at the end of this tunnel, maybe as soon as next week. McCarthy is tailspinning right now, and when at a loss for ideas he becomes capable of change. Change in this case will almost certainly mean a promotion for Jones, if only in an audition capacity, but Jones' production and prospect profile tell us that if this promotion occurs, it should be Jones' show from that point, health permitting.
Johnson is stuck in a situation, I think, that's a hybrid of the conditions obstructing Chubb and Jones. It's part political, part fallible coach. Unlike the Browns, the Lions clearly mean to compete, if only for the self-preservation of a new, tenuous Matt Patricia regime. So when Patricia insists on allocating usage toward LeGarrette Blount at Johnson's expense, we know it's not because he's being deliberately obtuse. Blount is not a Jim Bob Cooter guy, so this is all about Patricia and what amounts to cronyism with a familiar player. I highly doubt Patricia is knowingly trotting out a player he considers inferior to Johnson, so I'd consider it a case of personal feelings inhibiting judgment. Patricia has understandably projected a false sense of value onto Blount, probably just because he associates Blount's presence with the Patriots' recent playoff runs. Johnson ran for 70 yards on just 12 carries against Green Bay on Sunday, but the Lions still patronized Blount with 12 carries for 22 yards and two touchdowns. With that, Blount is at a pitiful 117 yards (2.5 YPC) and two touchdowns through five games, with Johnson at 286 yards and a touchdown (5.7 YPC). Patricia should realize, perhaps as soon as next week, that his survival as a coach is correlated to the usage of Johnson relative to the usage of Blount. His past biases have obscured his judgment on this question, but I think that we're near a tipping point where Johnson runs away with this workload.
• Just as Jones is better than Williams despite getting drafted a round later, Green Bay has Marquez Valdes-Scantling and Equanimeous St. Brown as their best rookie receivers despite selecting J'Mon Moore in the fourth round before both. To McCarthy's credit, he was capable of recognizing this much Sunday. Valdes-Scantling was a hit with seven receptions for 68 yards and a touchdown on 10 targets, while St. Brown turned five targets into three receptions for 89 yards. Both of these guys are more talented than Geronimo Allison, so particularly in the case of further missed time for Randall Cobb (hamstring), I think Valdes-Scantling really could establish enduring fantasy value this year. St. Brown is lower in the rotation, but he's capable of seizing a role too if further opportunities pop up.
• Robby Anderson was always capable of what he did Sunday, when he turned five targets into three catches for 123 yards and two touchdowns. If the safeties fall asleep or Anderson gets single coverage on the outside, Sam Darnold should continue to target him, but I don't think I'd chase these numbers outside of leagues with 14 teams or more, because Anderson's primary function is likely to remain pulling the safeties downfield. Quincy Enunwa caught none of his five targets, but I think he'll bounce back into the clear WR1 role going forward.
• It's hilarious to me that after facing Atlanta's NFL Europe defense this week, James Conner is once again the Patron Saint of putting uppity stars in their place, an avatar for those who decided that Le'Veon Bell owes them something. That chatter wasn't so loud the prior three weeks. Weird. Did these finger-wagging concerned citizens lose their faith prior to today? To be serious, Conner is a solid player and his progress as a pass catcher specifically has made him conventionally viable as an NFL starter. He'll lose that role when Bell returns, but it looks like Conner has a good shot of regaining a starting role at whatever point he gets out of Bell's shadow.
• Isaiah Crowell put on a clinic for how to run with the football Sunday, showing the raw anchor-to-burst ability that made him the top running back recruit in his college class. Crowell has underachieved relative to the expectations of that time, but the raw athletic talent is still there. His ability to see the field, or lack thereof, might explain how he's otherwise struggled to maintain consistency, but he could take a big step forward if or whenever Darnold does.
• I guess I could have included Kenyan Drake in that opening discussion of sabotaged running back prospects. I can't even really begin to guess why Adam Gase handles the situation this way, but merit is not a concern of his for whatever reason. The Dolphins took Drake in the second round of the 2016 draft knowing he was a hit-or-miss prospect with high upside. Luckily for them, Drake developed into his good-case scenario as a prospect. Rather than harnessing this blessing, Gase appears intent on using Drake the least while his contract is the most cheap. He's a free agent after 2019, and it seems like the Dolphins hope to extract as little utility as possible until that point.
• Come to think of it, I could have included Rashaad Penny, too. The Seahawks are aflame and Pete Carroll is overdosing on unregulated brain stimulant pills, presumably purchased in bulk directly from Alex Jones, so who knows where we're headed. What we know now is that despite steadily losing weight and improving his effectiveness as a result, Carroll and Brian Schottenheimer concluded they should remove Penny from the field entirely. For what reason? Well, it seems like they decided that Mike Davis, a former fifth-round pick and journeyman with a career rushing average of 3.3 yards per carry, is better than the back they spent a first-round pick on five months ago. Chris Carson and Davis both ran well against the Rams, to their credit, but Penny's burst and speed jumped off the tape a week ago. Carroll and Schottenheimer are clowns, and losing their grip more and more all the time.
• He won't normally get a home draw against a team as emotionally and physically taxed as the Titans were following last week's ridiculous overtime victory over Philadelphia, but LeSean McCoy's owners can find some hope in the fact that he finally got the ball Sunday. With 24 carries Sunday, McCoy's workload outpaced his prior season high in carries by 15.
• The Jaguars stopped Pat Mahomes from throwing for a touchdown, but they couldn't stop him from repeatedly putting the Chiefs in scoring position. It's puzzling and concerning for Kareem Hunt that the Chiefs continue to show disinterest in him as a pass catcher. He largely carried the Chiefs offense Sunday with his running, but his two targets give him just 10 in five games.
• Christian Kirk is going to be very, very good, and David Johnson finally put up some points as the Cardinals got their first win of the season at San Francisco's expense. The upside and consistency of both are held hostage by the remaining broader dysfunction in Arizona, as even in this good-case scenario Johnson still averaged just 3.1 yards per carry and saw only three targets. I would seriously consider attempting to sell high on Johnson.
• C.J. Beathard is kind of like 2015 Blake Bortles – ugly as hell and generally bad, but a goldmine of fantasy value relative to his cost. He has a brutal six turnovers in his two starts, but he also has 647 yards and four touchdowns passing to go with 26 yards and a touchdown on the ground. Expecting another useful fantasy day as he goes on the road to Green Bay next week might be asking a bit much, but Kyle Shanahan's offenses have a way of piling up numbers somehow.
