Why you should stay on the Legarrette Blount band wagon

[sunrisejeff]

Amen! Go Blackman in the 1st, Fleener in the 2nd and Pead in the third. Sign Tolbert in FA and a few new lineman and we are going to be tough to deal with.

So no whiteguy in the first? 

[JDouble]

He was expecting to have to make a cut or dodge a tackle very soon after being given the ball.

.....because he usually has to break at least one tackle just to get back to the LoS. Watching how often he is getting hit in the back field makes his first two seasons that much more impressive. It's why he has had a top elusiveness rating the past two years too. Dude is shedding one or two tackles in the backfield almost every single run and he still 4.6 average.....and half our fans think we should dump him. Amazing.

[Blaze688]

I'll post this again:

RIGHT SIDE   67   284   4.2      
LEFT SIDE   42   152   3.6      
MIDDLE          53   266   5.0   
LEFT SIDELINE   13   44   3.4   
RIGHT SIDELINE    9   35   3.9   

Not a threat to the outside makes him a liability as a starter. Rather us go get a RB who can work the outside and the middle, equally effective.

Everybody is so quick to point out 2010, when we played garbage defenses. He wasn't so hot against better competition this year.

Kid, everybody on this team sucked last year.  Ronde Barber, one of the all-time physical-style corners, might've been our worst tackler.  Josh Freeman, who posted a legendary sophomore season, was arguably the worst starting quarterback in the league.

I think it's unfair to judge Blount on 22 arbitrary carries he received in a Greg Olson offense.  Look back to 2010 (when we played "garbage" defenses), and you'll notice that Blount averaged a ridiculous 6.8 yards on 32 carries when he ran toward the sideline.  His true ability is probably lost somewhere in the middle of his 2010/2011 splits, but it's stupid to dismiss any Buccaneer based solely on his performance in 2011.

[Pteranodon]

With as many fans that liked Alstott I can't see why they don't like Blount, he's basically the kind of player that breaks a ton of tackles. For 5 ypc I just don't care what his weaknesses are, because the production is there, hopefully he can play this year without being down 2 more TD's in the first quarter.

[Pepsi]

I'm pretty sure this will be Blounts first real off-season with the Bucs. last season was the lockout and the season before that he was a Titan.

[Detrimental]

I'll post this again:

RIGHT SIDE   67   284   4.2      
LEFT SIDE   42   152   3.6      
MIDDLE          53   266   5.0   
LEFT SIDELINE   13   44   3.4   
RIGHT SIDELINE    9   35   3.9   

Not a threat to the outside makes him a liability as a starter. Rather us go get a RB who can work the outside and the middle, equally effective.

Everybody is so quick to point out 2010, when we played garbage defenses. He wasn't so hot against better competition this year.

Kid, everybody on this team sucked last year.  Ronde Barber, one of the all-time physical-style corners, might've been our worst tackler.  Josh Freeman, who posted a legendary sophomore season, was arguably the worst starting quarterback in the league.

I think it's unfair to judge Blount on 22 arbitrary carries he received in a Greg Olson offense.  Look back to 2010 (when we played "garbage" defenses), and you'll notice that Blount averaged a ridiculous 6.8 yards on 32 carries when he ran toward the sideline.  His true ability is probably lost somewhere in the middle of his 2010/2011 splits, but it's stupid to dismiss any Buccaneer based solely on his performance in 2011.

2010 he caught the league by surprise. Teams weren't truly prepared to game-plan for him with limited footage. 2011 was the year he got exposed. Its the only year that holds more merit than his fluke 2010 season when he just busted onto the scene. As a day 1 starter, he was pitiful as a runner to the sidelines. And please don't sit here and act like we actually played anybody in 2010 because looking back that schedule was a joke and when it came down to playing real teams, everybody that was "good" last year got exposed. Barber was our best cover man in both years(2010 and 2011) by the way. He was by far Mr. Consistent.

[Detrimental]

Schiano wants to run a smash mouth offense that runs north and south....not east and west. Why do we need to run outside?

The ability to stretch the defense is important. If you notice this year, just about every time we ran the ball the backers crashed inside and basically didn't respect his ability to make them pay.

[Knucknbuc]

Blount is a monster and honestly when he really gets rolling and starts dragging people and hurdling he probably is the most dangerous runner in the NFL. NOONE wants a piece of him when he's doing that. Honeslty before the ernest byner pickup i was all on board with us picking up trich in the draft, but now I think that we can go whatever direction we want with that pick and I would be happy. Ernest Byner every stop he has made has made the rb's a complete back and I see no reason that he wont do the same with Blount and turn him into a TOP 5 BACK THIS YEAR. Pickup his boy lamichael james in the 2nd or 3rd round as a change of pace and our running game is going to be lethal.

[alldaway]

The ability to stretch the defense is important. .

If we are talking about the 1989 football season yes.  It is the year 2012, and the only time it is important to make a defense pay to the outside is with stretch plays (if you are a zone blocking team) or tosses.  Sweeps are rare because, they don't work in the pro game anymore because LB's are too quick.  Sweeps were a staple of many pro set offenses in the 80's and 90's but they died off.  Toss plays?  Again, Gruden loved the toss play, but they easily snuffed them out because defenders are too quick these days.  It didn't help he had Carnell Williams on those tosses where he doesn't have the acceleration necessary to make it work.

Blount, Richardson, etc will be/are used primarily with inside runs, and maybe off tackle runs, because those work at the pro level.

[BucBalla85]

I think Blount has a monster year. He will actually get his touches this year.

[alldaway]

I'll post this again:

RIGHT SIDE   67   284   4.2      
LEFT SIDE   42   152   3.6      
MIDDLE          53   266   5.0   
LEFT SIDELINE   13   44   3.4   
RIGHT SIDELINE    9   35   3.9   

Not a threat to the outside makes him a liability as a starter. Rather us go get a RB who can work the outside and the middle, equally effective.

Everybody is so quick to point out 2010, when we played garbage defenses. He wasn't so hot against better competition this year.

Kid, everybody on this team sucked last year.  Ronde Barber, one of the all-time physical-style corners, might've been our worst tackler.  Josh Freeman, who posted a legendary sophomore season, was arguably the worst starting quarterback in the league.

I think it's unfair to judge Blount on 22 arbitrary carries he received in a Greg Olson offense.  Look back to 2010 (when we played "garbage" defenses), and you'll notice that Blount averaged a ridiculous 6.8 yards on 32 carries when he ran toward the sideline.  His true ability is probably lost somewhere in the middle of his 2010/2011 splits, but it's stupid to dismiss any Buccaneer based solely on his performance in 2011.

I tried looking up any other back that averaged 6.8 yards per carry toward the sidelines during the 2010 season and didn't find many.  I think it is safe to say the only downside to Blount is in his head.  He has the ability to do it all, and impressively I might add.

[chace1986]

Det. is going to blow a gasket if you keep logically defending Blount, ADW. Next we will probably see a breakdown of Blounts high school stats and how they pale in comparison to TR's.

[beardmcdoug]

I feel like Richardson + Blount would give us one of the best 1-2 punches in the NFL. I would love to see these two guys in the backfield on a 2 HB Shotty formation, the sky is the limit with that formation if you throw Vjax and Benn in there.

If we managed to get Vjax AND Nicks in the FA - drafting Richardson would put this offense absolutely over the top.  I don't know if there would be another offense in the league that would fit the "smash mouth football" bill any better.
Between Blount and Richardson, we could run the ball 80% of the time, and then play action deep to VJax and Benn at will.

[muvlodge]

This article is spot on. Yes, he does deserve some criticisizm though. While being able to run for a 5.0 ypc he has even more potential than that.  If he will hit the hole and lose his habit of lulling into the hole this guy can average 130 ypg.  Once he hits the hole and actually runs noone wants to tackle him and if they try he either runs them over or as we all have seen, jumps over them.  Other than his ball security, the hitting the hole is his biggest problem and some games he has just gone out and ran like the GB game and others he kinda slowoly goes in there and waits for a seam while being brought down rather easily by CBs and whatnot.  This is correctable and I think this staff will get much more out of this guy. It helps to have a real play caller not a guy trying to pull off the K Mart version of Gruden's playbook.  Olsen just didn't even know what he had in Blount, and always playing from 14-21 points down in the 1st qtr didn't help either. I still believe we need another top tier back.  This is not just a 2 RB laegue but 3 RB league nowadays.  We need more ponys in the stable hands down.

[Blaze688]

I'll post this again:

RIGHT SIDE   67   284   4.2      
LEFT SIDE   42   152   3.6      
MIDDLE          53   266   5.0   
LEFT SIDELINE   13   44   3.4   
RIGHT SIDELINE    9   35   3.9   

Not a threat to the outside makes him a liability as a starter. Rather us go get a RB who can work the outside and the middle, equally effective.

Everybody is so quick to point out 2010, when we played garbage defenses. He wasn't so hot against better competition this year.

Kid, everybody on this team sucked last year.  Ronde Barber, one of the all-time physical-style corners, might've been our worst tackler.  Josh Freeman, who posted a legendary sophomore season, was arguably the worst starting quarterback in the league.

I think it's unfair to judge Blount on 22 arbitrary carries he received in a Greg Olson offense.  Look back to 2010 (when we played "garbage" defenses), and you'll notice that Blount averaged a ridiculous 6.8 yards on 32 carries when he ran toward the sideline.  His true ability is probably lost somewhere in the middle of his 2010/2011 splits, but it's stupid to dismiss any Buccaneer based solely on his performance in 2011.

2010 he caught the league by surprise. Teams weren't truly prepared to game-plan for him with limited footage. 2011 was the year he got exposed. Its the only year that holds more merit than his fluke 2010 season when he just busted onto the scene.

Man, if getting "exposed" means averaging 4.2 yards per carry on the NFL's most pitiful team, I hope he stays exposed in 2012 when the run blocking and passing game are improved.

As a day 1 starter, he was pitiful as a runner to the sidelines.

Riiiight.  I forgot, his body of work in 2010 doesn't count, so we can scratch all the big runs he had around the end during that year.  The only relevant season is the one where the offense surrendered in every contest, we had zero deep passing threats, and we led the NFL in minutes without a lead.

And please don't sit here and act like we actually played anybody in 2010 because looking back that schedule was a joke and when it came down to playing real teams, everybody that was "good" last year got exposed.

I don't remember Emmitt, Barry, and Walter compiling all their yardage exclusively against NFL elites.

Barber was our best cover man in both years(2010 and 2011) by the way. He was by far Mr. Consistent.

Congratulations to Barber, for being the smartest kid on the short bus.  In seven games this season, Barber allowed a 100+ passer rating when the ball was thrown in his direction -- including a perfect 158.3 to Alex Smith in Week 5 when he was torched by a second-string tight end.  Ronde's rating would've been MUCH worse if he was asked to anchor the outside all game, like Biggers and Talib did.