Time for Cowboys to face facts Tony Pollard is their best running back and heres why the debate is over
Time for Cowboys to face facts Tony Pollard is their best running back and heres why the debate is over
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It's time that we had a real, considered discu sion about . No, probably not the one you're thinking of. The so-called debate between Pollard and is over. It has been over for a while, and nearly everyone outside of the Jones family has long since recognized it.Put very simply: Pollard is and the better, more effective player. He's the more efficient runner both between and outside the tackles. He creates more yards after contact and more explosive plays, and he has the higher succe s rate on his rushing attempts. All of this is true despite Pollard's having run into heavy boxes quite a bit more often than Elliott this season. He's also the better pa s-catcher and yards after catch threat; and yes, despite what you may have heard, he is at least a comparable pa s-blocker, if not an outright better one at this point. (Leaving aside this fact, the idea that playing time should be doled out based on which running back is the Jalen Harris Jersey better pa s-blocker when the two players in question have combined for 58 pa s-blocking snaps in 10 games is rather ridiculous.)None of the foregoing means Elliott should be made inactive or that he's usele s or that he should never touch the ball or any of the other various straw-man arguments people try in vain to refute; it just means that the days of his getting more snaps and/or touches than Pollard should be in the rearview mirror. If the want to be a serious team, they need to give their best players the most playing time, and Pollard is rather obviously the best player on the team at his position. But one of the reasons that the Cowboys' refusal to use Pollard more often is so frustrating is that he's not just the best back on the team. He's one of the very few best in the league. Pick Six Newsletter Crafted By The Best NFL Experts Get the day's big stories + fun stuff you love like mock drafts, picks and power rankings. I agree to receive the "Pick Six Newsletter" and marketing communications, updates, special offers (including partner offers), and other information from CBS Sports and the Paramount family of companies. By pre sing sign up, I confirm that I have read and agree to the and acknowledge Paramount's . Please check the opt-in box to acknowledge that you would like to subscribe. Thanks for signing up! Keep an eye on your inbox. Sorry! There was an error proce sing your subscription. You can explain most running back production by looking at the quality of blocking he gets, but according to just about any measurement of production that is actually within the back's control, he's a top-5 to top-10 player at the position. Yards per carry? Pollard's 6.03 rank second among the 50 backs with 50-plus carries this season. (The only one ahead of him is , who hasn't played since Week 5.) Succe s rate? His 42.7% mark ranks 10th, according to Tru Media. Avoiding negative runs? Pollard's been stopped at or behind the line of scrimmage just 12.6% of the time, 10th-best among that group. Explosive gains? His 12.6% explosive-carry rate ranks fifth. Yards after contact? His 4.49 per-carry average is best in the league by a long shot. (And nearly half a yard more per carry than Elliott averages overall. Sheesh.) Yards gained on first-down runs? He's at 5.4 per carry, ninth-best. Yards gained against stacked boxes? Also 5.4 per carry, which is fourth-best. Short-yardage conversion rate? The league average is 66.3%, but Pollard has converted 75% of the time. All this despite a yards contact per carry average of just 1.53, which ranks 18th among the same group of players. Anybody who tells you that he can't run the ball up the middle or run with power or gain the tough yards is either lying to you, or Alex Len Jersey lying to themselves. It helps that we've also actually seen him do it over and over. He may look slight, but Pollard is a sturdy, 6-foot, 209 pounds. (By way of comparison, is 5-10, 210; is 5-11, 211; and is 5-10, 215. In other words, he's similarly-sized to plenty of lead backs about whom nobody really has real questions regarding their ability to make those types of runs.) And he packs some power into that frame, allowing him to break tackles, drag the pile forward, or simply run through defenders.Of course, the ability to break the long run is what makes Pollard truly special. Only , , , , , and have more 15-plus-yard runs this season, and those players have out-carried him by 57, 95, 15, 28, and 18, respectively. Pollard's specialty is not just speed: His 40-yard dash time of 4.52 seconds ranks in just the 61st percentile among running backs, . Where he really shines is in the agility department. His ability to change directions while maintaining full speed is elite, and he throttles down to stop and then throttle back up as well as any back in the league.His best weapon is the jump-cut, where he conjures images of . Take a look at any of his big runs, and you're likely to see him hop-skip his way from one gap to another or stick his foot in the ground and slide his way past a defender in the open field. This move is all over his tape. Pollard is also a smooth, natural pa s-catcher who excels at creating additional yardage with the ball in his hands. He ranks 15th in yards per route run among the aforementioned group of 50 running backs, as he's gained 134 yards with his 15 catches on 25 targets this season. The Cowboys rarely throw the ball to their backs, though. Just 12.3% of their pa s attempts have gone to running backs, according to Tru Media, the third-lowest rate in the league.When he actually does get the opportunity, Pollard makes the most of it. His 9.27 yards after catch per reception are sixth-best in the NFL Malcolm Miller Jersey . He's incredibly tough to get ahold of in the open field, and the first defender rarely brings him down to the ground.The most common criticism of Pollard's game is of his pa s-blocking. Well, let's just say it appears out of date. There are 40 running backs who have pa s-blocked on at least 20 snaps this season, according to Pro Football Focus. Pollard ranks third among that group in pa s-blocking grade, and has allowed only two pre sures on his 33 pa s-blocking snaps. It's notable that his pa s-blocking grade was about equal to Elliott's last season and is far better this year (Zeke ranks 17th out of the group of 50, which is still pretty good), and also that the Cowboys have kept him in to block on a greater share of his pa sing-down snaps (20%) than they have Elliott (17.2%), indicating that they indeed trust him just as much, if not more than the starter in those situations. Take a look at the film and you can see plenty of instances of his being attentive, and both willing and able to pick up free rushers anywhere acro s the formation.No matter what area of the game you examine, Pollard excels. He is a complete back, and as we have seen on the three occasions where Elliott has sat out a game, he is more than capable of doing everything, for the entire game. (The ridiculous notion that he could only play 30 snaps in a game has also been disproven.) In three games he's played without Elliott, Pollard has notched 18 touches for 132 yards and two touchdowns, 15 touches for 147 yards and three touchdowns, and 25 touches for 128 yards and a touchdown. He's averaged nearly 6.6 yards per carry and over 10.2 yards per reception. The Cowboys have scored 41, 49, and 28 points in those three games. He can do it all, and do it at a high level. The team just needs to let him.
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