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RFIP
...to hear him say one of Gurley's street by suits is breaking tackles??
Wonder what some of our board experts think about that statement?
Not an expert, just a guy with an opinion, but so here goes. It was more true about "breaking tackles" in 2015 than in 2016.
That was visible, I thought, but also some numbers back that.
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www.espn.com]
some of the blame has to fall on a poor supporting cast and an unimaginative offense, but Gurley also didn’t resemble his 2015 self on the rare occasion when holes were open. He broke 47 tackles as a rookie, good for seventh-best in the league, according to Pro Football Focus. Last year, that number dropped to 41, even though Gurley had 71 more touches.
In 2015 he had broke tackles on 47 of 229 attempts, which is 20.5% of the time. In 2016, he broke tackles on 41 of 278 attempts, which is 14.7%.
Then there's yards after contact.
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www.profootballfocus.com]
Gurley was seventh out of 52 running backs in yards after contact per attempt in 2015 at 2.87, but he saw that number drop to 2.18 in 2016, putting him 46th out of 53 qualified backs.
The stat “yards after contact” allies with breaking tackles and. Going from 2.87 in 2015 to 2.18 in 2016 is a drop of 24%.
His yards BEFORE contact went down, which is blocking. But breaking tackles and yards after contact also went down, which is Gurley.
But the numbers just back up what we saw. He wasn't the same back in 2016. Not as explosive, not as strong, not as dynamic.
BTW Gurley does not so much "break tackles" a la Earl Campbell, he has a way of setting them up and glancing off them. So at his best, he sees and anticipates contact and positions himself so it kind of slides off him. When he does that he's just setting the defender up to not get a full-on hit.
So yes the OL has to improve in 2017 but so does Gurley. He was part of the problem too.
