Who Should the Lions Keep for Running Backs?

The Lions have a bunch of running backs on their roster and the majority of fans can probably guess who will be kept on the roster. I have a different take and it may surprise some of you.

As usual when coming from me, be prepared for a bit of a different point of view and not one that just follows what most media and analysts tell us what to believe.

There are a couple of players who are absolute locks at this point. Though this article will be on the understanding they are healthy.

Lagarette Blount - He will be  on the roster day one. No doubt about it. He is the best short yardage back in the NFL in recent years and the Lions had no ability to get the tough yards last year. They signed him for a reason and he is a lock to be playing week one.

Kerryon Johnson - The Lions not only took him in the second round, but they traded up to get him. They are very high on this kid and no matter how bad he looks in preseason, he will get every opportunity to develop on the Lions NFL roster.

These next two guys are 90% locks.

Nick Bawden - Matt Patricia and Bob Quinn have laid everything on the line to get a running game going. Ignoring some major defensive holes, they drafted an offensive lineman in the first round and followed that up by trading up to get Kerryon Johnson. With only six picks in the draft, they spent four of them on offense. It is safe to say that they drafted a fullback with every intention of using him, so unless he really pukes up his preseason, he will be on the roster in week one.

Ameer Abdullah - A lot of fans dont like him as he has not proven himself yet in Detroit. The Lions coaches will give him one more year though. However many carries he had and even though he lost his starting job last year, Ameer has yet to be given a fair chance to succeed. Lets face the facts here. Last year the Lions blocking scheme sucked. The play calling sucked. The offensive line was injury riddled (again). Basically, Todd Gurley would not have looked good on the Lions last year, so it is ridiculous to expect Abdullah to be better than Gurley.  This year they have a new Head Coach, they added two new offensive line coaches. Supposedly they are cleaning up some of Cooters play calling mistakes. And they added a Fullback.  Considering Kerryon Johnson's health history, the Lions need a RB who can run the ball if injuries take their toll, and Abdullah is the only other RB on the roster who fits the style of Kerryon even a little.

That is four running back positions filled and likely one more to fill. Here is where I will surprise you. It will likely be Theo Riddick, but that is the wrong move.

What? How can you cut the best receiving back in the NFL?  Did I get your reply correct? Because he has that reputation, I am expecting Patricia to believe it too and keep him. But if Patricia really knows what he is doing, he will try to trade Riddick during the preseason. Why? Because Riddick is actually not near as good as you have been told.

I know, I know, he had 80 catches in 2015. He has had 186 grabs over the last three years. He has an absolutely sick first move to make would be tacklers miss. I agree with all of that. Now let me fill you in on a few things you might not know.  In the last three seasons, there have been a total of 90 RBs to catch at least 25 passes in a season.  This is how Riddick compares....

Average yards per catch -- Riddick's best season he had 8.7 yards per catch. That is good for 30th. His other two seasons he comes in at 35th and tied for 70th. 

20+ yard plays
Now this is like most stats where they can be deceiving because a player who gets more passes thrown to them has a much higher chance of having more 20+ yard plays.  So instead of giving the total of these plays, I looked up how many plays they go between a 20+ yard reception. 

Riddick's three seasons -- In 2015 he had a 20+ yard reception once every 11.43 catches. In 2016 he had a 20+ yard reception once every 26.5 catches. In 2017 he had a 20+ yard reception once every 10.7 catches. 

In the three seasons, 25 other RBs had 20+ yard plays more often.

You are probably wondering how he compared in his best season alone. in 2017 alone, he would have ranked 11th. In his best season, he wasn't even in the top 10.

40+ yard plays -- Same statistic stipulations.
In the last 3 seasons (186 catches), Riddick has a grand total of 1 catch for 40+ yards.

In the three seasons, 58 RBs have had at least 1 reception for 40+ yards. Eight of them have done it more than once.

Basically what I am saying is that the only statistics of Riddicks that make him look good, have to do with him getting fed the ball so often. If the Lions just keep Johnson on the field on 3rd and long instead of using Riddick, there is a pretty fair chance he will do more with the ball when he gets it. In fact, I would say that Abdullah and even Zenner would do more with the ball when they get it.

Yes Riddick has great hands. He is a great route runner. He has awesome agility and makes tacklers miss. I don't deny any of that. In fact, if Riddick had any power or speed, I would venture to say he would be a top 5 RB in the NFL. The problem is he does not have speed and he does not have power. He needs to make the first guy miss and hope to God he has open space to run in order to do any damage at all. And more often than not, he still doesn't get very far.

Now there are some teams out there who would actually be better off with Riddick, because he does have some awesome abilities. But the Lions have other running backs who are still good route runners, good hands, and either have the agility to make a guy miss, or have the power to break through a tackle. And they would have a much higher chance of breaking a long run.  For the Lions to keep Riddick, he should be head and shoulders above them to make it worth putting him on the field. Because Riddick cannot run with the ball off of handoffs, and is only good as a receiver out of the backfield, every defense knows what is coming when he is on the field. So to make that a viable option, he needs to be their best option by far, and he simply is not.

Yet Riddick still has a good reputation in the NFL as a good receiver out of the backfield. If the Lions were smart, they would look to trade him. Get something for him while his value is high and give the last running back spot to Zack Zenner.

Zack Zenner -- A lot of fans dont like him for some reason. They point to last year and look at how Zenner failed in every short yardage opportunity and say he sucks. What they want to ignore is that the Lions had terrible play calling, horrible blocking schemes and the offensive line was injury riddled. Blount was not going to convert most of those plays last year and he is the best short yardage guy in the NFL.  But if you go back to 2016 when Zenner actually got some real playing time? You find he was one of the best runners the Lions have had since Sanders retired.  He hit holes when he had them, he broke tackles, he made taacklers miss, he caught the ball well and he didn't fumble. He is one of the best all around RBs we have had in a long time and the Lions simply did not want to use him. 

Even if you don't think he is that good, there are more reasons he should be the one to keep.
1) AA is clearly the best backup option for Johnson. What if Blount gets hurt? Do you want to start using Johnson as your power runner with his injury history? Zenner is the only viable option at this point unless you want to hand the ball to the FB. But then he wouldn't have a FB to block for him.  Zenner is the best backup for Blount we have.

2) Zenner is a very good Special Teams player.

Dwayne Washington -- Unless the Lions are going to keep 6 running backs, Washington is playing this preseason as an audition for another team.  The thing with Washington is he has a lot of good intangibles. He has all the qualities of a good RB that you cannot teach. He has power, speed, agility, and hands. He needs time to develop vision and he needs experience to do that. If he got the experience, there is a chance he could turn into a good running back, but unfortunately the Lions do not have the room or the time to give him that experience.

Why Jim Bob Cooter is a Bad Offensive Coordinator

The Lions are retaining Cooter as their offensive coordinator. Many of the fans are good with this and think its a smart play. Many of them believe this because that is what the media tells them to believe. One thing I have learned through the years is that the majority of sports fans dont truly think for themselves. If the guys on the radio or guys in big websites writing articles say something, the majority of the fans will start repeating it. This time the media points out how under Cooter, Matthew Stafford's interceptions have gone down and his completion percentage has gone up. Some other media guys have said that the Lions having the 7th highest scoring offense will benefit from the continuity. This is why they are wrong.

First lets address the misleading stats they pointed out.  Look at the offensive coordinators before Cooter. Linehan and Lombardi. Linehan ran a scheme that was built to live and die by the big play. In 2011 they got a lot of them too. Stafford in his first full season took the NFL by storm with his big plays to Calvin. The next year the consensus was that the Lions would win 11 or 12 games. Before the season started I warned people it would be a down year for one big reason. The Lions offense had no short game. They had no run game and they didnt have any receivers who could run short routes and make a living. The play calling was based on the big play and they would live and die by it.

In 2012, the defenses did something different. They began dropping both safeties back deep. They would put their best CB on Johnson and one of the safeties would always double him up. Sometimes both safeties would. Defenses came facing the Lions with one thing in mind. Take away the big play. Linehan and crew never designed anything to take advantage of that. They had no answer for it because they didnt have a short game. When you face a defense trying to take away the long ball, and all you do is throw it down field, you will throw more picks and complete fewer passes.

Lombardi came in and did the same thing but far worse. Not only did he continue to call down field passes, but he got his offensive line so confused as to what their assignments were, the receivers did not have time to get down field.  Stafford on many plays was running for his life and either having to throw it away, run for yards, take a chance with passing it or get sacked.  So you can imagine this would only lead a QB to throw more picks and complete fewer passes.

Then came in Cooter.  Did he develop Stafford into a great QB? No. He took a bunch of the down field passes out and called plays to get rid of the ball quicker. By default this allowed Stafford's completion percentage to rise and his pick rate to drop. So Cooter did not develop Matt into a better QB, he simply put him in a better situation. Unfortunately he didn't put the offense in a better situation.

In 2017 I saw something in the play calling that scared the hell out of me. The Lions had almost beat the Falcons and were looking like they would win a lot of games. The media and fans were high on the Lions at the time. I began telling people that the Lions were going to start losing games soon because Cooter was telegraphing his plays. He was running from big sets and passing from spread sets. I was laughed at mostly.

The next game I took pen and paper and kept track of the offensive plays. If there were two or fewer WRs lined up wide of the offensive line, I would write down R for run. If there were three or more lined up wide, I would write down P for pass. Now the thing to understand here is that I was not some guy who was just talking out his ass and saying the Lions run on first down every time. They actually didn't. It was about 60 to 65% of the time. Which isn't so bad really.  I was not some chump who was drinking and guessed a few plays right and started saying I can call the plays.  I didn't use guess work in the least.  I watched for how many receivers were lined up wide. I looked at a real 'Tell', and I kept track of it for an entire game. Against the Vikings I called the play correctly 91% of the time. Let that sink in. 91% of the plays were tipped off as to whether it was a run or a pass. Do you know what kind of advantage that gives the opposing defense?

Now to be fair, I decided it could have been a bad game for Cooter. I was right. It was his worst game of the season. For the next few games in a row I kept track and never reached that 91% rate again. However, I never got less than 80% either. I am talking for no less than four games consecutively, I was able to call whether it was a pass or run  by counting how many receivers were lined up wide, and I was never less than 80% accurate.

Just telling the defense whether you are running or passing already gives the opponent a huge advantage. For this reason alone, Cooter should have been fired. Yet it only continues to get worse from here.

Every game until the last game of the season, Cooter called only short passes and run plays to start games. Yes I kept watch for this as well. He would only call short passes and runs until the Lions were two scores down, and then he would start calling passes down field. Now you may think this would have a minor effect on an offense, but that's not true. Think about what this causes a defense to do. Safeties especially will begin to lean toward the line of scrimmage. Their first tendency will be to run in and try to beat that short route. This makes it harder for receivers running short routes to get open as it is, but you know what else it does? It makes the safeties and line backers one step quicker to fill running lanes and stop the run. Far more often than people realize, the offensive line actually did open a small run lane, but it was usually filled by a linebacker or safety before the RB could get through. All because he would not call for down field passes to keep the safeties on their heels.

Then you consider that the Lions refused to use a lead blocker. Now when I say "Lead Blocker", do not assume I mean Fullback.  I mean exactly as I say. A lead blocker. This can be a fullback, but it can be an offensive lineman who checks in to play the FB position or it could be a TE who does the job. Cooter called for a lead blocker probably less than half a dozen times all season. Though they usually netted fair yards when he did use them, he never would use it as part of the normal game.

On top of that, Cooter liked to run with Abdullah and Riddick. The two RBs on the Lions who have no power. What did he use the guys who had power for? Only short yardage downs in big sets when the defense knew there was no chance they would pass it. Cooter didn't want to use any power. Not in the run blocker and not in the running back. Instead he would run the powerless RB and expect him to fight through the safeties or linebackers who were filling holes because he only called for short passes, and do it without a lead blocker. And dont forget the defense knew it was a run on over 80% of the plays as well.

And he couldnt figure out why they had no run game? Really?  Really!

Sounds pretty bad when you put it all together doesn't it? Its not done yet. Now ask yourself, how many times did you see the linemen block in one direction and the running back take off the other direction? This is what is called a Counter Run play. I was always watching for these and I only remember one. Zenner (I think it was) scored an 11 yard touchdown on it. And they never used it again. Every run play, it wasn't bad enough to use under powered RBs, with no lead blocker and tell the defense you were running the ball by having 2 or fewer receivers lined up wide, but they didn't even try to make the defense guess by running a counter play. No. Every run play was peewee level design where the offensive linemen blocked one direction and the RB got the ball and followed them. The defense, already knowing it was a run, only had to follow the blockers and fill the lanes and they stopped the run.

And Cooter couldn't figure out why they couldn't run the ball.

The media says the offensive line was terrible blocking. Yes it was, but mainly because they were placed in a position to fail by their offensive coordinators scheme and play calling.

The common belief right now is that Caldwell was holding Cooter back.  No it wasn't!  Lombardi had his OL so screwed up that there was not enough time for the receivers to get down field. Yet when he continued to call down field passes for a season and a half, did Caldwell hold him back? Did he force him to change anything? No.  When Austin wanted to start dialing blitzes at times, did Caldwell stop him? People think Caldwell was conservative and so they tend to believe he forced Cooter to be conservative, but the fact is, Caldwell's history has proven that he was not going to interfere with his coordinators.  Not to mention that after Cooter got the promotion to OC, in the first off-season, he said himself that he tore up the playbook and designed a whole new one with some input from Stafford. So in his own words, he said it was his scheme and his play designs and his play calling.

The media and many fans hated Caldwell, so it is understandable to want to blame him for the bad offense.  In a round about way it was his fault. He hired Lombardi and promoted Cooter. He didn't force changes. So for that it was his fault. But the fact still remains, this was Cooters offense. It was Cooters play designs and his play calling. And he could not have possibly called things worse to stop us from having a run game if he was trying to kill the Lions run game on purpose.

Cooter did not develop Stafford as the media would have you believe. Cooter only called more short quick passes.  But Cooter did everything he possibly could do wrong and made our offense one dimensional in doing it. And even that one dimension of passing was only good for one half every game.

And that is what Patrica has decided to retain at the advisement of Bob Quinn. And that is why Cooter should have been the first coach fired, right along side of Prince, instead of being given another year as the coordinator.