Recent Forum Topics › Forums › The Rams Huddle › Gurley ideas … & McCutcheon on Gurley
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May 14, 2015 at 7:06 pm #24577
znModeratorRams hope Todd Gurley, their back of the future, can be blast from past
By Nick Wagoner
http://insider.espn.go.com/nfl/story/_/id/12884504/st-louis-rams-hope-todd-gurley-blast-past
EARTH CITY, Mo. — In many ways, the scarcity of jersey number options for Todd Gurley tells the story of how he ended up with the St. Louis Rams.
Gurley wore No. 3 at the University of Georgia and was disappointed to learn that isn’t an option for NFL running backs. So the Rams’ equipment staff presented him with his choices.
Something in the 40s?
“It’s just not my swag,” Gurley said. “No disrespect to anyone with the 40s.”
How about No. 39, which belonged to Steven Jackson for nine years, during which time he became the Rams’ leading rusher?
“I’m definitely not going to touch that,” Gurley said. “I respect him. I wouldn’t do that.”
Gurley also had no shot at Nos. 28 or 29, the retired numbers of Hall of Fame Rams backs Marshall Faulk and Eric Dickerson.
It’s in those numbers that one can see a tradition of featured running backs creating a legacy with the Rams. Add staunch running-game supporter Jeff Fisher as head coach and it shouldn’t have come as much of a surprise that the Rams used the 10th overall pick to draft a highly touted back — albeit one coming off a torn left anterior cruciate ligament.
When the Rams made Gurley the first running back selected in the first round since 2012, they breathed life into a position that has been devalued in the draft and free-agent market in recent years.
“It’s fitting that Coach Fish is the guy who kind of, he saved the running back, brought him back to the first round,” Rams general manager Les Snead said of Fisher, who coached prolific backs Eddie George and Chris Johnson with the Tennessee Titans.
It’s perhaps more fitting that the Rams were the team to “save the running back.”
Long the face of the franchise and the offense, Jackson spent one season as Fisher’s primary back in St. Louis before the sides agreed to part ways. Jackson left for Atlanta in 2013, in search of a chance to win. The Rams, meanwhile, sought to transition to more of a timeshare to make Fisher’s preferred running game work.
As it turned out, neither side got what it wanted.
The Rams used combinations that featured Zac Stacy and Tre Mason as the primary ball carriers over the next two seasons. Neither cracked 1,000 rushing yards, something Jackson had done in eight consecutive seasons.
While the Rams continued to search for their next Jackson, Faulk or Dickerson, the Falcons released Jackson in February after missing the playoffs for two consecutive seasons. Soon after, Jackson took it upon himself to hold the fort in defense of every-down running backs. He launched a video campaign with humorous undertones but a message that’s serious to him.
When Snead referred to Fisher as “saving the running back,” it was no doubt a nod to Jackson’s viral video campaign.
The symmetry in it all is impossible to ignore.
“It is quite funny, here I am leading the way and the Rams are looking to recommit to a franchise running back,” Jackson, who is currently unsigned, said one week after the draft. “I think when you see a guy that is very talented, no matter what position he plays, I think you ought to treat him as that special guy and not just put him in the box of ‘This is the way business is handled and the way we want to structure how we pay guys.'”
On that, Fisher and Jackson would seem to agree. In Fisher’s two decades as a head coach, his best teams have had an unmistakable identity: The defense was physical and the offense was powered by the running game.
Between Tennessee and St. Louis, Fisher-led teams have had six winning seasons. In those six years, only quarterback Steve McNair’s 2003 MVP season sits as an outlier from the run-first approach. In four of those years, the Titans finished in the top five in total rushing attempts. Fisher has had three 13-win seasons (1999, 2000, 2008), all of which featured a back among the NFL’s top eight rushers.
The move to add the 6-foot-1, 222-pound Gurley comes after three seasons in St. Louis when plenty of lip service was paid to building a power running game, but results haven’t followed.
Under Fisher, the Rams have averaged 106.3 rushing yards per game and 4.1 yards per carry, ranking 19th and 17th in the league, during those three years.
BORN TO NOT RUN?
The Rams want to run, even though NFL offenses are increasingly reliant on the pass. Before rising slightly in 2014, the league’s rush percentage — designed rushes divided by total plays, minus spikes and kneel-downs — dipped in five consecutive seasons:
SEASON NFL RUSH PCT.
2008 42.2 percent
2009 41.5 percent
2010 40.4 percent
2011 40.0 percent
2012 39.6 percent
2013 38.6 percent
2014 38.9 percent
>> ESPN Stats & InformationFor a team looking to build a physically dominant personality, those numbers simply aren’t good enough.
As a coach who already believed in the value of a special talent at running back, Fisher had no trouble offering another affirmation with his team’s first-round pick.
“You can’t ever say that running backs have no value,” Fisher said in the days that followed the draft. “We showed that last weekend. We’ve shown that in the past. This organization has shown that. We place a premium on that position.”
Whether the Rams or Gurley truly have “saved” the running back will only be determined by time, but at least it’s a start.
Soon after the Rams drafted Gurley, Jackson tweeted his approval, Gurley chatted with Dickerson via phone and George was one of the first people to text congratulations to Fisher. The coach even acknowledged that he views Gurley as his new George, the foundation of his offense for years to come.
Fair or not, the onus now falls on Gurley and San Diego’s Melvin Gordon to perform to the level of their lofty draft status.
“They have to understand there’s a lot of weight on their shoulders because of the state of the NFL and because it is such a passing league right now,” Jackson said. “If guys don’t perform in the first round, it will become even worse for where guys go.”
After much contemplation, Gurley finally settled on No. 30 after the Rams traded Stacy to the New York Jets for a seventh-round pick. Now it’s Gurley’s job to carve a new path for the next generation of running backs to follow, and to make his new number the next in a long line of meaningful digits in Rams history.
“It’s just a good feeling, more of like a personal pride standpoint just to be the first running back taken [in the first round] since 2012,” Gurley said. “It makes everybody else, running backs around the world, [see] that we didn’t disappear. We’re not extinct. Not extinct at all.”
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Don’t discount Todd Gurley for Rookie of the Year
Christopher Arndt
http://www.endzonescore.com/dont-discount-todd-gurley-for-rookie-of-the-year/15022
Despite a deep draft class, and coming off an ACL injury, St. Louis Rams rookie running back Todd Gurley could very well wind up the 2015 NFL offensive Rookie of the Year.
Although Amari Cooper, or fellow back Melvin Gordon, could easily appear to be ahead of Gurley to claim the award, SB Nation reported that Gurley is right in the thick of the pack, having the fifth-highest odds to win the award next season. The 6’1″ 230 lb back out of Georgia will certainly have his share of carries to make his mark, if he can remain healthy of course. After shipping off Zac Stacy to the New York Jets, Gurley and Tre Mason will form a formidable tandem for the Rams in 2015.
During his career at Georgia, Gurley posted nearly 3,300 yards on the ground along with 36 touchdowns. His most impressive stat, however, is his 6.4 yards/carry, something any coach in the league would salivate at the thought of. With the Rams relying on Nick Foles to get the job done at quarterback in 2015, the team could be looking at a healthy diet of Gurley and Mason should Foles falter. Gurley can also be a weapon on the sideline, or out of the backfield, he recorded 65 receptions while at Georgia along with six receiving touchdowns.
There are a lot of impressive players making their debut on the offensive side of the ball next season. There are probably six or seven legitimate ROTY candidates, and Todd Gurley is certainly one of them. With the Rams’ defense being right where it needs to be, and their quarterback situation not being ideal, look for Gurley to step up and have a strong rookie campaign.
May 15, 2015 at 12:04 am #24587znModeratorMcCutcheon Sees Limitless Potential in Gurley
By Myles Simmons
In drafting Todd Gurley, St. Louis added a running back who is universally thought of as a special talent at Rams Park. And one man uniquely qualified to make that statement is Lawrence McCutcheon.
The Rams’ third-round pick in 1972, McCutcheon is No. 4 on the franchise’s all-time rushing list — behind only Steven Jackson, Eric Dickerson, and Marshall Faulk — after racking up 6,186 yards in eight seasons. He went to five Pro Bowls and helped the team advance to Super Bowl XIV.
McCutcheon has served various roles within the Rams’ player personnel department since 1982, and is currently a national scout for the club. And all of his experience and love for the game — as a former player and a talent evaluator — came through clear as day when the Rams selected Gurley.
“When you have a scout on your staff like Lawrence McCutcheon, who’s played the position, who’s evaluated the player, and is in the room when you get to make that choice,” head coach Jeff Fisher told NFL Media’s Mike Silver, “just to see him come alive and be excited — it’s a memorable experience.
Given McCutcheon’s expertise when it comes to the ground game, it’s easy to see why he’s enthusiastic about Gurley playing for the Rams.
“As a former running back here, you’re always looking for that next guy to take the bull by the horns, so to speak, and be that bell-cow-type running back,” McCutcheon said in an interview with stlouisrams.com. “And he certainly fits that build.”
“To me, that’s what the game is all about, particularly what coach Fisher is trying to establish here now,” McCutcheon continued. “He’s big, he’s fast, he’s elusive, he finishes his runs. So he’s the perfect fit, in my opinion.”
McCutcheon has evaluated a multitude of running backs in his career as a scout, and said that usually they fall under different categories.
“You’ve got the little guys who are more elusive in space, make-you-miss type guys, double-cut guys,” McCutcheon said, adding that Gurley’s quick feet, elusiveness, and ability to lower his shoulder to break through arm tackles separates him from other backs. “Gurley is a combination of all of them just put into a bigger package.”
The first-round pick’s special ability is part of the reason why McCutcheon doesn’t think it makes any sense when people say that the running back isn’t as important as it once was. While Gurley and Melvin Gordon marked the first RBs taken in the Round 1 since 2012, McCutcheon said that playing a ball-control offense requires a strong rushing attack.
“I think it’s crazy when people say that the position has been devalued because the ground game has been the nucleus football for decades,” McCutcheon said. “I don’t think it’ll ever be phased out completely. You’ll see more emphasis by some teams over others, but when it’s all said and done, you have to run the football to win football games, in my opinion.”
That’s an adage McCutcheon says has been true irrespective of era. There have been changes to rules and styles of play, but McCutcheon said the basic tenants of running the football have remained the same.
“You still have to get some offensive linemen up there who are coming off the ball, creating some holes,” McCutcheon said. “I don’t care what scheme it is — you’ve got to get the ball north and south instead of going east and west. And when you’re doing that, you’re going to be successful.”
“I think of the old Washington Redskins when John Riggins was running the ball,” McCutcheon continued. “When the Rams were running the football with Eric Dickerson, and then you had Marshall Faulk who was running the ball here — they were two types of guys who were very, very successful Hall of Famers. But they both brought a different style to the offense.”
However, what has changed over time is the way the game is scouted. McCutcheon said that when he was drafted, he was coming off of knee surgery, which may have caused him to drop down to the third round at No. 70 overall. But he also said that many teams actually may not have known about that surgery. In 2015, McCutcheon said, there’s no question that every team would have had that information.
According to McCutcheon, scouting has evolved into something almost completely different from when he first got into the league.
“I think when I came out, there was probably one guy who came through and did his own work and sent his report in, and that was probably it,” McCutcheon said. “Now, you’ve got the area guy, you’ve got a cross-check guy, you’ve got a national guy, and then you’ve got guys here in the building doing the homework. So It’s not as easy for a guy to fall through the cracks now as it was back then.”
With what can be an overwhelming amount of intelligence on incoming NFL players nowadays, McCutcheon said that in scouting, it’s important to find a balance between utilizing available knowledge and going with your intuition.
“I think you can over-evaluate to a certain extent,” McCutcheon said. “I’m a true believer in following your gut instincts, and once you have an opinion on a guy and you put that stamp on him, your first opinion is usually the right opinion. The minute you start second-guessing yourself, and thinking, ‘Well, maybe I need to go back and do some more work,’ that’s when you muddle the picture, so to speak. And then I think you can make some bad choices in that respect.”
In many ways, that’s how McCutcheon evaluated Gurley. The rookie running back’s on-field performance at Georgia — where in 2014 he rushed for 911 yards in just six games — greatly illustrates his overall potential. And with Fisher saying that the Rams’ doctors have no concerns over Gurley’s knee and its recovery, McCutcheon said that there are many reasons to be fired up over the Rams’ first-round pick.
“I think the sky is the limit,” McCutcheon said of Gurley. “He’s proven that he’s a big-time player in a big-time arena. He did it at a great school where a lot of good running backs have come out.
“The key to any success in this league — not only at running back — is just being available week in and week out so that you can produce,” McCutcheon added. “And if that happens, it’ll be great to see where his future lies.”
May 15, 2015 at 10:54 pm #24631
InvaderRamModeratorMay 16, 2015 at 5:47 am #24639znModeratorMcCutcheon said that when he was drafted, he was coming off of knee surgery, which may have caused him to drop down to the third round at No. 70 overall.
So this is the 2nd time historically the Rams have taken a back who was coming off a knee.
McCutcheon btw did not have any carries as a rookie. His first season, really, was his 2nd (1973) when he had 1097 yards on 210 carries (5.2).
According to the wiki, “McCutcheon led the Rams in rushing for five consecutive seasons, from 1973 to 1977, and was named to the Pro Bowl each year. During his tenure with the Rams, McCutcheon gained a total of 6,186 yards on 1,425 carries.”
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