Gurley: long thread, on der knee

How many yards and touchdowns will the Rams’ Todd Gurley total in 2019?

https://theathletic.com/977578/2019/05/15/how-many-yards-and-touchdowns-will-the-rams-todd-gurley-total-in-2019/

These are good times for the Rams, who have stability and a talented roster that figures to put them in Super Bowl contention again in 2019. But every team has issues. So each week, Vinny Bonsignore and Rich Hammond will discuss and debate the Rams’ biggest current questions.

Todd Gurley will be a major hinge to the Rams’ season. That’s been the case every year since the Rams drafted him No. 10 overall in 2015, but this is different, given the mystery surrounding Gurley’s left knee.

Not surprisingly, the Rams are publicly expressing confidence when it comes to Gurley’s health and his role in their 2019 offense, but they also re-signed backup Malcolm Brown and drafted another running back, Darrell Henderson, in the third round last month. That’s a team in search of contingency plans.

Gurley totaled 3,924 all-purpose yards and 40 touchdowns in two seasons under coach Sean McVay, but given that Gurley’s days as a workhorse back seem to be done, here’s the question: How many yards and touchdowns will Gurley total in 2019?

Vinny Bonsignore: 1,458 total yards, 16 touchdowns

Well, I’m not going to make the same mistake I made prior to the Super Bowl, when I predicted Gurley would bounce back from the disappearing act he pulled in the NFC Championship Game to earn MVP honors against the New England Patriots.

I’m not going out on a limb and saying Gurley will push for NFL Offensive Player of the Year, the award he won in 2017 and remained in contention for until the final month of last season. I think it’s highly unlikely he puts up numbers that warrant that kind of consideration.

While I think there is a fair amount of unwarranted freaking out going on regarding Gurley’s health, and a mistaken assumption he is severely damaged goods, I do think the events of last year have given the Rams pause on how they’ll proceed with their star running back. For a few reasons.

The first and foremost concern is the injury history of Gurley’s left knee and how it betrayed him late last season. That is a real issue he and the Rams will have to manage better moving forward. Part of that plan, naturally, will be a reduction of touches and snaps in order to preserve him for the brutal realities of a 16-game regular season and what they hope will be another long playoff run. As a result, the overall numbers will be affected. If the trade-off means Gurley will be in better physical condition to make an impact through the course of the entire regular season and beyond — and not just for next season but the ones to follow — that’s one the Rams will gladly make.

Secondly, the manner in which the Patriots hamstrung the Rams’ offense — and really, you can say the same for what the Chicago Bears and Detroit Lions and Philadelphia Eagles did as well — has sent McVay and his staff to the lab in order to figure out ways to counter the defensive game plans those teams drew up for his offense. I think we’ll see some entirely new wrinkles, some of which will include a diversification of their personnel groupings, the way they run the ball and how they utilize and line up their running backs.

And I think the drafting of Henderson sent a strong signal that McVay is cooking up some new ways of attacking opponents. Provided Henderson picks things up quickly, I think there is a chance he’ll play a prominent role in some of the packages and groupings McVay is putting together. That will cut into some of Gurley’s production as well. But again, if it makes the Rams offense more versatile and harder to defend, I think everyone will be OK with that. Gurley included.

That’s the ideal role Henderson will play, although we also can’t rule out a worst-case scenario for Gurley’s health. We just don’t know, completely, how well the knee will hold up long term, and we won’t until he actually gets back on the field. There is no question Henderson is part of a contingency plan to deal with whatever the Rams are facing with Gurley’s knee.

I think Gurley ends up with 1,070 rushing yards and 11 touchdowns and 35 catches for 388 yards and five touchdowns.

Rich Hammond: 1,334 total yards, 15 touchdowns

This might sound like a proactive cop-out, but the problem is that nobody knows how to predict the health of Gurley’s knee. Not me, not you, not McVay and not even Gurley.

Arthritis is a scary word, and if that’s what Gurley is dealing with — it’s been reported as such, and the Rams haven’t pushed back — then clearly changes will be afoot in 2019. But how significant? If Gurley’s situation is mild, perhaps it can be managed through rest and medication, and he will retain the form that allowed him to be one of the league’s most dynamic offensive players in 2017 and 2018.

We just don’t know. This isn’t a torn ACL or a broken ankle, an injury with a fixed recovery timetable. Gurley could feel fine for weeks, or even months, then wake up one morning and feel stiff and sore. The Rams could do everything right, in terms of rest and usage, and still lose Gurley at some point.

Complicating matters is that the Rams, to put it mildly, have been opaque about this issue. That’s understandable, in the sense that they don’t want opponents to essentially get a glimpse at their sensitive medical matters, but when McVay repeatedly insisted before the Super Bowl that Gurley was 100 percent, that clearly was not a full representation of the issue. That might be a nice way of putting it.

All that is done, though. To the extent that Gurley’s future can be predicted, it likely includes an abundance of caution and rest, particularly early in the season. In his game-by-game predictions for 2019, Vinny has the Rams going into their bye week with an 8-1 record. I think that’s fair, and the Rams will want to have Gurley as fresh as possible for those late-season games and the playoffs.

Gurley totaled 535 carries in 2017 and 2018 and trailed only Ezekiel Elliott (546) during that span. That’s too much, and that’s coming from a beat reporter who regularly criticized McVay for not giving Gurley the ball enough. Gurley is not a machine, and at some point, the cumulative cost of those carries becomes expensive.

Look for early-season games to include as high as a 60/40 split in carries when it comes to Gurley and Malcolm Brown, with rookie Darrell Henderson grabbing an increasingly large share as a third-down back who can stretch defenses from sideline to sideline. The Rams could, and should, pick their spots with Gurley and give him more carries in bigger games. That can be a dangerous balancing act, but it’s necessary, as is the need to keep Gurley out of as many practices as possible.

Gurley despises preseason games even when he’s completely healthy, so he won’t be seen in any of them. But the Rams still must give him enough work in training camp to get him in game shape.

As for the numbers, I’m splitting the difference between Gurley’s past two seasons and giving him an average of 4.8 yards per carry. A reasonable assumption of 200 carries would put him at 960 rushing yards, and I think McVay will want to keep Gurley involved in the pass game. So pencil him in for 374 receiving yards, plus 12 rushing touchdowns and three receiving touchdowns.

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MATT WALDMAN ON GURLEY

Waldman said recently, in defending Goff in the SB, that Gurley wasn’t the same the rest of the year after he got hurt in the Chiefs game.

Gurley got hurt initially in Oakland, then something happened again to him against the Chiefs (some say it was his ankle but who knows), then he was really messed up against the Eagles.

Waldman said Gurley was used a lot as a decoy after the Chiefs game.

@Audeezy_@Audeezy_
Glad to here Kupp is on the field. But no word on whether Gurley had something wrong with that knee? Or he’s just sitting out for precautionary reasons? I guess we just want to know if he’s ok & will be ready for training camp and the season.

Vincent Bonsignore@VinnyBonsignore
Todd Gurley has been present in Thousand Oaks during the offseason program, on a planned training program. But he is not participating in on-field team practices, according to #Rams coach Sean McVay

There is no official word on what “exactly” he’s dealing with. But there is a plan in place to help him get through the course of a season and postseason as healthy and effective as possible. And as I’ve always contended, the only real answers will come as the season unfolds.

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TODD GURLEY | LEFT KNEE INFLAMMATION | RECURRENT 2018 | READY FOR TRAINING CAMP

Jene Bramel, May 20

https://subscribers.footballguys.com/apps/article.php?article=2019-nfl-injury-rounds-monday-running-backs

The Rams spent the last two months of 2018 arguing Gurley’s left knee was fine — just “soreness” and “inflammation” in the joint. At times, he wasn’t listed on the team injury report. Their actions during their most critical games suggested otherwise.

They were worried enough about Gurley’s ongoing knee issues to send him for an MRI after Week 15. Though the results were reportedly reassuring, Los Angeles rested Gurley in Week 16 and 17. Though Gurley looked healthier in the Divisional Round against Dallas (18 touches), he played just 57% of the team’s snaps. In the NFC Championship and Super Bowl, Gurley played 46% and 66% of the snaps, with 7 and 12 total touches in those games. To be clear, C.J. Anderson was effective in Week 16 and beyond. But Gurley had been the team’s lead back throughout the season. In the Rams’ first 15 games, Gurley routinely played between 80-90% of the offensive snaps, falling short of 70% in only two games — blowout wins in Weeks 2 and 7.

The Rams have spent the months since their February Super Bowl loss arguing Gurley’s knee is fine. They have resisted labeling Gurley’s injury as anything more than “wear and tear” with Sean McVay saying Gurley is “in a good place” and likely to be a “focal point” of the offense.

But the team moved up in the draft to take Darrell Henderson in the second round and are reportedly contemplating a two-back offense and are already discussing limiting Gurley’s workload. Anderson told reporters in February that Gurley was “more hurt than … what everybody in the building thought.” There have been rumors Gurley may be seeking out stem cell therapy for his knee and McVay told reporters Gurley might benefit from “new methods and advances.”

Gurley himself says he is “feeling pretty good” but doesn’t know “how I’m going to be feeling six months from now.”

Although the Rams refuse to use the word arthritis, it’s reasonable to come to the conclusion Gurley is dealing with a chronic, degenerative condition.

Many ACL injuries are associated with some cartilage damage (Gurley tore the ACL in his left knee in 2014). A reassuring MRI study usually means no ligament or meniscus injury requiring immediate rehab or repair to return. Most players have some degree of “wear and tear” in their joints. Stem cell therapy is controversial, poorly studied, and generally ineffective — but often sought out by players looking to heal or regenerate poorly-healing tissue. And May discussions about managing workloads in a player who’s already admitting he won’t know how he’ll be feeling after the season begins further underlines the concern.

I’m not painting a rosy picture here. However, while it’s very likely the length of Gurley’s playing career will be shortened by the condition of his left knee, it’s still entirely possible he’ll be able to play effectively in the short term. We don’t know how significant Gurley’s cartilage loss may be. Many NFL players — including running backs — manage cartilage loss and chronic inflammation well enough to remain effective.

But it’s a near-certainty we’ll see Gurley on the injury report frequently in the future. The Rams are already committed to limiting Gurley’s practice workload and have already identified a talented back to limit his in-game workloads. 225-275 effective and possibly elite touches is still a reasonable projection. Unfortunately, it’s unlikely Gurley can manage a 275+ rush and 80+ target season.

May 28 Update: Add Jay Glazer to the list of media members concerned about Gurley’s future. When asked if Gurley’s arthritic knee was a real concern, Glazer replied that the response of Gurley’s knee to early season work would be key. There’s no news here but it’s notable to read another NFL insider share more concern than the team has publicly.

Vincent Bonsignore@VinnyBonsignore
I know everyone wants “answers” but it’s pretty simple: All signs point to a condition that needs to be managed rather than an injury that needs to be “fixed” There is an unknown factor that exists, as a result. One that won’t clear up until he actually gets out there and plays

And while there is a level of confidence – or hope – the plan they’ve put in place will adequately manage the situation, there are no guarantees. I know that’s frustrating for fans, and I understand the want for clear-cut answers.

But this obviously isn’t a clear-cut situation.

bigjimram21

Reggie Bush was on Cowherd and he said players can and do get arthritis in their knees and he did. It becomes about pain tolerance . But if it comes with swelling then that would be when he has to sit out.