James Conner Much More Elusive Than Advertised

James Conner Much More Elusive Than Advertised
https://steelersdepot.com/2018/10/james-conner-much-more-elusive-than-advertised/

"... according to Pro Football Focus, no player in the entire league has forced as many defenders to miss a tackle attempt against him than has Conner, and he has had no concern for whether that was on a rushing attempt or a reception."

"he has already forced 16 missed tackles on 85 rushing attempts … But he also has another 16 forced missed tackles on just 22 receptions."

"nobody in the NFL has forced as many tacklers to miss on receptions this season so far. Nobody. Not just running backs. Nobody. Odell Beckham, Jr. is second with 13 missed tackles forced on 39 receptions."

"Combined, that is 32 missed tackles that Conner has induced over five games, which is an average of 6.4 missed tackles per game. Over a full season, that would be 102 missed tackles. And that would be a first in Pro Football Focus’ numbers, for any player to force over 100 missed tackles in one season. The closest was Lynch, with 90, including 72 on rushes. Le’Veon Bell’s best season was 80."

 

Playing the Falcons Sunday helped. They are a terrible tackling team and Conner took great advantage. Some of that was elusiveness, but it was also explosiveness. Guys were close, but he blew past them or went through some arm tackles, as he did on his second touchdown run.

 

If Conner can run on the Bengals... like he did vs. Falcons, that will be impressive. Bengals have a good run D. Conner will be fine... it's the O-line stinking up the joint on runs that I'm worried about.

 

The Falcons allow like three yards rushing more per game. The Bengals offense has been good but that defense has been trash so far. Burfict will definitely help, but Conner SHOULD be able to run just fine.

 

No problem with Burflict, he'll be running scared keeping his eyes peeled for #19.

 

It is a little more complicated than that. The defense the Steelers faced on Sunday is not the one the Falcons had the entire season. They have been devastated with mounting injuries, so I'm not even sure the overall defensive statistics do justice to the mess that they are now.

Also, the return of Burfict is not a small thing, especially when it comes to the Steelers' ability to run. He is as dirty as they come, but the guy can play and this will be his first full game of the season. He was in a limited role last week, his first game back.

 

Bird**** is a tremendous defensive player. He takes out the opponents knees and boom their yards suffer.

 

Reason and logic just go out the window when you don't like a player, don't they?

 

His broken tackles are alot of shrug offs and bad arm tackles that he runs through as he's a streamline oldschool power guy with straight line speed but not quickness to make people miss. He is not one on one putting moves on guys like a juke, spin, or stiff arm.

 

I was gonna say mine does

 

I believe he was ACC offensive player of the year his sophomore season at PITT. He is a very good football player, that could play for me any day.

 

I look forward to Bell coming back just to see how it pans out.

 

The fun with quote function truly is a hiding place for those with nothing of value to say.

 

He is definitely a one-cut back, which isn't a bad thing. I already mentioned that earlier. That said, he has the explosiveness after the cut to make it work.

 

Pretty much sums up my thoughts regarding Conner overall thus far as a whole. His inability to run was not the issue prior to the game against Atlanta. Inept blocking and/or with being down by double digits so early in games were the primary factors.


All things considered however, he is doing great. If the offensive line blocks better just as it had shown against Atlanta then there should be little reason as to why Conner cannot succeed.

 

I assume you meant to say there should be little reason as to why Conner can't succeed.

And you are correct. Conner has shown that he might be a very good NFL running back. I think he still has more to prove and Sunday will provide a tougher test.

 

This should bring aspects into more clear perspective upon how well James has fared:






Might I add that, of the running backs currently below Conner, you could say that, of the five running backs on that list, three are either Canton bound or have Canton level potential; the other two are perennial Pro Bowlers.



All in all, as I said, James is doing great and was not the issue in spite of perception.



Side note: those "proveribal" senses of mine are starting to tingle again, which is odd. They have been dormant up until this point.

 

I'm not sure who exactly was questioning that he has had two fantastic games, one decent one and two where he didn't get much of a chance. In my eyes, the primary question revolves around the small sample size.

 

hey, I provide insight and value to my posts. It may be like 1 out of 100, but still lol.

 

USA Today:
Through five games last season, Le'Veon Bell had 515 yards from scrimmage. Through five games this year, James Conner has 581.

 

Small sample or not, it is what we have to work with. Conner has had three very good games yardage-wise. He is averaging 116 total yards per game. Yes, he has two highly probable outliers. However, Bell had a few outliers in 2017. The two subpar games were, in my opinion, caused by the O-Line not opening any holes. He is much better at the passing game than some people credit him. Ben might do well targeting him more than forcing the ball to a tightly covered AB. On the whole the kid is doing well. And yeah, you are right it is a small sample. Nonetheless! If he continues with these averages he will finish the regular season with approximately 1,860 total yards. Bell in 2017 totaled 1,946 total yards. Still Conner would be 86 yards shy of Bell's total. Now let us address the difference in income! As an owner I'm liking Conner much more than Bell.

 

Conner is a baller for sure. I see no reason to compare him to Bell; they are both very good but very different styles. I expect Conner will be just fine vs. stronger defenses as long as the O-line opens some holes (they are at full staff now I believe) and as long as the we don't find ourselves down two or three scores before the end of the quarter.

Worry about Bell if/when he comes back.

 

That wasn't a comment on you in general, but what you did in that specific post.

 

Stop right at your first four words. If you are going to engage in a meaningful statistical analysis, you can't just dismiss the issue of a small sample size like five games for Conner, especially when you are comparing it to a much larger sample size like Bell's career.

Also, you don't think there were ever any games last year or during his career that the line didn't open holes for Bell? Please, just stop.

Bell is a proven player. Over the last two seasons, he was rightfully considered one of the top two or three running backs in the NFL. There was a very good argument for him as the best.

As much as I like Conner, he hasn't done nearly that much to prove himself. He has had two outstanding games, one against a Falcons defense that is physically broken. In your rush to dismiss Bell, you are using flawed data for a skewed analysis.