The best defenses Trent ever faced as a starter were psu, MSU, and lsu. For most of his career he could bulldoze and do as he pleased. Ole miss 2011 and Arkansas 2009 were not great defenses.
Link: Trent's gone per Scout
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Are we now saying that Trent "didn't play anybody" to justify his lack of success in the NFL? Lacy and Ingram played on the same teams with him. Did they not play any good defenses in college either?
So the guy hasn't panned out in the NFL so far. I don't think we need to retroactively take his college success away from him too.
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Did the Alabama OL open holes for him that you could drive an truck through? I was hoping that he would be very successful in the NFL, but I don't think he knows how to see to locate holes to slip through. It's 1 to 3 yards and a cloud of dust. I just noticed Lacy having a hole closed against the 49ers, so he found another hole.
Is it that or is Trent not motivated to be the best he can be? How fast is he in the 40? Can he jitterbug so that he can move his feet fast to find an alternative hole instead of running against Stone Mountain with no way to get through? Maybe he should hunt for that mustard seed mentioned in the Bible.
. This whole issue started because when people state and restate Trent's main weakness, his vision, someone counters by saying "Well look at how great he was at Alabama, and watch this clip". I was just stating the obvious in that he had one of the greatest olines ever and the lack of great defenses in his one year at the number 1 back. In 2011 Trent faced 2 top 25 total defenses, Lacy faced 4, mark faced 5 with LSU being 26. I didnt say we played noone, I am just saying you cant act like just because he makes people look stupid or trucks someone in college then he should naturally do it in the pros where the best college players are all divided into 32 teams.
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I will say, unequivocally, without a doubt in my mind, that Trent was the most skilled of our recent group of running backs. He had unbelievable upper and lower body strength, excellent quickness, acceleration, and speed, and his lateral cutting ability was the best that I believe I have ever seen. Go back and watch the games and listen to the announcers, competition, or whoever. Almost everyone considered him as close to a sure thing in the NFL as there had been in years. He was constantly compared with Emmitt Smith and for good reason.
His inability to succeed in the NFL defies reason because he is the prototypical NFL back. I haven't heard a reasonable explanation yet of his lack of success. To claim that he didn't play against good defenses is the invocation of lunacy. There were times when Mark wasn't having a great game and Trent would carry the load. The U.S. Government could appropriate $100 million dollars for a study and I'll bet that the final report would say, "It's a bigger mystery than Bigfoot, the Chupacabra, UFO's, Area 51, the Bermuda Triangle and the Tunguska explosion combined."
Well thats the problem. Most people cant see past that and actually watch him in the NFL. I wished Trent did good, but he hasnt. It is the nature of the NFL, its not for every college standout.
Maybe not. That was not my point. The fact is there is plenty of evidence Trent has (or at least had) very good vision, and the ability to make people miss. While he did have a great line to run behind there were plenty of cases where he should have been stopped in the backfield. The two I posted were examples. I have no clue what is going on with him in the NFL, and yes I haven't been able to watch him that much. I just think that some of the statements being made don't line up with the things he did.
Yes he could bulldoze as well as anyone, and no he is not as fluid as Lacy. That does not mean that his only attribute was power, and that all of his success could be laid on that and the line. I think those statements are very unfair.
Ok, well NFL vision is way different than college vision. If it was otherwise then Johnny Football would be lighting up the NFL by now. So comparing college success or abilities is not a great argument.
I agree completely. He did have a very good rookie season by NFL standards. Y/A were never great though.
There is no great mystery to be solved, but I still think there is more to it than a simple he didn't have what it takes.
As for Johnny Football that is a completely different argument, situation and needed skill set.
The SEC is the closest thing to the NFL, defensively. Trent played in a NFL-type offense. There aren't that many differences in the rules and NFL teams spend immense amounts of money to evaluate skill players before they draft them. The Browns thought that he was worth the #3 pick in the draft. Here is the list of Alabama players that were picked higher than Trent:
- Harry Gilmer (first overall in the 1948 draft by the Washington Redskins)
- Cornelius Bennett (second overall in the 1987 draft by the Indianapolis Colts, traded to Buffalo Bills before beginning of 1987 season)
- Joe Namath (first overall by the NY Jets of the AFL, 12th overall by the St. Louis Cardinals in the 1965 draft)
All of those guys were very successful in the NFL (AFL and NFL for Broadway Joe). Trent was picked higher than Bart Starr, Lee Roy Jordan, Kenny Stabler, John Hannah, Ozzie Newsome, Tony Nathan, Dwight Stephenson, Don McNeal, Derrick Thomas, Bobby Humphrey (3rd of 3 in 1989 supplemental draft), Eric Curry, John Copeland, David Palmer, Antonio Langham, Deshea Townsend, Shaun Alexander, Demeco Ryans, Andre Smith, Rolando McClain, Julio Jones, Mark Ingram, Eddie Lacy, and CJ Mosely. If there were some identifiable reasons for Trent's struggles in the NFL, surely the Browns would have discovered it before they put out so much money on him.
I watched him in the NFL and he looked good in his rookie season. He didn't look good after that and I think that it could have been that his natural ability didn't match what NFL coaches considered good form, so they started trying to make him run differently and it wasn't natural for him and it left him in a cacophonous "no-man's land" of his natural form and their preferred technique. I honestly believe that some great athletes are just built differently from others and that they are "coached" into failure. A lot of people talked about Trent's unique technique and how he could plant his foot and cut laterally with power. I think that the NFL spends so much money studying player mechanics and measurables that they forget that some of the most successful players ever were unconventional and didn't fit their "prototype" model.
I remember the "Fat Lacy" picture and how some people were convinced that Eddie Lacy would fail because he appeared to be playing over his "ideal" weight. Didn't you know that Drew Bledsoe and Russell Wilson aren't tall enough to be successful NFL quarterbacks? Jerrome Bettis was too big and Barry Sanders was too small to be successful in the NFL. Soccer-style kicking will never work in the NFL, so the coaches should make these European and Hispanic guys kick the ball straight.
As a freshman in 1991, David Palmer averaged 16.1 yards per punt return and had three punts returned for touchdowns. The remainder of his career at Alabama, he averaged only about 8.1 yards per punt return and only one return for a TD. In seven seasons with the Vikings in the NFL, the Deuce averaged 9.9 yards per punt return and had two returns for TD. I have always believed that he had an unconventional natural talent that the coaches destroyed with their "teaching". It's amazing that Tim Tebow, who according to "analysts" has terrible mechanics, has a QBR that is higher than David Carr.
The NFL forms their "prototype" model of player and their "protocol" of mechanics based on sports medicine, which is qualified by countless medical studies of human anatomy, specifically the structure, mechanical characteristics under different conditions, and weaknesses of bones, muscles, joints, and connective tissues. From all these studies, a generalized set of notions are formed which implies that all humans are constructed exactly the same. However, if that were the case, then there would be no evolution of the species.
At Escambia and Alabama, Trent Richardson played in 56 games over five seasons, gaining 6,592 yards on 935 carries (average of 7.05 ypc) and scored 76 total TDs. He started off fairly well in the NFL as a rookie and then apparently his running style was determined to be a problem and they decided to correct it. He hasn't played well since. History has shown that conventional wisdom degrades to perpetual foolishness. Albert Einstein was considered to be mentally underdeveloped by his teachers early in life. He was just operating outside of the understood range established by conventional wisdom.
The NFL has special trainers that work on the eyes. Amari Cooper's eyes can now bench press over 100 lbs.
Trent's eyes had bad form. They wouldn't extend that extra inch on squats.
Did you write a novel to make your point look sound or was there a meaning in all this? Because all I see is you trying to suggest that just because all those players having good careers then Trent should.
I keep clicking on this thread in hopes TR has landed somewhere he can thrive. But I keep running across all the same opinions in varying forms. So now I'm gonna forget this thread for the following reasons..........
He made it to and starred in the premier college program in the nation.
He made it to the NFL as a first round pick.
He played in the NFL at the most dispensable position on any team.
He should be set for life financially. Certainly hope he's managed it well.
He and only he knows the toll all this has taken on his body and psyche.
I've known several top level athletes who've just said "enough is enough, not gonna do it anymore". This just may be the case with TR. Dunno, doesn't matter if I know or not.
Thanks for your contribution TR. Best of luck for the future.
ROLL TIDE!!!
He made it to and starred in the premier college program in the nation.
He made it to the NFL as a first round pick.
He played in the NFL at the most dispensable position on any team.
He should be set for life financially. Certainly hope he's managed it well.
He and only he knows the toll all this has taken on his body and psyche.
I've known several top level athletes who've just said "enough is enough, not gonna do it anymore". This just may be the case with TR. Dunno, doesn't matter if I know or not.
Thanks for your contribution TR. Best of luck for the future.
ROLL TIDE!!!
If you can't understand my points, that's your problem. Apparently some do understand them and appreciate them.
It's obvious that you don't understand my "novel" because it appears that what you took away from it was not anything close to what I was attempting to convey. Trent had his own "running style" and the results were successful in high school and college. He gets to the NFL and is initially successful, but the coaches based on some reasoning that they felt was justifiable decided that he needed to change his running style and after that he seems to have been unsuccessful. I'm saying that:
- Results define success
- Trent Richardson had good results running in high school and in the toughest conference in college football, thus his running style was successful
- If it is successful, how can it be considered broken?
- Don't fix what isn't broken
- Alabama coaches are fairly successful (multiple national championships) and they apparently didn't see any reason to change his running style.
- Cleveland coaches haven't had the run of great running backs that Alabama coaches have, but they decided that his running style needed to be fixed.
- Since the coaches were attempting to "fix" his running style, someone must have considered it broken even though it was successful.
- After attempting to "fix" his running style, Trent was no longer successful.
- Trying to fix what isn't really broken often backfires
- You can't fix stupid, but you apparently can market it as a coach in Cleveland.
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I see you've been through that place.
And they call Dreary Erie the "mistake on the lake". Lame attempt to deflect how horrible Cleveland is.
Oh yeah. I have family (I guess I'll claim them) in Kent, Akron, Canton, and spread out through Cuyahoga county. I am too familiar with that area. Until I went to a Gulf of Mexico beach, I thought the beach was supposed to be brown with garbage floating in the water and possessing the smell of a molded, sweaty sock.
Ok stick with those facts and we can have a logical debate, but bring Namath, Palmer, Leroy, and gimlet doesn't help your argument. Because you are talking about different times in the nfl with different ways teams were built. You also bring into the argument by referencing Jordan, gilmer, and Namath a era in which there wasn't an extreme talent gap between nfl and college football. It wasn't until about Super Bowl 8 that the nfl started being the best of the best.
If you want to reference Trent's high school/ college careers and first year in the nfl that's a good argument that we can have. But again you will have to explain the drop off and the fact that a back that was drafted 100 places after him was more effective in 5 games than Trent who started 14 plus.
My point about the "novel" is that just because it's longer doesn't mean that it makes a concrete argument full of relevant evidence.
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