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People get caught up in big names these days.
While the Jets don’t necessarily have any in their running back room, don’t confuse that for a lack of talent.
I think the Jets have the potential to have a very good running game this year.
First off, the retirement of Matt Forte will help them. He had a great NFL career, but his wheels started to fall off the last two years. But when he was healthy, the Jets would put him back out there and give him his carries. It was almost like they didn’t want to hurt his feelings by benching him. It was almost like they were kissing his ring.
I think the Jets made two excellent signings this off-season to upgrade their running back position. Isaiah Crowell and Thomas Rawls are both very underrated.
They both went undrafted coming out of college, but don’t judge their talent by that. From my standpoint, there are both second-third round type running back talents. They went undrafted because they had off-the-field issues while in college, but the Jets are very forgiving of that stuff, so who am I to judge?
They both chiseled, strong, compactly-built runners who really take it too defenders.
Rawls reminds me of Chris Ivory. The Central Michigan-product just wants to go out there and beat the crap out of players who try to tackle him. The Flint, Michigan-native is tough as boot leather.
On September 6, 2014, when Central Michigan stepped up in competition and dominated Purdue, beating the Boilermakers 38-17, Rawls ran for 155 yards and two touchdowns. He was running over people.
“He had Purdue’s safeties ready to tap out by the end of that game,” wrote NFL.com draft guru Lance Zeirlein.
During his rookie season in 2015 in Seattle, he ran for over 100 yards three times filling in for Marshawn Lynch.
As for Crowell, he was one of the Jets’ first signings coming out of the gate in free agency this year. Coming out of high school in Georgia, he was recruit so many big programs wanted. He went to Georgia, and had a good freshman year, but got into trouble and had to transfer to Alabama State.
He signed as an undrafted free agent in Cleveland and did some good things during his four seasons there. Keep in mind, the Browns put a second-round tender on him last year as a restricted free agent to keep him around. So he came in undrafted, and then got a second-round tender.
Look, aside from Bilal Powell at times, the Jets backs didn’t break a lot of tackles the last couple of years like Chris Ivory used to do. They missed that.
Rawls and Crowell are two young, hungry backs who play like their hair is on fire. Look, neither one are choir boys, but they have been pretty well behaved in the NFL after their college issues, aside from one Instagram snafu from Crowell that he apologized for.
You combine them with two good complimentary backs like Powell and Eli McGuire, and this group is more than capable of carrying the load for the Jets.
July 3, 2018
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