Christian McCaffrey: the NFL’s new YDS from Scrimmage GOAT

[ellis]

Marshall Faulk. Roger Craig. Marcus Allen.

Tomlinson. Barber. Ronnie Harmon. Westbrook. 

Scrimmage yard monsters. 

You’re seeing another one right in front of your eyes right now in CMC. 

Look at the disparity in the stat below. My apologies if this stat has already been flashed up here today, just catching up.

Most of these in the highlight package below are runs, as that part of his game has absolutely soared this season. One thing I’ve noticed, earlier in his career he was getting caught from behind quite a bit inside the 10 on the long runs. We’ve already seen him finish 70+ yard runs twice this season without getting caught.

Next time you watch the game, just pay close attention to a quick 2yd dump off. It suddenly becomes a routine 5-8 yd gain. Almost effortlessly. It’s one of those hidden gems within the game that gets lost in the shuffle, but it really has a major impact on moving the chains. 

 

[ellis]

14 minutes ago, bull123 said:

I heard moose on the radio today defending the play call against Tampa 

he said mac didn’t let the play develop and follow his blockers

I’m not sure if I totally agree with that assessment. I just think it was a great defensive football coaches up by the very aggressive DC Todd Bowles. Sometimes, we can really over-analyze what happens wrong in a play. When in actuality, it often has more  to do with what the other team did right.

Carolina’s biggest folly was being in a position to where they had to run this kind of play in that position.

 

 

[ellis]

I get these guys watched film for a decade in their careers, and the last thing most of them want to do is break down film in retirement. But if you’re going to go on air to provide analysis, please try to do a little show prep.

[LinvilleGorge]

20 minutes ago, ellis said:

I’m not sure if I totally agree with that assessment. I just think it was a great defensive football coaches up by the very aggressive DC Todd Bowles. Sometimes, we can really over-analyze what happens wrong in a play. When in actuality, it often has more  to do with what the other team did right.

Carolina’s biggest folly was being in a position to where they had to run this kind of play in that position.

 

 

If you're going to run that idiotic play, at least have Cam walk around like he's lost on the other side of the formation and then run toward the strong side of your OL. We tried to run that play behind our three worst OL.

[Mikey818]

2 minutes ago, LinvilleGorge said:

If you're going to run that idiotic play, at least have Cam walk around like he's lost on the other side of the formation and then run toward the strong side of your OL. We tried to run that play behind our three worst OL.

We should be able to connect on some passes if Tampa puts 8 n the box. We had many receivers open last Tampa game but missed them 

[LinvilleGorge]

3 minutes ago, Mikey818 said:

We should be able to connect on some passes if Tampa puts 8 n the box. We had many receivers open last Tampa game but missed them 

Not relevant to the play. Can we try to have at least have a few threads that don't turn into bickering matches about Cam? I mean, there's plenty to choose from already 

[CatTower]

If, and that's a big IF, he maintains the pace he is setting, it will likely go down as the best season ever for a running back in history.

[Mr. Scot]

12 minutes ago, LinvilleGorge said:

If you're going to run that idiotic play, at least have Cam walk around like he's lost on the other side of the formation and then run toward the strong side of your OL. We tried to run that play behind our three worst OL.

That play only works if Tampa believes that Cam is a threat. They had shown all game that they knew he wasn't.

It was just a bad call.

[The Lobo]

 Cmc is truly one of a kind. Like TheRed said in the gameday thread,  I hope in the near future we use him in the slot more and put the other RBs at rb. Let Cmc exploit safety’s and LBs 

[Mr. Scot]

As to McCaffrey, what strikes me most watching his highlights is the little things he does.

You've seen him a few times do just a slight hop to the left or the right that looks like nothing, but given that he can accelerate so crazy fast afterward, it becomes something.

Likewise, on the long runs, if you watch him carefully you can see that he keeps his eyes ahead and plans what to do long before he does it. Setting up moves before he makes them gives him an advantage (as if he needed another one).

Yeah, he's fast. Yeah, he's strong, but those things become even better when you're smart, and he is.

He's the most fun player I've watched in a long time.

[BrianS]

That play against Tampa (the CMC wildcat on the goal line) as well as the two plays against Jax (3rd and half a yard, 4th and half a yard) show you that Norv understands how weak our OLine still is.  It's better, but still weak.  If he believed we were capable of blowing people off the ball, we would have run it up the gut on any of those three.

We can discuss how we wish our OLine could blow people off the ball so we could count on our offense to gain that 1 yard.  Unfortunately, we've demonstrated that we can't do it.  Thus, in short yardage we're stuck with trick plays.

[Khyber53]

The play was run away from Cam to protect him from getting overrun in the scrum and to reduce the chance of someone headhunting him.

In truth, he'd have been better off just heading to the sidelines to make room for an extra lineman.

But what's done is done.