John Ross and Joe Mixon

[Essex Johnson]

As I stated I totally don;t buy that Ross has opened up the running game with Mixon.. We know we ran terrible first half of year and Ross was in first few games then we come back end of year and Mixon has some strong games and Ross had mostly weak games.

I was able to watch the final game against the Browns and as I figured there was no major adjustment because of Ross.. Most of the time regardless Ross in or not.. Brown especially in first half played cover two with a little cover 1. Mixon broke one sizable run for 40 or more runs that looked like a designed cut back with a nice seal block by Erickson ( around 2:50) and you can see they are in a base cover 2 with same alignment with Ross and Erickson in. The main problem with this idea that Ross opened up the field for Mixon is that we rarely throw deep to Ross, he only had 6 catches in 3 of the final games and he had not proven to be a real game changing player so teams were not really game planning their Defense against Ross.

In the end, the line improved and we just finally said give the damn ball to Mixon ( he averaged around 24 carries the last 4 games)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_tgfDnf3ZC4 Watch the big run of the game around 2:50.. Ross had zero to do with really influencing the play