Best way for us to win next year-fix the running game

[CJD]

(01-15-2017, 03:36 PM)SHRacerX Wrote: I was in Vegas for an annual meeting all last week.  I was looking for something for my 13 year old son (He was 11 in my Avatar, and now looks me in the eye).  It isn't as easy as it used to be....some simple lego, toy, shirt...just a little guilt gift for me being gone.  He is a swimmer and baseball player (like his dad...once Herbstreit hit puberty, it was over for me in football) and I will find a baseball shirt or something, but the gifts in the Vegas shops all bordered on too childish or too inappropriate.  

To the latter, there was a shirt with a chicken and an egg, in bed, smoking a cigarette...the chicken has turned to the egg and says:  "I think it was you".  I didn't buy it, but got a good chuckle.  

My point of this long-winded story?  Which came first, the chicken of the egg, or in this case, the RB or the offensive line.  You are dead on that another version of Rex is probably available in the later (3rd?) rounds vs. taking a RB with a top 10 pick.  There are so many positions where the player looks unstoppable against their college competition, but then against NFL talent, they bust.  RB seems to me to be a position where a rookie can not only make an immediate impact but if you are running through tackles, running away from NFL-speed players, and catching balls on NFL-style routes that you have a pretty good chance of success in the NFL.

I keep going back and forth on how much I like the DE class and how the Bengals can have an impact RDE for the first time in a while.   I have long said it is the missing piece of the puzzle on the front four.  A speed merchant that can get around a LT and force the QB in to the arms of a closing Dunalp and Geno.  And as badly as I want that for the defense, I keep coming back to the thought that this team needs to be able to score more points, in a number of different ways.  Atlanta put up 36 on a strong Seattle defense.  Atlanta's defense isn't that strong, but you can't score if you don't have the ball.  The Patriots had their issues with ball security early, but in the end, they put up 34 points on the Texans.

The reference I made about RDE being the missing piece on the front four is how I also feel about a stud RB on the offense.  They have the WRs, TEs, but not that special Pro Bowl talent at RB.  Dalvin Cook absolutely tore through a tough Michigan line....and ran away from some NFL talent, despite not having the offensive line of some of the better teams in college football.  

Fournette may be a very good NFL player as well, but I worry about mileage and it also falls back in to the old "this guy is in so it is a run, this guy is in so it is a pass" habit.  I want Cook, Gio, and Sexy to be a three-headed rotational monster that you can't predict plays by formation or personnel.  Throw to the RB on first down, run with another on second down...no predictability.  

You said "fix our running game", and I took that as "not make it suck"    I know you were probably thinking of a loftier goal, but I want a running game like Atlanta to pair with our other weapons.  I think Cook could have the same impact here that Freeman has had in Atlanta...and I now think the Falcons will represent the NFC in the Super Bowl.  

I'm not going to lie. Dalvin Cook is enticing. But I, like you, think an athletic RDE is the missing piece to our defense, especially if we keep DreK for a few more years. The idea of Billings, Atkins and Dunlap being combined with the likes of Barnett is very exciting.

At this point in the process I'll just say that I'd like if we went in either direction haha.