*Blorgl’s media piece on consistency in backs

[Menace0528]

Hey everyone! It has been a long long time since i’ve written a large media piece, so i guess i’ll make up for it by writing this for your viewing and reading pleasure. I figure this media is gonna be a bit chill, a bit less analysis based as some of the other media I’ve done. I’ve been working on making the london royals in madden (as I had for the S26 London Royals), and I figure I should make some media while I work on that. This is just gonna be my thoughts on some things in the league, moreso towards player builds, archetypes, and other thoughts. The first thing I wanted to think about is the difference between power and speed backs. Just thinking about their purposes, without looking at the actual TPE maxes and mins, it can be seen that there’s two very different purposes for each. There’s receiving backs as well, but i’m not looking into them just yet because they’re kind of a whole different breed. Or well, actually maybe that’s not fair to say. They’re almost like a subset of elusive backs almost. Like, any receiving back out there is going to be shifty and elusive, that’s the whole point. Alvin Kamara, Christian Mccafery, they evade contact rather than seeking it out. On the other side, players like Derrick Henry or Chris Carson (i know there are maybe more elite options I could use as examples, but have you seen his running style? He has a unique running style that could only be described as powerful, going out of his way to find someone to run over), they’re never ones to catch the ball. The whole idea of a receiving back is that it’s a player that you just want to get the ball in his hands in open space. Elusive backs thrive in open space, so of course they’re going to be more likely to be recieving backs. Power backs, on the other hand, are the better ones when it comes to little to no space. They may require much more time to accelerate than Elusive/Speed backs (why Derrick Henry mostly does outside runs, despite the steryotype of him just chugging down the middle of the pile), but when they gain speed, that’s when you have an issue on your hands. Of course they wouldn’t do as well recieving, there’s not nearly as much room for them to gain speed. This isn’t to say a power back can’t be a good receiving back (hell, Cordarrelle Patterson has the most recieving yards for a runningback this season, and while there is an argument to be made that he’s more elusive than powerful, or not really a running back, he is a large powerful guy, so while he is elusive, he’s way too big to not consider him a power back, and he’s also labeled on the depth chart as a running back, so i’m counting him as one), just that it’s not typical to see something like that. But anyways, I digress. As I was saying, the main difference between a speed back and a power back is in consistency vs. big play ability. Think of how Saquon Barkley has performed this year, at least before the injury. Consistently, you’d see a stationery of something like 12 carries for 70 yards and call that a solid night, but when breaking down those carries, it would be something like 2 carries for 50 yards and 10 carries for 20 yards, which, is that better than each carry getting a little bit over 5 yards? Maybe, but it isn’t up to me, yards are yards. Barkley is the prime example of big play ability over consistency. For power back, let’s use Frank Gore as an example (I know he isn’t nearly as good as Barkley, but he’s the best example of a powerful back who will get consistent yards without really breaking off a big run). In the 2020 season, he had about 3.5 yards per carry, and I can assure you most of that is from 3-4 yards runs rather than a couple big gains. He’s consistent, and if you need yards or someone to depend on in a drive, he’s your guy. If you’re looking for a runningback that the team needs to depend on, where the team can’t really afford those losses of yards, then you’ll take a power back. Let’s say you’re a high flying offense however, a team that wants to air it out and gain chunks of yards. Who needs a consistent dink and dunk offense, why would I want to get a first down through three small plays when i can just have two incompletions and get a big chunk on third down? If you’re looking to play exciting and fast, then you’re looking for a speed back, a player that doesn’t need to be consistent, just explosive. Speed backs are not the kind of players you give 20 something carries a game. You’re giving them 10-15, because they can make the most out of those carries, but aren’t really the backs to handle a large load. On the topic of explosive vs. consistent, I wanted to look at differences in cornerbacks. Looking at it, I was expecting to see a ball hawk sort of corner vs. a shutdown sort of corner, but it doesn’t seem to be that way. My second thought, reading through the archetypes, was that physical corner was more of a zone style player while a cover corner was more of a man-style player, but my assumption was wrong based off of two things. The first reason is the physical corner trait, which helps with pressing a receiver, something you’ll only really see in man coverage (your back is to the end zone facing your receiver in man coverage, and it’s really quite impossible to press a receiver without having that). The second assumption, that i always seem to fall into, is that speed is more important for man coverage, as you have to keep up with your receiver, whereas in zone coverage you just sit still and watch the QB. That, also, is a lie for a couple reasons. Corners rarely get beat due to being slower than their receiver. I know that sounds dumb and also completely untrue, but hear me out here. Let’s say a corner tries to press the reciever, fails, and suddenly the receiver is flying up the field. The corner should be fast in order to keep up with their man, right? Well, not really, because at that point the safety picks him up. The safety’s whole job is to have the cornerback pass the reciever off when they get beat deep. How about a slant through, a short turn and then bursting diagonally down the field, that should require a speedy corner, right? Nope, slants are short, quick passing routes. They aren’t getting beaten by speed, they’re getting beaten by route running and not expecting a slant. What about a crossing route though, something where the wide receiver crosses over the middle of the field. That should be a man coverage beater, the cornerback can’t keep up. Well surprise surprise, the safety comes back once again. The safety, unlike the cornerback, gets the privilege of getting to watch the whole field. He sees a receiver streaking down the middle, he goes down to pick it up. If what i’m saying is true however, then why does speed matter in a reciever? Why would speed matter if cornerbacks being fast doesn’t matter? Well, my first answer to that is that cornerbacks should be fast, but they just don’t have to run a 4.3 or 4.4 to be a good corner. My other answer is that speed, more than anything, becomes a threat. The reason there’s a safety in the backfield in the first place is because they know the reciever is speedy, if the reciever was slow they wouldn’t bother putting a safety back there in the first place. Speed changes the coverages used, but it doesn’t always change the way the cornerback plays them. As well, it’s not like zone doesn’t require speed as well, passing players off and running to the other one, sprinting to where the ball will go after watching the quarterback stares a receiver down, trying to cover two different people in one zone, that’s all something that requires speed. I’m getting off-topic though. While there aren’t archetypes for a boom or bust make a play ballhawk style cornerback vs. a shutdown cornerback, you can absolutely build your archetypes around those. You could make a cornerback with great hands and intelligence vs. a cornerback with agility, strength, and competitiveness. The idea is do you want a cornerback that is just as likely to intercept a ball as give up a huge gain, or do you want a cornerback who can shut down the entire side of the field, who won’t get great stats because the QB doesn’t even look their way. Is it okay to have a high catch percentage allowed when you also can catch the ball. The way I view it, to be honest, depends on the team around you, similar to with running back. If the other cornerback beside you is trash, it doesn’t matter if you can shut down one half of the field if the quarterback can throw to a wide open other half. A great shutdown corner can force long, slow drives, which is only beneficial if the rest of the defense can take advantage of it for a turnover. Ball hawk corners, however, thrive in a bad defense. If the defense can’t stop a drive, then he can just do it single-handedly. It’s okay for him to give up a long gain, because the quarterback most likely would have done that anyways. Now, on a good defense, the roles are flipped. The shutdown corner is king there, as a great defense can easily take advantage of the QB being so limited. The ball hawk CB, on the other hand, becomes somewhat of a liability, as he’s giving up yards that the QB probably would not have gotten otherwise, and why give up the big gain going for the interception when he can easily limit the big play and allow his other teammates to make a play. Anyways, these are my thoughts on the different archetypes of back, both corner and running, specifically on the boom or bust vs. consistency aspect of both.