Love/Hate Relationship with Rashard Mendenhall?

As I wrote the original post I forgot about reading an article the other day about Mendy talking about his running style(spinning) etc and how he does hold the ball out at times. I do agree that there are points where he should just lower his shoulder to fight for the extra yardage but at the same time I don’t want to take away his style of running.

It’s kind of a bad mix when as your last two backs before Mendenhall you have Willie Parker who relied on his speed and then Jerome Bettis who was a major power back. Mendenhall is a little in between though definitely not as strong as Bettis but people still want to see him run fast and break tackles. Which is understandable because he has the capability.

Strengths:

• Speed, he gets up to speed very quickly and hits holes that he sees quickly
• The spin move is nasty to Dbacks in the open field
• Can catch the football in the open field and make people miss
• Good blocker in the passing game

Improvement Opportunities:

• Will not use that bulk and heft to push the pile.
• Vision is suspect, will hit wide open holes, however, he predetermines where he’s going to run. For example, in the Panthers game he cut right into the LB who was about to be taken out by Pouncey if had just cut inside Pouncey. He previously gained 6 yards doing the same thing and the Panthers MLB realized it.
• Position of the football while running, doesn’t protect the ball when in traffic, it hasn’t turned into a fumbling problem, but he’s too loose with the ball
• Mental mistakes, for example ran out of bounce in the Panther’s game and came back in and tried to catch a pass, which resulted in a penalty.

I just prefer the straight-up, downhill-running, linebacker-leveling, power-running back v.s. the quick-slashing, finesse running back. I know we’ve had Parker for the last few years, and he’s not a power back, but I feel Bettis left a void. He was your “typical” gritty Pittsburgh running back. He’s a guy that punished the defense.

However, the line hasn’t been what it once was either. Zone blocking? Ugh. How about we maul the guys on the other team instead of trying to confuse them? Other than Kemoeatu, we haven’t had guys who excel in run blocking since the departure of Faneca. Foster and Pouncey are promising, but Foster got beat out for the starting job by Essex, who is better at pass blocking. Pouncey can get some push off the ball, so we should start seeing some lanes.

Maybe it’s just me, but it always seemed like the Bus got positive yardage. With Mendenhall, you just never seem to know. He may gain 8 yards on one play, lose 2 on the next, and gain 2 the next time he touches the ball.

Plus, he makes me nervous when he carries the ball high, especially when he spins, because it looks like it could pop out if he hits a defender.

I know I’m guilty of blaming Mendenhall for short yardage failures, and maybe some of it is justified, (like when he tries to bounce the play outside the tackles and loses yardage instead of leveling his shoulder and trying to fight for a yard or two inside) but the line doesn’t always open the running lanes and has gotten downright dominated in some cases.

So, in short, I think Mendenhall will get love as long as he churns out yardage, gets first downs, and doesn’t turn the ball over. He has the talent to be a top running back in the game, but he has to improve a few aspects of his game, while the O-line has to be able to give him lanes to run.

Even before he played last year and a few were ready to write him off. Although, admittedly, I do hold on to hope for too long sometimes.

I think you hit it on the head; we like Mendenhall, but with reservations.

The first time I saw him, it’s when USC was putting a hurt on Illinois, but the Spin Doctor was putting a hurt on the USC rushing defense. Probably as dominant a performance as I’ve ever seen at the college level.

It has yet to fully translate to the NFL. I think it will. He IS young, and with experience, could well turn into the complete premiere back we’re hoping for.

Laughed at the texting thing…

I want Pouncey to break Ray Ray’s shoulder.

- With Redman as our short yardage back I’m hoping to see a good amount of formations featuring both him and Rashard. I know there have already been moments where they have been in the backfield together and it’s been successful so I’m really hoping to see that formation a lot as it gives a bunch of different options on a single play.

“Dixon hands off to Redman, no it was a fake! Swing pass to Mendenhall and he takes it 56 yards for the score!”

Just sayin’.

- How will Moore be trickled into the running game? Is it to give Rashard a breather from time to time or bring him in for blocking purposes? I’ve really not heard a lot how Moore will be used this season, or what exactly his role is. So I’d love to hear some opinions.

- (Correct me if I’m wrong) Does anyone else find it odd that Mike Tomlin said that he plans to not over work Mendenhall at the beginning of the season yet he’s one of the players who has to step up big while Roethlisberger is out? I mean, I would understand that if Ben was playing but I don’t think Moore and Redman given a significant amount of carries could produce what Rashard can. If this is the case as well, how many carries will be viewed as a good load of work for him? Willie Parker carried the ball 320+ times in 2007 before he was injured so I would assume they’re aiming for the solid 300 carries or less mantra.

I bet there is a lot of love for Mendenhall today.