Speed kills .. Defenses are simply scared to death of those kind of players. I used to hear the late John Madden say: " it’s two things that NFL defenses fear the most … Speed and a running QB. "
Just as Barkley has that kind of instant fear factor speed, and has always put defense on egg shell worries
– so does our own Tony Pollard.. his speed and instant explosiveness was the likely leading reason why we chose to invest far more in Pollard and let Zeke go.
Barkley still has elite burst and long run speed, but I’m not sure he is back to pre-ACL form. He used to be so difficult to wrap and coral to tackle. On a frequent basis, defenders would constantly just slide right off of him in the open field. But I don’t see that near as often now.
But in terms of run instincts, short/goal line power, receiving skills, and elite speed, Saquon is still quite the complete package to deal with.
Pollard: this will be his first year as primary full time starter. And under new OC/play caller direction, we hope to see his full exploits vs being limited under Kellen Moore. Especially as a receiver out of the backfield.
Tony has run instincts and vision, cut back agility, underrated break tackle ability, receiving skills and of course elite burst and speed. Always felt there are only a handful of backs in his league when it came to elite breakaway speed (barkley, taylor,henry, mccaffrey, chubb, cook, kamara and ET in jax)
He’s not as powerful in lower body, more difficult to tackle than Barkley, not as good in goal line/short yrd, and we’ll have to see if Tony can hold up per 15-20 "touches per game as full time starter in full 17 game season.
We’ll see if rookie RBs Bijah Robinson and Gibbs will enter that fray.
