Seymour":10vepy53 said:
I'll disagree with that. Early in the year when Carson was clearly out producing Penny, Penny was still getting the bulk of the carries for that exact reason, his draft position.
We can't know that. History of Pete suggests that's quite unlikely.
Could be any number of factors at play.
How does he look in practice?
How does Carson look?
Nagging injuries we don't know about?
Reasonable expectation for Carson's health?
Game plan relative to player strengths?
There are a lot more factors. None of which we have any insight to on the outside. Given Carson's injury history and what we know about how he has had difficulty remaining healthy over the course of seasons (both pros and in college), it would be reasonable to try and committee our RB corps.
And it's worth noting, they are still splitting carries with Carson. Just not with Penny. Davis is taking a big chunk of the load now too.
If draft position were a consideration, how would one reconcile using Davis instead of Penny?
I think Pete's history and the fact that we still split carries with Carson refute that opinion.
Additionally, I'd argue that opinion is entirely anecdotal. Penny had ONE game where he got the most carries out of the five we've played. And even then, that was 10 carries out of 19 (Chicago). The very next game, Carson had 32 of the 37 carries and got nicked and missed the next game. Carson's usage has been moderated since and rightly so.
I'd agree that Penny has thus far shown he's the worst of the RB draft class by a wide margin. But the numbers don't support that Penny was being featured. And it's still early to write off Penny. I mentioned this in the Alex Collins thread too -- many rookies make that year two leap and cutting them in year two is the equivalent of selling low on a player. The best course of action IMO is to keep Penny involved. And see where we're at after the end of year two.
If you want to discuss whether or not he was a good pick -- I confess I was not a fan of the pick. I thought Chubb was the second best prospect and harbored hope we'd target Royce Freeman in day two. I strongly felt like our best pick would have been Lamar Jackson. But that's a different topic entirely.