It's an important season for Andre Ellington.
The Arizona Cardinals running back is only entering his third year in the league, but this could be a make-or-break season because of his age. Ellington is is 26 and will turn 27 in February. He was a standout rookie when acting as a complementary piece to Rashard Mendenahll in 2013. Ellington carried the ball 118 times for 652 yards with three touchdowns and caught 39 passes for 371 yards with one touchdown. Because of his efficiency, there were widespread calls for the Cardinals to use the rookie back in a more prominent role. Head Coach Bruce Arians resisted, seemingly concerned about Ellington's durability.
Before Ellington could get a chance to prove Arians wrong during his second season, his heath betrayed him. Entering the Week 1 matchup with the San Diego Chargers, Ellington was dealing with a foot injury. That foot injury didn't subside, but Ellington played through the pain to touch the ball 18 times for 80 yards. His explosiveness from his rookie season had clearly diminished as he worked through pain.
Hindsight suggests that Ellington should have sat out and rested to recuperate his health, but that's not what he did. Instead he played through the pain and turned into an unproductive back. On 201 carries, he compiled 660 yards and three touchdowns. His average fell from 5.5 as a rookie to 3.3 in his second season. Ellington was still an effective receiver, but not as explosive. He caught 46 passes for 395 yards and two touchdowns, an 8.6 yards per reception that dropped 0.9 from the previous season.
Although Ellington's health is a major concern moving forward, it'd be unfair to suggest that he is injury prone based solely on last season. Instead, his toughness for playing through the pain should be commended.
What can be determined is that Ellington is a back who is reliant on his physical traits more than his technical ability. That's concerning. Backs who are technically sound with precise feet and consistent vision are more likely to perform in suboptimal situations or when playing hurt. This makes Ellington a risky pick for fantasy owners. There is obvious upside because the Cardinals have upgraded their offensive line by adding two run-blockers in Mike Iupati and D.J. Humphries. There is also obvious downside with John Brown, Jaron Brown, Stepfan Taylor and David Johnson all in position to pull touches away from the running back both in the run game and passing game.
Ellington looks set to fall into a similar situation that C.J. Spiller has bene in over recent years. A player who can't expect to stockpile touches despite his versatility, therefore a player who needs to maximize the touches he does get with a bloated average. Big plays will be crucial if he is to live up to his relatively high ADP. As a rookie, Ellington had eight 20+ yard runs on 118 carries. Last season, he dropped to four 20+ yard runs on 201 carries. He only has one career 40+ yard run. As a receiver, Ellington has been more dangerous but on fewer touches. He has seven total 20+ yard plays, three as a rookie on 36 receptions and four on 46 receptions in 2014.
Even during his more impressive rookie season, Ellington was leaving yards on the field.
The biggest difference between Ellington and a similar physical specimen such as Jamaal Charles is his inability to set up blocks. On this play against the Tennessee Titans, Ellington is going to be given some space to work in behind the line of scrimmage with a one-on-one blocker-defender matchup to manipulate. More decisive, intelligent footwork would have allowed Ellington to get to the sideine and escape downfield, but instead he was stopped at the line of scrimmage.
From the beginning of this play, the offensive line is doing its job. Ellington is running a stretch play to the outside, but the work of the interior of the line is important to prevent the linemen from flowing across the field with their blockers. The collapse inside creates a situation outside where Ellington has three blockers against three defenders in space. An initial double team by the right guard and right tackle gives him space as he receives the ball from the quarterback, while the tight end is battling an edge defender further outside. The tight end isn't pushing his assignment away from the play, but he is holding his position and using his hands to repel his assignment's advances.
Ellington needs to press the inside running lane hard as soon as he gets the ball. He needs to be decisive so he can get through that hole before the linebacker coming across the field or so he can set up a run to the outside when the edge defender reacts to him.
Instead of being aggressive, Ellington slows his feet and hesitates with the ball. He doesn't pressure the defenders ahead of him and help his blockers by being quick and decisive. What he ultimately does is wait for his blockers to push their defenders further out of the way for him to run onto the second level unopposed. Because he couldn't anticipate the development of the play and in turn couldn't manipulate defenders to help his blockers, the edge defender could comfortably work his way through the tight end to meet Ellington in the hole. The inside linebacker was engaged by the right tackle further downfield, but that was irrelevant because of how laborious Ellington was before the line of scrimmage.
Speed is often overrated in the NFL at every position because of situations such as this one. How fast you act is often more important than how fast you run. Nothing about this play had to do with Ellington's health or physical attributes, it failed because of his slow mental process and an over-reliance on his supporting cast.
This play came from Ellington's rookie season, not last year. Last year there were many more instances of his struggles. Instead of adding to his explosive plays, a greater number of touches simply served to highlight his flaws further. That is often the case with role players who are forced into full-time roles. Rare does a bloated average on fewer touches sustain or develop further when more regularly put in tougher situations to perform.
Often with smaller, more explosive backs, the issue is that they are too anxious to find either sideline. They pass up easier yards up the middle or simply between two blocks because they want to force the play wider in the hope of finding more space. Ellington doesn't have that specific problem, he just lacks a general ability to read plays and make the right adjustments at speed. This was blatant on this play against the Detroit Lions from last season.
Left tackle Jared Veldheer gets knocked backwards at the beginning of the play, so even before Ellington gets the ball he should recognize that the play isn't going to work perfectly as designed. Veldheer and Ezekiel Ansah's presences behind the line of scrimmage have obviously affected Ellington because both of his feet are in the air as he receives the ball. He has already decided to turn the ball back infield, presumably in the hope of running past Ansah. If Ellington had read this play correctly, he would have known that the safest way to the line of scrimmage would have been behind Veldheer, because the left tackle had positioning to create leverage on an outside run.
Runs to the outside can often look like they are there when they're not because defenders can more easily come off their blocks if the play isn't designed to go to the outside. That wasn't the case on this play.
Ellington would likely have got the corner with ease on this play. Because the play didn't work as designed, he would have been confronted by the second-level linebacker who was free, but considering his physical talent that shouldn't be an intimidating spot to be in. The engaged blockers aren't expecting an outside run, but each had good positioning on their assignments to naturally fend off a running lane for the running back. Instead of escaping to space, Ellignton ran directly into a wall at the line of scrimmage.
This all came about because he made a bad decision when the play didn't work the way he was expecting it to work.
Being a running back in the NFL is about so much more than your physical attributes. The metrics that measure a back's physical talent can't account for his ability to adjust on the fly or manipulate blockers to create running lanes. It takes a very special athlete to out-athlete NFL players considering most of the players in the league would be designated as world class athletes, the very best of the best. Top backs such as Adrian Peterson and Marshawn Lynch, as well as lower tier backs who sustain long productive careers, are typically able to so effective because they master the subtleties of the position. Not because they are great athletes.
In Ellington the upside is easy to see, but it's hard to weigh it above the risks.