The Rams may think they know who their starting running back will be now that Stephen Jackson is no longer with the team; for the record, Daryl Richardson is the Rams’ likely starter, but that doesn’t mean Richardson will be carrying a huge percentage of the Rams’ runs.
Head coach Jeff Fisher said Thursday the team may opt for a multi-back approach instead of using one feature back.
“I’ve usually had a guy, but that’s what the competition is about, and that’s what camp’s for and preseason games are fort,” Fisher said via Pro Football Talk, “It’s not going to be out of the question that we don’t play two or three of them quite a bit. We may not end up with a ‘bell cow’ like we’ve had last year in [Jackson] and previous years, and just let them play.”
In addition to Richardson, Isaiah Pead and Zac Stacy will be competing for playing time. It’s important to note that Pead will be suspended for the first game of the regular season, but being only one game, that probably won’t affect the Rams’ decision in placing him on their depth chart.
For the Rams’ running game, preseason action will be huge in determining the final ordering of their backs as well as what the playing time split ends up being.
“I’m not saying that we don’t have one that can. We just haven’t seen him do it yet,” Fisher added. “One of them may emerge and carry it 350 times this year, we don’t know. But offensively, it’s nice to have two or three guys in a rotation just because there’s different ability levels at the position.”
Unlike the quarterback position, running back by committee can work in the NFL, and in the Rams case, the average of the running backs may be better than any individual’s ability, making the option the best possible route for the Rams’ offense.
