CJ. Anderson vs. Malcolm Brown

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Akrasian

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They won't tag either player. At least with Anderson, if he becomes too expensive, that means the Rams should get a 2020 comp pick for him, since I'm confident that they would offer Anderson enough to get something back if the offer is beaten. Brown should be healthy and isn't a bad consolation prize. I just don't see McVay liking him as much as Anderson, given Anderson's production.
 

BonifayRam

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Rams can’t re-sign RB C.J. Anderson if they’re committed to RB Todd Gurley.
The Rams can’t have it both ways. They proved that in the final two games of the postseason.
Feb 18, 2019
https://www.turfshowtimes.com/2019/...n-c-j-anderson-todd-gurley-contract-extension

On July 24, 2018, Los Angeles Rams RB Todd Gurley signed a four-year, $57.5m extension that would keep him in LA through the 2023 season.

Now just seven months later, there’s another running back many Rams fans are hoping to re-sign: RB C.J. Anderson.

Which sets up an inherent problem.

For the Rams to get their money’s worth out of Gurley, he can’t be in a job share.

Which is a weird fact to have to iterate given that he’s never been in one until the playoffs.

Through the first 12 games of the season, Gurley spearheaded a reserve unit led by backup RB Malcolm Brown with RBs Justin Davis and John Kelly in deep roster support. Against the Detroit Lions in Week 13, Brown injured his clavicle. He had a “procedure,” not surgery (a point that could be relevant to Gurley in the weeks and months ahead), to repair his collarbone which landed him on injured reserve and ended his season. For the next two games, the Rams went with a Gurley-Davis-Kelly trio. The results as a whole were, given the circumstances and the expectations for the Rams in 2018, disastrous. The Rams lost to both the Chicago Bears and the Philadelphia Eagles sending us into Panic Week. But Gurley injured his knee against the Eagles. Though he was originally “on track” to play in Week 16, the Rams went ahead and signed Anderson to beef up the depth chart.

And then everything changed.

Gurley was listed as “Questionable” against the Arizona Cardinals in the penultimate regular season game. While he was expected to play, he was eventually ruled out before gametime. There was less drama in Week 17 against the San Francisco 49ers when the Rams ruled Gurley “Out” well before kickoff. In those two games, it was an Anderson-Kelly duo that got all the action. C.J. played 98 snaps (69.50%) to Kelly’s 43 (30.50%). The carry usage wasn’t far off from that with 43 (63.24%) for Anderson and 25 (36.76%) for Kelly.

All of that is to say that Todd Gurley was used at about an 85% clip for the entire season until he injured his knee with a rush ratio similar to his playing time. That balance was changed for the Anderson-Kelly pairing that Rams Head Coach Sean McVay used to finish the season.

The postseason? Completely different.

The Rams essentially used three different gameplans on the ground between Gurley and Anderson. With such a small sample size, it’s hard to attribute specific outcomes to specific factors. How much of the balanced attack against the Dallas Cowboys was due to the absolute dominance of the Rams’ offensive line? Tough to say. What is clear though is that Gurley ran much less than Anderson per snap. Gurley had seven less runs than Anderson (16 to 23) despite playing 11 more snaps that game (45 to 34). Even weirder then was Gurley’s performance in the NFC Championship against the New Orleans Saints in which he got just four rushes to Anderson’s 16 while Gurley played 32 snaps along with Anderson’s 37. Super Bowl LIII clarified nothing as Gurley got 43 snaps to Anderson’s 22 while posting a running ratio of 10 for Gurley to Anderson’s 7.

All of that is to say that finding a balance for Todd Gurley and C.J. Anderson might be possible. It’s also not worth it if Gurley’s fully healthy next season (which there’s no reason to think otherwise will be the case as of now) and he’s getting paid what he’s getting paid.

Todd Gurley is one of the best running backs in the NFL. He nearly won the MVP in 2017 while earning Offensive Player of the Year honors. He earned his contract extension and is set to spearhead the Rams into the Los Angeles sports culture to a much more significant point than they’ve been thus far.

Bringing back C.J. Anderson won’t help that. It will hinder it. The Rams only signed him in the first place because of the injuries to Gurley and Brown who himself is set to be a free agent.

The Rams can’t bring back C.J. Anderson if they want Todd Gurley to be Todd Gurley especially not when they’re paying Todd Gurley like Todd Gurley.
 

Petrowsky

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Brown has never put on a performance close to what CJ has in his entire 4 (or is it 5?) year tenure here. Not knocking Brown, i like him as a back up, but we're talking about holding onto someone who is a proven starter on a super bowl winning team and outperformed anyother back up we have by a mile. Imo its not even comparable.
While this is true, we don’t know what Brown would have done if given the starting opportunities like Anderson got in weeks 16 & 17. Maybe Brown would have done extremely well.
 

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While this is true, we don’t know what Brown would have done if given the starting opportunities like Anderson got in weeks 16 & 17. Maybe Brown would have done extremely well.
There have been a couple games where Brown took over for Gurley bc we were so far ahead, he never showed anything like CJ has shown. Brown has gotten quite a few opportunities on the field since he has been with us, maybe not starting, but he's never put runs together like CJ has.
 

Petrowsky

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There have been a couple games where Brown took over for Gurley bc we were so far ahead, he never showed anything like CJ has shown. Brown has gotten quite a few opportunities on the field since he has been with us, maybe not starting, but he's never put runs together like CJ has.
I feel like Brown coming in when the Rams are really far ahead means you will see a different running style. I’m just saying that I believe Brown would have produced good results if he were given the same opportunities to start that Anderson was given.
 

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I feel like Brown coming in when the Rams are really far ahead means you will see a different running style. I’m just saying that I believe Brown would have produced good results if he were given the same opportunities to start that Anderson was given.
I agree, but CJ produced great results, and the different running style would be bc Gurley and Brown are much different types of runners. There was also no drop off when we saw both Gurley and CJ on the field in the dallas game.
 

OldSchool

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Rams can’t re-sign RB C.J. Anderson if they’re committed to RB Todd Gurley.
The Rams can’t have it both ways. They proved that in the final two games of the postseason.
Feb 18, 2019
https://www.turfshowtimes.com/2019/...n-c-j-anderson-todd-gurley-contract-extension

On July 24, 2018, Los Angeles Rams RB Todd Gurley signed a four-year, $57.5m extension that would keep him in LA through the 2023 season.

Now just seven months later, there’s another running back many Rams fans are hoping to re-sign: RB C.J. Anderson.

Which sets up an inherent problem.

For the Rams to get their money’s worth out of Gurley, he can’t be in a job share.

Which is a weird fact to have to iterate given that he’s never been in one until the playoffs.

Through the first 12 games of the season, Gurley spearheaded a reserve unit led by backup RB Malcolm Brown with RBs Justin Davis and John Kelly in deep roster support. Against the Detroit Lions in Week 13, Brown injured his clavicle. He had a “procedure,” not surgery (a point that could be relevant to Gurley in the weeks and months ahead), to repair his collarbone which landed him on injured reserve and ended his season. For the next two games, the Rams went with a Gurley-Davis-Kelly trio. The results as a whole were, given the circumstances and the expectations for the Rams in 2018, disastrous. The Rams lost to both the Chicago Bears and the Philadelphia Eagles sending us into Panic Week. But Gurley injured his knee against the Eagles. Though he was originally “on track” to play in Week 16, the Rams went ahead and signed Anderson to beef up the depth chart.

And then everything changed.

Gurley was listed as “Questionable” against the Arizona Cardinals in the penultimate regular season game. While he was expected to play, he was eventually ruled out before gametime. There was less drama in Week 17 against the San Francisco 49ers when the Rams ruled Gurley “Out” well before kickoff. In those two games, it was an Anderson-Kelly duo that got all the action. C.J. played 98 snaps (69.50%) to Kelly’s 43 (30.50%). The carry usage wasn’t far off from that with 43 (63.24%) for Anderson and 25 (36.76%) for Kelly.

All of that is to say that Todd Gurley was used at about an 85% clip for the entire season until he injured his knee with a rush ratio similar to his playing time. That balance was changed for the Anderson-Kelly pairing that Rams Head Coach Sean McVay used to finish the season.

The postseason? Completely different.

The Rams essentially used three different gameplans on the ground between Gurley and Anderson. With such a small sample size, it’s hard to attribute specific outcomes to specific factors. How much of the balanced attack against the Dallas Cowboys was due to the absolute dominance of the Rams’ offensive line? Tough to say. What is clear though is that Gurley ran much less than Anderson per snap. Gurley had seven less runs than Anderson (16 to 23) despite playing 11 more snaps that game (45 to 34). Even weirder then was Gurley’s performance in the NFC Championship against the New Orleans Saints in which he got just four rushes to Anderson’s 16 while Gurley played 32 snaps along with Anderson’s 37. Super Bowl LIII clarified nothing as Gurley got 43 snaps to Anderson’s 22 while posting a running ratio of 10 for Gurley to Anderson’s 7.

All of that is to say that finding a balance for Todd Gurley and C.J. Anderson might be possible. It’s also not worth it if Gurley’s fully healthy next season (which there’s no reason to think otherwise will be the case as of now) and he’s getting paid what he’s getting paid.

Todd Gurley is one of the best running backs in the NFL. He nearly won the MVP in 2017 while earning Offensive Player of the Year honors. He earned his contract extension and is set to spearhead the Rams into the Los Angeles sports culture to a much more significant point than they’ve been thus far.

Bringing back C.J. Anderson won’t help that. It will hinder it. The Rams only signed him in the first place because of the injuries to Gurley and Brown who himself is set to be a free agent.

The Rams can’t bring back C.J. Anderson if they want Todd Gurley to be Todd Gurley especially not when they’re paying Todd Gurley like Todd Gurley.
I think this article keeps the longest streak in sports. Me disagreeing with 3k.
 

Petrowsky

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I agree, but CJ produced great results, and the different running style would be bc Gurley and Brown are much different types of runners. There was also no drop off when we saw both Gurley and CJ on the field in the dallas game.
By different running style I mean running to chew up clock at the end of the game. When Malcom was put in the game with large leads, he’s not running the same way he would if he was starting from the beginning. He was trying to chew up clock and seal the victory.
 

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By different running style I mean running to chew up clock at the end of the game. When Malcom was put in the game with large leads, he’s not running the same way he would if he was starting from the beginning. He was trying to chew up clock and seal the victory.
What about those times he wasnt there just to chew up the clock? This kind of reminds me of the Mannion debate that we dont know what we have in him bc he hasnt played with the ones. Malcolm has had his chance on the field for years and he has shown hes a good back up or a rb you put in to get those few inches needed, but he has not done anything like CJ has.
 

Petrowsky

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What about those times he wasnt there just to chew up the clock? This kind of reminds me of the Mannion debate that we dont know what we have in him bc he hasnt played with the ones. Malcolm has had his chance on the field for years and he has shown hes a good back up or a rb you put in to get those few inches needed, but he has not done anything like CJ has.
What about those times? Brown rarely got meaningful carries while the Rams were close, nor has he received any starts. In Brown’s career, he has 7 games where he has more than 5 carries. 6 of those 7 games were a Rams blowout W. One was a 34-14 loss. He has never started, and he doesn’t have a game with a large amount of carries where he was being leaned on to get yards. So of course he isn’t being leaned on for those yards. When Brown would have had his opportunity this year to do that in weeks 16 & 17, but he was injured already, which is why Anderson came in to that very opportunity in LA.

I get your Mannion reference, but I’m in recent threads saying I don’t think that Mannion is any good despite the lack of playing time to judge him. Brown produces when he’s given the opportunity. While we haven’t seen Brown start a game, but he is getting results whether he gets 5 carries in a close game to spell Gurley, or getting 10 carries late in a blowout to eat up clock.
 
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What about those times? Brown rarely got meaningful carries while the Rams were close, nor has he received any starts. In Brown’s career, he has 7 games where he has more than 5 carries. 6 of those 7 games were a Rams blowout W. One was a 34-14 loss. He has never started, and he doesn’t have a game with a large amount of carries where he was being leaned on to get yards. So of course he isn’t being leaned on for those yards. When Brown would have had his opportunity this year to do that in weeks 16 & 17, but he was injured already, which is why Anderson came in to that very opportunity in LA.

I get your Mannion reference, but I’m in recent threads saying I don’t think that Mannion is any good despite the lack of playing time to judge him. Brown produces when he’s given the opportunity. While we haven’t seen Brown start a game, but he is getting results whether he gets 5 carries in a close game to spell Gurley, or getting 10 carries late in a blowout to eat up clock.
My point is that Brown hasnt produced the way CJ has even when its not a blow out. He hasnt found holes like CJ does. You may say Brown hasnt gotten the touches but lets not forget the fact that CJ has played the way he has after being on the couch all season, put on a ton of bad weight and had 3 days to somewhat grasp our system. And yet he still outperformed Brown. If Brown could have done what CJ has, he would have shown it at anytime these last 4 years amd we woukd have had been talking about our "2 headed monster" much earlier than now.
 

Petrowsky

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My point is that Brown hasnt produced the way CJ has even when its not a blow out. He hasnt found holes like CJ does. You may say Brown hasnt gotten the touches but lets not forget the fact that CJ has played the way he has after being on the couch all season, put on a ton of bad weight and had 3 days to somewhat grasp our system. And yet he still outperformed Brown. If Brown could have done what CJ has, he would have shown it at anytime these last 4 years amd we woukd have had been talking about our "2 headed monster" much earlier than now.
Anderson wasn’t on the couch all season. He played in 9 games with the Raiders so it’s not like he wasn’t in football shape. You’re comparing apples to oranges. A guy who got intermittent carries compared to a guy who started right when he went to the Rams. My whole point, which I think you’re missing, is you can’t say you know what Brown would have done unless he was given the same exact conditions Anderson was giving. Claiming to know that Brown wouldn’t have done well if he was given the same amount of carries that C.J. got is just pointless. As I said from the beginning, Malcom Brown could have easily have produced quite well in those situations. We’ll never know, and pretending to just seems foolish.
 

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Anderson wasn’t on the couch all season. He played in 9 games with the Raiders so it’s not like he wasn’t in football shape. You’re comparing apples to oranges. A guy who got intermittent carries compared to a guy who started right when he went to the Rams. My whole point, which I think you’re missing, is you can’t say you know what Brown would have done unless he was given the same exact conditions Anderson was giving. Claiming to know that Brown wouldn’t have done well if he was given the same amount of carries that C.J. got is just pointless. As I said from the beginning, Malcom Brown could have easily have produced quite well in those situations. We’ll never know, and pretending to just seems foolish.
Anderson was only on the Raiders roster for a few days. He was on the Panthers for a bit but only received 9% of the running back snaps.

I understand what you're saying, we're just not agreeing on the subject at hand. How i am looking at it is both rbs operated under the same scheme, same oline, same qb, and yet Anderson did the most with his snaps. Lets look at Browns game against the Cards compared to Andersons game against the Cards. In wk 2 Brown had 12 attempts for 48 yd s. Anderson had 58 yds total in his FIRST 6 snaps when he went up against AZ. Regardless of who was given the starting role, why did Anderson do more with less snaps than Brown all game when he faced the same team?

I cant say FOR SURE that Brown wouldnt do just as well. I can only look at what he's been given, under what circumstances, and make an educated guess. If you still dont agree, its no big deal brother. We'll just agree to disagree. Us being right or wrong doesnt mean jack in real life. All that matter is Rams continue to get better and succeed.
 

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Anderson was only on the Raiders roster for a few days. He was on the Panthers for a bit but only received 9% of the running back snaps.

I understand what you're saying, we're just not agreeing on the subject at hand. How i am looking at it is both rbs operated under the same scheme, same oline, same qb, and yet Anderson did the most with his snaps. Lets look at Browns game against the Cards compared to Andersons game against the Cards. In wk 2 Brown had 12 attempts for 48 yd s. Anderson had 58 yds total in his FIRST 6 snaps when he went up against AZ. Regardless of who was given the starting role, why did Anderson do more with less snaps than Brown all game when he faced the same team?

I cant say FOR SURE that Brown wouldnt do just as well. I can only look at what he's been given, under what circumstances, and make an educated guess. If you still dont agree, its no big deal brother. We'll just agree to disagree. Us being right or wrong doesnt mean jack in real life. All that matter is Rams continue to get better and succeed.
Agreed. We are at an impasse so let’s just agree to disagree like you said. Good day to you brother!
 

LA_Rams_#29

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Anderson was only on the Raiders roster for a few days. He was on the Panthers for a bit but only received 9% of the running back snaps.

I understand what you're saying, we're just not agreeing on the subject at hand. How i am looking at it is both rbs operated under the same scheme, same oline, same qb, and yet Anderson did the most with his snaps. Lets look at Browns game against the Cards compared to Andersons game against the Cards. In wk 2 Brown had 12 attempts for 48 yd s. Anderson had 58 yds total in his FIRST 6 snaps when he went up against AZ. Regardless of who was given the starting role, why did Anderson do more with less snaps than Brown all game when he faced the same team?

I cant say FOR SURE that Brown wouldnt do just as well. I can only look at what he's been given, under what circumstances, and make an educated guess. If you still dont agree, its no big deal brother. We'll just agree to disagree. Us being right or wrong doesnt mean jack in real life. All that matter is Rams continue to get better and succeed.

Brown's 4.9ypg in 2018 wasn't too shabby.... he's a better receiver as well..
 

MadGoat

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CJ doesn't have any offers (or visits to teams that I'm aware of) and it's looking more and more like he is going to be on the outside looking in for a 2019 job. There are still plenty of backs available and few openings. I'm sure many of those teams have an eye towards the draft as well.

If he's willing to come cheap to a team that treated him well, I think there's plenty of room for him and Brown on the roster.
 

LARams_1963

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Here's the thing about Brown to me. I can't remember a time when he was in the game that I thought "Man... we're really sucking with him in the game and Gurley out" I think given the reps he could put up some really good numbers.
 

FrantikRam

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Here's the thing about Brown to me. I can't remember a time when he was in the game that I thought "Man... we're really sucking with him in the game and Gurley out" I think given the reps he could put up some really good numbers.


This.

Gurley does everything better than Malcolm except one thing: vision. Several times this year Gurley would gain 3-5 yards, and then Malcolm would come in and gain more yardage. Obviously Gurley is more explosive, better receiver, better blocker, etc. - but I love me some Malcolm Brown and I believe he would have done just as good as CJ.