Experts hating on CJ going in the 1st RD.

im hating on the experts hating on Chris Johnson

 

well put

 

Best case scenario, Chris Johnson becomes what Reggie Bush is right now. Not a 1,000 yard rusher, not a 10 TD guy, but a weapon out of the backfield and good for a couple long runs every few games.

Trouble is, Johnson's 1,423 yards as a senior are just about equal to Bush's 1,398 yards as a junior, but Bush carried an 8.6 ypc average and played at USC against top caliber competition. Johnson averaged 6.0 ypc (still good) against mid-level teams.

Chris Johnson would have been a fine 3rd round pick for a team that needed depth at RB and a new kick and punt returner. The Titans needed a WR.

 

No, he would have been a steal in the 3rd obviously. And no, the Titans needed a playmaker, and as of right now, that's what they got.

 

Wow.....where to start.

The Johnson/Bush comparisons are appropriate, but this is not to say they have similar styles. Bush's greatest strengths are his speed, vision, and lateral movement...the guy has remarkable change-of-direction skills. Unfortunately, he often relies too heavily on his lateral movement, and ends up running sideways far too often in an effort to run around defenders. This causes him to lose his momentum, and makes him a sitting duck for defenders.

Johnson is a different animal. If you'll watch him play, you'll notice that, unlike Bush, CJ is very much a north-south runner....he's constantly moving forward. No side-stepping or tap-dancing around to slow his momentum....he's constantly running under a full head of steam, with his nose pointed toward the endzone. (Watch the videos).

Johnson also plays with more of a football mindset than Bush, and doesn't look to avoid contact. He's more than willing to lower his shoulder and take a defender head-on when necessary....and when that happens, Johnson's forward momentum results in a lot of missed or broken tackles. if the defender doesn't wrap him up. When the defender does get him, this same forward momentum means that Johnson almost always picks up another 2-3 yards before going down. (Again....watch the video).

As far as the competition thing goes....yes, Bush got his yards against top-level competition. But he also had one of the best supporting casts in college football history. That USC roster was stacked from top to bottom with first- and second-round draft picks, and they absolutely pummelled virtually every team they faced.

Chris Johnson faced an very different set of circumstances, with a supporting cast that was mediocre at best. How does this grab you: Johnson ran for 1600+ yards behind an O-line that didn't produce a single NFL prospect this year. In fact, only one ECU player drafted at all this year....and that player was Johnson himself.

(It's also worth mentioning that Johnson faced much tougher competition than Ladanian Tomlinson or Brian Westbrook faced in their college careers.....and the difference in competition certainly didn't appear to affect them much.)

 

whilst i think the pickup of cj is great, and i think he is going ot tear some **** up on the field, i would have liked for us to pick a higher rated player in the first and then trade up some in the 2nd to get him. them videos of him are pretty badass some of the cuts he makes are crazy. who cares about saying he is next reggie bush or however?? we have the first CHRIS JOHNSON and time may tell if is going to be bad mofo as an rb, and in the meantime he can get us some great field position returning kicks

 

have to strongly disagree with that. Chris Johnson at 5'11, 195 and his 4.24 40 will be split out wide a lot. Hemidinger loves to get RB split out wide to take advantage of matchups. Look at it this way

QB - Young
WR - Gage
WR - Williams
RB - Johnson (split out)
TE - Crumpler
RB - LenDale

This forces the defense to make a critical decision. Do they stick a LB on Johnson and hope Johnson doesn't make him French toast? Or do they go to the nickel and stick a DB on him? Going Nickel makes them venurable to a run up the gut by White, Young finding Crumpler over the middle, or Young running. That's not even taking into account if the defense goes zone, in which case Gage and Williams can sit down in the holes in the zone.

Oh, and he will make a weapon at KR and teams will have to account for him at RB.

 

You might want to stop and consider the fact that Bush played on a team with guys on the OL who were NFL caliber (look at how many of those guys were at least drafted, some pretty high), an NFL caliber QB and NFL caliber coaching (not to mention very good TEs). I'm not going to say CJ was Bush but it might be fair to say if he played on a team with that kind of talent and coaching around him he could have put comparable numbers at USC. A guy with his speed running behind a dominating OL that can open holes big enough for Lendale to run through would look pretty dominating himself. Also having a guy like LW to share backfield duties with might be nice as well.