Mason's Mailbag: A long-term comparison for Phillip Lindsay

[Miles]

Lifelong Broncos fan and Colorado native here, now living in Vienna, Austria. Many thanks to you, the rest of the Orange and Blue 760 and Broncos media team members for all the of the excellent content you produce and make available worldwide. It really helps us Broncos Country expats feel connected to home, despite the long distance.


My question for you is why multiple media personalities are predicting that Royce Freeman will be more productive and get more carries than Phillip Lindsay this season? Granted Lindsay’s injury was perhaps nontrivial, but honestly I don’t understand why he continues to be so underestimated, despite such an outstanding rookie year and a long history of proving naysayers wrong.


-- James Conner


There will always be doubters for any player who doesn't fit into the generally accepted height/weight/speed template of a what an NFL player at a position should be. After all, there were doubters of Elvis Dumervil for his entire 11-season career, because he was thought to be too short (5-foot-11) to be an effective pass rusher, and yet only seven players who played their entire career since 2000 posted more sacks.


That said, the wrist injury is a big deal for a running back. We know that Lindsay is willing to run into a stacked box; we know that he is fearless and durable. But you know that opponents will make an extra effort to tear the ball from his grasp and test the recovery of his wrist. I expect that he will be fine, but that, too, leads to doubters.


It's also not the worst thing for the Broncos offense if Royce Freeman leads the running backs in carries and overall touches -- or at least comes close to Lindsay's tally. If you're going to play the long game with Lindsay and maximize his long-term effectiveness and viability, it's essential to make sure he shares the workload.


In that regard, you should look to the career of Warrick Dunn for guidance.


Dunn broke into the league in 1997 as a 5-foot-9, 180-pound first-round selection of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Like Lindsay, Dunn electrified an offense that otherwise lacked explosiveness. Dunn actually averaged more touches per game as a rookie (16.4) than Lindsay (15.1).


But the key for the Bucs in those early-career years was that they were not tempted to overuse Dunn because they had fullback Mike Alstott, an effective runner and pass-catcher in his own right. From 1997-2001, Alstott averaged 209.8 touches per season, while Dunn averaged 265.8.


The sharing of duties continued in Atlanta from 2002-07. For most of those years, the Falcons had another productive running back (T.J. Duckett) and the most productive running quarterback in NFL history (Michael Vick).


Luck and natural durability are factors, as well. Dunn played at least 15 regular-season games in all but two of his 12 seasons and missed just 11 games in his career. But the result for Dunn was a career in which he amassed 15,306 yards from scrimmage and posted at least 1,000 yards of total offense in all but one season. Even in his final season (2008, with the Bucs), he averaged 4.8 yards per touch -- right at his career average.


Dunn is a best-case scenario, but with Freeman as a 1A back, Lindsay can have that sort of career if injury luck is on his side.