Last season the St. Louis Rams used the increasingly popular “running back by committee.” Their main back, Zac Stacy, ran the ball 252 times while the back with the second most carries was Daryl Richardson with 71. Benny Cunningham was third on the team with 49 carries and then Isaiah Pead with seven carries. Thrown into the mix this season is rookie Tre Mason out of Auburn.
Last season none of their running backs were particularly good. The Rams had the fourth lowest PFF (subscription) rating in the entire league. Their top rated running back, Stacy, only had a rating of 2.2 for the whole season. Their other two backs, Cunningham and Pead, had -2.4 and -0.3 ratings respectively.
The Rams’ two feature backs will most likely be Stacy and Mason. Stacy is an undersized back who runs tough and can bounce one outside if the hole isn’t there. Mason is another undersized back with a lot of quickness. Mason won’t be able to run it between the tackles like Stacy does but Mason is going to get a great deal of chunk yardage this season.
The addition of Mason into this committee is an attempt to bolster their running game, which will in turn help out their franchise quarterback, Sam Bradford. Another consequence of the Rams drafting Mason is that one of the other running backs will most likely get cut. When the Rams have to make their final cut to bring the roster down to 54 players, there’s a good chance they won’t keep five halfbacks and one fullback. They also won’t cut the one fullback on the roster, so the odd man out will most likely be Pead.
Pead was one of the top running back prospects in the 2012 draft and so far hasn’t lived up to the hype at all. He doesn’t have much power but is very quick and can run away from defenders. What really hurts him is that he’s the same type of back that Stacy and Mason are. He doesn’t offer anything unique or special to the Rams. An option the Rams have for Pead is to try and hide him on their practice squad and see if he can develop anymore.
In 2014 the Rams are clearly headed for another running back by committee. The difference this season is going to be who the main backs are. With Tre Mason coming into the mix he will most certainly take carries away from Stacy and possibly Richardson. The most likely scenario is Stacy getting around 200 carries while Mason and Richardson both hovering around 100.