Monday, August 31, 2009

Blast from the Past

Here's a name not heard in a while - Christopher Harris calls Rashad Jennings a remote fantasy football sleeper as he has a chance to win the job as Maurice Jones-Drew's backup in Jacksonville. Not bad - I-AA RB to NFL backup in your rookie year...especially since he was the last running back selected in the draft.

Jennings isn't exactly lighting it up in the preseason with 9 yards on 5 carries, but he apparently is having a good camp. He was kind of in the wrong place at the wrong time with Pitt and didn't get much of a chance.

5 comments:

  1. Kind of - both went on to star for I-AA teams. But Jennings, barring injury to MJD will not get nearly the playing time Flacco does in the NFL in his first year. Still, he's a big back and could be a nice change of pace for the Jaguars (assuming he beats out the other two guys up for the backup role).

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  2. Kind of - both went on to star for I-AA teams. But Jennings, barring injury to MJD will not get nearly the playing time Flacco does in the NFL in his first year. Still, he's a big back and could be a nice change of pace for the Jaguars (assuming he beats out the other two guys up for the backup role).

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  3. What do you mean Jennings "didn't get much of a chance" at PITT. As a true freshman he was a co-starter and got 10 less carries than the leading ball carrier (LSH) on the team. Remember he came onto the team behind two seniors in Kirkley and Murphy - both kids who had done OK in their careers and still DW gave him more carries than either of those two. (LSH had more carries than them also which kind of skews the common "DW always plays seniors" theory)

    Then, Jennings left of his own accord to be close to his ill father - and his leaving had nothing whatsoever to do with how much he was being used. To even talk about him and Flacco's situation in the same vein is ridiculous.

    Good God - the revisionist history that goes on about PITT football is amazing.

    Of course - if you meant didn't get much of a chance at PITT due to his familial situation... then you can disregard my rant above and I agree with you.

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  4. Yes, actually, that's what I was referring to when I said "Wrong place at the wrong time." I thought it was kind of implied, but then again, it's been like five years or whatever since he left. Jennings certainly got his chance on the field - I thought the personal situation was understood.

    On a side note, playing LSH and Jennings over Murphy/Kirkley hardly dispels the notion that Wannstedt sticks with upperclassmen. I had to do some checking to prove this, but in an extremely mediocre '04, Kirkley and Murphy didn't combine to rush for 1,000 yards and neither had a YPC average over 4.0. With LSH and Jennings as freshmen in '05, Kirkley and Murphy still got about 40% of the carries (even as both LSH and Jennings rushed for more YPCs).

    If anything, that only further proves that Wanny sticks with the upperclassmen a bit too much. Most of the carries should have went to the freshmen that year. It was hardly a leap of faith on the part of Wanny to play LSH/Jennings over those two guys, who were mediocre at best.

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