Home Steelers 2015 Season Steelers Need to Get Todman or Pead up to Speed

Steelers Need to Get Todman or Pead up to Speed

by Steelbydesign

The Steelers’ best move of the off-season became clear on Sunday’s victory over the Oakland Raiders when DeAngelo Williams rushed for 170 yards and picked up another 55 receiving.

The team needed to find a new backup to LeVeon Bell this past off-season, and after the LaGarette Blount temper tantrum against Tennessee last year; they may have thought they needed a high character guy to fill that need.

Mission accomplished.

Williams might be the most likable Steelers player in some time, and that’s on a team that’s had a lot of good guys. It’s really nice to see a guy that was counted out, and such a good person, thriving right now.

Williams bristled a bit in training camp when he got questions about him being “injury prone.” Williams said that he and teammate Jonathan Stewart seemed to never be healthy at the same time, and people sort of got the misconception that Williams was always hurt.

I’ll agree with DeAngelo there, if you look at his games started stats over the years; the “injury prone” label is a bit overblown.

That being said, he is an older guy, and his 29 touches on Sunday (2nd most in his career) is not sustainable.

The Steelers don’t appear to be a team that likes rotating backs much, as Bell rarely came off the field either when healthy, even with a talent like Williams behind him.

While I admit I’m extremely biased, being a University of Cincinnati graduate that was in school in the years that running back Isaiah Pead was thriving. His senior year he rushed for 1200 yards and added another 300 receiving, for 15 total touchdowns.

Thus far in the NFL though, he’s been a bust, and Mike Tomlin said this week that Pead won’t see the field anytime soon. “I think he’s got a skill set that’s going to be able to help us at some point and I emphasize at some point, because he’s got to learn what to do,” Tomlin said on Tuesday.

I think that Pead could thrive as a third down back, where his strengths in the receiving game and pass protection will stand out.

Until then, Jordan Todman will serve as DeAngelo’s primary backup. Thus far Todman has 2 carries with the Steelers. Todman, like Pead, is a smaller back that relies more on speed for picking up yards. We saw in pre-season the potential Todman holds, when he rushed for 72 yards on 5 carries.

I know it’s hard to take a guy off the field in a game like the one on Sunday, that’s close, and Williams is clearly in the zone. I’m not suggesting in that case they should suddenly throw Todman out there, but they need to find times to get Williams a breather as the season wears on.

With the bye coming up in 2 weeks, the game after that against Seattle would mean Pead will have been on the roster for 3 weeks and may be ready to get a shot.

Either way, the Steelers need someone to step up other than Williams.

 

You may also like

4 comments

Mark Tercsak November 10, 2015 - 3:57 pm

Nice article , for weeks now I have been Bitchen that the steelers need to get the Full Back back to being a Full back and lead block, well low and behold the Steelers must have listened somewhat or some one got the idea and they did it, With out question D. Williams was best pick up for this team on the Offensive side of the ball in quite smetime, I perfer his style of running hit the hole get to the second level than make your move or stiff arm the sucker!

steeldad November 10, 2015 - 4:24 pm

Thanks for commenting Mark. I’ll be honest; I’m not a huge fan of the fullback in our offense but if you’re going to have one Nix is a fantastic option.

steelbydesign November 10, 2015 - 4:27 pm

If you’re going to have a fullback though, Nix is the perfect type to have. He’s really just an undersized linebacker, which makes him a great special teams player.

It’s nice having a lead blocker in certain situations, but with how little I-formation is used now, it just doesn’t make sense to have a roster spot for a guy who plays so few snaps… Unless he contributes elsewhere like Nix is.

Steelers Need to Tread Lightly With Dinged Up Williams - Steel City Blitz November 11, 2015 - 2:24 am

[…] Chris wrote recently that the Steelers need to get both Jordan Todman and newly acquired Isaiah Pead… quickly simply because the Steelers were suddenly in need of a legitimate backup for Williams. That article couldn’t have been more accurate and more timely. […]

Leave a Comment

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.