Who Will Get The Lion’s Share Of The Carries?

This off-season featured the Raiders releasing fan favorite and former 1000 yard rusher Justin Fargas. Fargas earned the job with hard nosed running despite a lack of size and breakaway speed. In the past three years Fargas has accumulated over 2300 yards on the ground despite the Raiders running back by committee approach.

Where will the nearly 800 additional rushing yards come from this season?

The logical answer is that Michael Bush and Darren McFadden will split those yards right down the middle. McFadden was the apple of Al Davis' eye three years ago he certainly hoped to see the second coming of Adrian Peterson.

Despite his rumored character flaws, the Raiders gambled on the versatile McFadden to be their newest home run hitter. His character has been the least of their concerns. To his credit, by NFL standards McFadden has been a saint.

The only real comparison to Adrian Peterson has been in terms of ball control. Darren McFadden had three costly fumbles in a 23-3 loss to Denver in their first meeting. He fumbled five times last season on only 104 carries. His yards per carry dropped to 3.4 and he failed to display the ability to keep his feet after a hit. To make matters worse, McFadden has yet to show the top end speed and shiftiness to outrun and avoid the second tier of defenses.

Common sense should tell us Darren McFadden will not be the featured back in Oakland.

But does Al Davis base his decisions on common sense? He's always been a sucker for physical freaks.  In this case, I don't think Al calls the shot. Darren won't be the featured back.


This assumption comes not only from McFadden's shortcomings, but from his strengths as well.  McFadden is an outstanding receiver and has shown the ability to be the versatile athlete that is such a trend in the NFL the past two years.

He can throw and run out of t...

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