Carlos Hyde's Week 1 Performance Deems Him Worthy Heir to Frank Gore's Throne
After being limited to a large degree during the preseason, San Francisco 49ers rookie running back Carlos Hyde made a statement for himself, as he and his team decisively downed the Dallas Cowboys 28-17 in Week 1 of the 2014 NFL season.
Hyde, a second-round pick for the 49ers in the 2014 draft, is the heir apparent to Frank Gore. It is hard for anyone at this point to argue against that prediction.
What makes Hyde so special is not just the type of runner he is—a punishing back with a great downhill, between-the-tackles approach—but rather specifically how Hyde fits into San Francisco's offense.
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Essentially, Hyde is a clone of Gore. The key difference, of course, is that Hyde is eight years younger than his predecessor.
Let's take a look into Hyde's regular-season debut, in which Hyde was a critical component to San Francisco's offensive dominance. After that, we will dive into specifically how Hyde might impact the team's offense throughout the remainder of the season.
The Need
With the first week of NFL action almost in the books, we can take a look back and specify why the 49ers drafted Hyde so early during the draft.
As we know, Gore is 31 years old—well beyond the plateau when most running backs call it a career.
Gore, however has zero intention of retiring just yet. He is still listed as San Francisco's No. 1 back on its depth chart.
But it is impossible to state that Gore is the same rusher he once was earlier in his career. In 2013, Gore averaged 4.1 yards per attempt—the lowest in his nine-year career. While his excellent vision and patience remain a virtue, it is safe to assume that Gore has lost a step at this age.
One might have thought the 49ers would install second-year pro Marcus Lattimore in Gore's stead after having taken Lattimore in the fourth round of the 2013 draft. This might have made Hyde's drafting seem redundant, perhaps even wasteful, considering the plethora of backs San Francisco carried into training camp.
Yet Lattimore has yet to take a snap at the NFL level—again being relegated to the team's non-football injury (NFI) list this season after missing all of last year recovering from a collegiate injury. San Francisco also lost No. 2 back Kendall Hunter for the season.
Enter Hyde.
The 49ers limited Hyde to a large extent during the preseason. In spite of an impressive first exhibition game, described further by Taylor Price of 49ers.com, Hyde saw relatively little action in subsequent weeks leading up to the regular season.
Let's take a look at some tape from Hyde's preseason debut.
Hyde is lined up in this series behind fullback Bruce Miller.
Miller lays out an excellent block, allowing Hyde to continue pressing toward the outside.
Hyde finishes off a 19-yard gain before being pushed out of bounds.
This was one of only a handful of impressive runs Hyde made during the preseason. Otherwise, he saw very little action.
Perhaps this was designed to "protect" Hyde from injury, given how thin San Francisco became at the position after losing Hunter. It is also possible the 49ers wanted to keep prying eyes from viewing Hyde's abilities.
Entering the regular season, Hyde was slated behind Gore as his primary backup. But considering Gore's age and the need to keep him fresh, we could expect Hyde to carry a sizable load early on.
Hyde's Debut Against Dallas
Do the 49ers now have a two-headed monster out of their backfield?
Perhaps they do. Gore's potential needs to be respected despite his age, and San Francisco will likely call upon him throughout the year.
But imagine also having a back that reminds us of Gore in his heyday, offering the same punishing runs that made Gore famous.
In all, San Francisco's running game accounted for a total of 124 rushing yards against a questionable Cowboys defense.
While Gore led all 49ers rushers with 63 yards on 16 attempts—including cresting the 10,000-yard rushing mark, described further by Cam Inman of the San Jose Mercury News—Hyde was equally able in making his presence felt.
Hyde totaled 50 yards on seven attempts, averaging 7.1 yards per carry. More importantly, Hyde scored his first NFL touchdown—a four-yard rush in the second quarter.
| Frank Gore | 16 | 63 | 0 | 20 | 3.9 |
| Carlos Hyde | 7 | 50 | 1 | 15 | 7.1 |
| Colin Kaepernick | 5 | 11 | 0 | 8 | 2.2 |
| LaMichael James | 2 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0.0 |
Let's take a look at the score.
As we see here, Hyde is lined up off quarterback Colin Kaepernick's left. In the shotgun, Kaepernick looks as if he could go with a read-option play here.
Dallas' edge-rusher is forced to respect the possibility of Kaepernick taking the ball himself, thus opening up a lane for Hyde to exploit.
Hyde does exactly this and punches the ball into the end zone before the Cowboys defense can adequately react.
We have witnessed what promises to be a great career for Hyde in San Francisco.
But let's go back to the numbers for a moment. Hyde averaged 7.1 yards per carry in comparison to Gore's 3.9. We won't say this statistic will remain this lopsided for the duration of the season, but it does provide us with a brief indication that Hyde has a lot of potential.
Hyde's bruising style of play is perfect for lesser defenses around the NFL. Dallas found this out firsthand. Even strong defenses will be forced to respect his abilities. Combine that with San Francisco's upgraded passing offense, and suddenly the 49ers look to be an offensive force this season.
The Fit
Moving forward, we can draw a number of conclusions after Hyde's strong performance in Week 1. As noted above, the combination of Gore and Hyde netted the 49ers over 100 rushing yards against the Cowboys.
We must remind ourselves that San Francisco is still a run-first team. Gore and Hyde will continue to be staples in the 49ers' offensive approach.
But we also cannot overlook the fact that Gore has slowed a bit in recent seasons. This prompts us to wonder if head coach Jim Harbaugh and Co. will go with the "hot hand," a possibility pointed out by Inman prior to the regular season.
If there is one thing that holds Hyde back behind Gore, for now, it is the fact that the elder Gore has perfected his vision, patience and timing—elements that have catapulted Gore to the level we have seen him attain. Additionally, Gore is one of the best pass-blocking backs in the NFL.
Hyde will need to reach those levels at some point. But early returns have looked good so far, and we can see hints of this dating back to his collegiate days at Ohio State, via DraftBreakdown.com.
All of this leads us to a simple conclusion: Hyde will eventually take over for Gore at some point this season as San Francisco's No. 1 back.
This isn't to state that Gore will be relegated to the scrap heap—in fact, quite the contrary. Let's look for the 49ers to rest Gore as much as possible for a late-season run as San Francisco makes another playoff push. The 49ers will need Gore 100 percent healthy and rested if they hope to make it deep into the postseason.
In the meantime, the bulk of work could easily go to Hyde. Week 1 showed us that he looks capable of being able to do this.
Granted, one week of NFL action is far too small a sample size to determine the complete fit for Hyde in San Francisco's offense.
But given the results and what Hyde showed us, there is little reason to believe that he will substantially impact the 49ers offense over the course of this season.
With many NFL defenses shifting philosophies to employing lighter, quicker defenses—the Green Bay Packers are an example—Hyde's punishing runs up the middle fit perfectly into San Francisco's rushing approach.
We'll see how opposing teams try to stop Hyde in the upcoming season. Dallas couldn't do it, and other teams will certainly try.
Still, Hyde has the opportunity to make something special happen in San Francisco this season. Yes, Gore is still "the man" in the backfield, but that is an accolade Hyde will earn in the very near future.
All statistics, records and accolades courtesy of Pro-Football-Reference.com unless otherwise indicated.
Peter Panacy is a featured columnist for Bleacher Report, covering the San Francisco 49ers. Be sure to check out his entire archive on 49ers news, insight and analysis.
Follow him @PeterMcShots on Twitter.
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