Ray Rice Would Be Upgrade the Indianapolis Run Game Needs for Playoff Run
The Indianapolis Colts are a team with Super Bowl aspirations, and teams with Super Bowl aspirations sometimes need to take calculated risks when the right circumstances come about.
Free-agent running back Ray Rice's indefinite suspension was lifted on Friday, making him free to sign with any team. NFL insiders like Jason La Canfora immediately connected Rice to Indianapolis, based on factors such as his close relationship to Colts head coach Chuck Pagano and the season-ending ankle injury of running back Ahmad Bradshaw.
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Of course, all the dot connecting in the world can't make the Colts actually bring in Rice, and as pointed out by Josh Wilson over at Stampede Blue, virtually every NFL and Indianapolis reporter has said it's not going to happen. ESPN's Ed Werder was the first one on the trigger:
But I think the correct question to ask is not, "will the Colts sign Ray Rice?" Instead, it should be, "Should the Colts sign Ray Rice?"
The answer is yes. The reasons are below.
1) The Colts don't have a run-game problem—they have a Trent Richardson problem.
Former practice squad running back Dan Herron has rushed for 153 yards in two games despite the notable handicap of being freely available talent. A sixth-round pick of the Bengals in 2012, Herron had zero career starts and nine career rushes to his name before the Colts had him in the lineup against the Jaguars in Week 12.
His 153 yards in two games, by the way, is three less than the sum of running back Trent Richardson's two best games (out of 26 starts) in an Indianapolis uniform.
| Trent Richardson | -142 | -22.2%/-15.1% |
| Donald Brown | 117 | 19.2%/n/a |
| Ahmad Bradshaw | 55 | 9.3%/-2.9% |
| Dan Herron | -11 | n/a/-17.4% |
But this is not surprising: the Colts have always seen much more success from players like Bradshaw and Donald Brown than they have from Richardson. It's never been an offensive line problem—it's always been a Richardson problem.
As Gregg Doyel argued in his column for the Indianapolis Star on Sunday, the Colts need to begin to move away from Richardson. The sample size is no longer small. This is 26 starts of running that, no matter how much passion and dedication are behind them, have been abysmal.
"The Colts acquired him last season, a rare Grigson move that hasn't worked out, and have stubbornly stuck with Richardson despite all evidence. Pagano is the coach and Hamilton is the offensive coordinator, but Grigson is the guy who acquired Richardson. Is he the reason Richardson keeps getting carries? I shouldn't even have to ask that question, but will. Because nothing else makes sense.
"
Dan Herron isn't the next Arian Foster. Forty-nine of his yards in last week's game came on one carry that was so well-blocked (and overpursued) that there was no one to evade. Herron has two fumbles in two games. He looks great compared to Richardson, because so does everybody, but I'm not seeing a lot of carries that make me think we've got a star in the making here.
In this scenario—one where the belief in Richardson seems to be so deeply rooted—a fungible commodity like Herron will never fully win out. He'll make Richardson a 50-50 player, like Bradshaw did, but that's still more Richardson than any Colts fan should have to endure.
What if there was a freely available running back out there with star-level past performances and a Super Bowl pedigree? Would that save enough face for Pagano and general manager Ryan Grigson to gently move on from Richardson?
2) There are reasons to believe Ray Rice's on-field decline are overstated.
Ray Rice started the 2013 NFL season with 10 extra pounds in an attempt to become more powerful; at the conclusion of the year he immediately started trying to shed them. For his part, Rice blamed trying to play through a hip-flexor injury as the source of his problems.
""I think he learned that adding 10 pounds to his frame made him less elusive, not more powerful," owner Steve Bisciotti told The Baltimore Sun.
"
Rice, like most football players, is willing to pile blame on himself when others are leading the charge. The fact of the matter is the 2013 Ravens had one of the worst run-blocking offensive lines of the modern era.
Per Football Outsiders Almanac 2014, the 2013 Ravens finished with the second-worst Adjusted Line Yards figure of any team since 1989. Adjusted Line Yards separates the contributions of the offensive line from that of their running backs. Rice was set up to fail playing behind busts like center Gino Gradkowski, tackle Michael Oher, and clearly ailing guard Kelechi Osemele.
| ARI | 2012 | 2.93 |
| BAL | 2013 | 3.01 |
| HOU | 2002 | 3.04 |
| JAC | 2013 | 3.13 |
| CLE | 2001 | 3.17 |
| DET | 1999 | 3.18 |
| NO | 1998 | 3.25 |
With all those things in the past, Rice actually looked noticeably quicker when he was on the field in training camp this year, per NFL.com. Nobody was talking about it because...well, you know why...but Rice had his burst back. NFL backs are much-maligned as worthless when older, but backs like Willis McGahee and Ricky Williams remained effective well into their 30s, and having almost a full season away from taking the hits could even be viewed as a positive for Rice's career longevity if he makes it back to the field.
The Colts, the same team that took a discarded 27-year-old Bradshaw off the streets, know all about that dichotomy. Rice was poor in 2013, but he was poor because of a perfect storm of on-field issues that don't necessarily point to a decline.
3) The NFL's concern about Ray Rice playing football is considered only from a public relations standpoint
Now, on to the part you'll disagree with: signing Ray Rice is not a big deal and does not lead to the downfall of society, the American dream and all that we hold dear.
Bob Kravitz of WBHR.com provides the downside of a Rice signing on his blog at the station's website:
"The reason is nobler than that: The Colts simply don't want someone with Rice's baggage in their locker room. That's not to say they don't have other guys in their room with some baggage. Ryan Grigson has taken chances with players who've made some bad mistakes.
But like so many of us, Grigson and Chuck Pagano, who are both married and have daughters, cannot get that TMZ tape out of their minds. How does Grigson or Pagano turn to their wives and daughters and say, “Yeah, I think we're going to give him another chance.''
How do the Colts, who partner up with domestic shelters, turn around and give Rice a safe haven?
"
Signing Ray Rice does not give him a safe haven—it gives him a chance at redemption on a one-year minimum salary.
Look, I'm not going to tell you signing Ray Rice is something that should make you excited as a fan. I'm not going to tell you it sends a terrific message to society. It doesn't. What Rice did was despicable and he was punished for it.
But the Colts should sign Rice, as they signed running back Chris Rainey and wide receiver Da'Rick Rogers before him, because they are a business looking to take risks in the best interest of their football team. Signing Rice doesn't condone what happened to Janay Rice in that elevator. Nothing does and nothing ever should. But Rice has shown remorse, had plenty of standing as a good guy in the community before his incident and deserves the same chance to work and seek redemption as any regular person who commits a crime does.
Now, I think it's fair to infer by commissioner Roger Goodell's over-eager punishment of Rice that any team who signs Rice will be subjected to the scrutiny of an increasingly arbitrary league office. The same league office that docked Washington and Dallas cap space despite the teams doing something that was perfectly legal by the letter of the law. I think it's likely there is some sort of "gentleman's agreement" among the NFL owners to not let Rice work, mostly because it isn't good for the public relations of the league to employ Rice.
But why should the Colts agree to that if they think Rice is the kind of chess piece that can help make their offense two-dimensional in the playoffs? Violating the spirit of the law is how evolution hits sports in the first place. Nobody talks about how the Denver Broncos were forced to vacate their Super Bowl titles because they cheated the salary cap. When the Minnesota Vikings inserted a "poison pill" into all-pro guard Steve Hutchinson's offer sheet, it forced a change in restricted free agency, but the Vikings still had Hutchinson.
Maybe signing Rice isn't "sporting." Maybe it would lead to increased scrutiny of the Colts by the powers that be in the NFL. Maybe they'd have to endure a "media circus" as America readjusts its moral compasses once again, crystallizing for about a nano-second the idea that a man is not only his worst deed, nor his best.
Maybe it's also exactly the boost Indianapolis needs to get ahead of their AFC brethren and into the Super Bowl.
And if it isn't, the only cost is hundreds of thousands of words that will all be irrelevant within the lifespan of Dan Herron's career.
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