To 2008... and Beyond!

By Chris Sullivan

It's hard to say. I have to believe that we signed Duckett for a reason, but I don't know how much that reason has to do with next year. I like Duckett though, I think he was a gerat pickup, and since Mora is going to take over in 2009, its worth looking at how he used Duckett back then. When in Atlanta, Mora switched the Falcons over to a zone blocking system and saw a vast improvement in his running backs (including one Mr. TJ Duckett).

As you can see in the graph to the side, the zone blocking system increased Duckett's productivity vastly. It occurred, I believe, in his career year. Not bad. It remains to be seen what this will mean, long-term, for the Hawks, but it doesn't seem at all unlikely that Duckett was brought in to help implement the zone blocking scheme. Does this mean that Duckett is the RB of the future? Not necessarily (and indeed, not likely). We will still need to draft someone this year, and if we do, it does become more likely that Shaun will be cut or traded (pretty please). If you would like to.....

Its hard to say whether we grab an RB early on or if we grab a DT, TE, OG, BLT and wait it out for someone we can develop (and develop him under the Zone blocking system). I would still like us to grab Stewart or Mendenhall if they slip, and I think thats very possible, but I'm not sure that we would consider trading up to get our "running back of the future" since the future is one with a new head coach, a new scheme (I argue, anyway), and likely very different personnel throughout the coaching staff. We won't build our team around our draft pick, so we might wait until a later round to draft someone we can build around our team. (Hat tip to Griffin for the great questions, I hope I got all of them...)

Image Source: Football Outsiders

UPDATE: My brother Tim made a good point: The Hawks did pursue Duckett last year, but lost the sweepstakes to the Lions. This was before Mora was [necessarily] the hand-picked successor, so there is likely more to Duckett than just the blocking scheme. It also might be premature to assume that we're going to move to a zone blocking system; we run the West Coast Offense better than just about anyone else, so its unlikely Mora will change everything. I'm not entirely sure how a zone blocking system would fit in with the WCO. Your thoughts?

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