Second- and third-year NFL players ready to break out in 2021: Offense edition

Running back - J.K. Dobbins

Running back – J.K. Dobbins

Since we just talked about my number one back in last year’s draft, let’s get to the guy I had second, but ended up being the fifth running back to hear his name called, at 55th overall.

At Ohio State, Dobbins followed in the footsteps of the Dallas Cowboys’ Ezekiel Elliott, who led the league in rushing yards as a rookie and became the highest-paid back in NFL history back in 2019.

When Dobbins arrived at Columbus a year after Zeke left, he immediately broke the freshman rushing yardage record of the guy atop the list of all those great OSU backs. When he left as a junior a year ago, he set a new single-season record on top of it.

Then, when the Ravens made Dobbins a second-round pick, I thought he would take over this backfield sooner rather than later, for the league’s number one rushing offense – which he ultimately did, pretty much, to be fair – but it took a while for him to get the opportunities he deserved.

We never have all the information about players like Dobbins, who may not have been familiar enough with the playbook – which could have been a factor, considering he almost exclusively ran zone from shotgun alignment his last year at Ohio State – or whatever, but it was pretty clear whenever this guy did get the ball, he was the most dynamic option out of that backfield.

Ten-year veteran Mark Ingram dominated touches for this group early on, having the ball put in his hands about ten times in each of the first five weeks, even though he certainly looked like he had lost a step before getting banged up. From that point on, the Ravens made it a one-two punch with Dobbins and Gus Edwards, who received more carries until week ten against Tennessee, while Dobbins was sort of the third-down back early on.

Those two complemented each other really well, as the rookie showed the speed to threaten defenses to the edges, while the “Gus Bus” was more of a battering ram going straight downhill. However, the biggest runs outside of Lamar Jackson were provided by Dobbins and I thought he really broke out against Pittsburgh in their first meeting.

Looking at Dobbins’ skill-set as a runner, I did see some of it in college, but because the Ohio State rushing offense was so simplistic schematically, he didn’t always get a chance to show how smooth he is with adjusting stride length and speed on gap plays.

He’s still great at building momentum, sticking his foot in the ground with one decisive cut and slice through the defense, but in that Baltimore ground game, which tries to hammer the ball inside and tries to open up the edges for Lamar, when he decides to keep it, we were able to watch Dobbins shade to one side of a pulling guard and then go underneath or step on the pedal to beat that guy to sideline on numerous occasions.

He’s also very impressive with his ability to twist those shoulders and reduce the surface area for tacklers to target.

At the same time, the Ravens did utilize his acceleration to get him outside as well, on toss plays, swing passes and also invert veer plays, which are a nice variation to those classic option runs and the counter bash offensive coordinator Greg Roman loves so much.

Dobbins may not have top-tier breakaway speed, but it’s more than good enough to make him a threat to rip off 20-40 yarders on a consistent basis. He packs plenty of power as he gets into the open, to go with the balance to get back onto his feet, when defenders trip him up or he starts to stumble.

As a receiver, you see him make easy adjustments to balls thrown a little behind him and not lose speed. Something we saw a lot of last season from Baltimore were three-by-one sets, with Dobbins to the single-receiver side of the formation, but then motioning him across just before the snaps and him continuing out to the flats, putting the defense in conflict, especially in zone coverages with triangle rules on how to pass on routes, as the linebacker to that side will likely have to shoot down, and that opens up a pretty big window behind him, which is where Lamar wants to attack anyway.

He did have four drops as a rookie, but I believe all of them came from letting the ball get into his body.

Dobbins has already become more patient with approaching the line of scrimmage and more effective in making subtle shifts to his running path. However, he does at times pre-determine cutbacks, where they may have some kind of counter play set up and the force defender decides to shoot inside, meaning the back could just keep going around the puller.

On that first play of overtime in their regular-season meeting with Tennessee, there was a play where Dobbins might have gone the distance or at least been able to put them into field-goal range instantly, had he bounced wide. Other than that, it’s mastering the little details of this offense, like improving the distance to the quarterback on speed option plays for example.

With veteran Mark Ingram having moved on to Houston and Greg Roman still there calling plays, I would expect Dobbins’ workload to increase. If you take out the first six weeks of the season when he received just 25 total carries, and project those numbers over a full 16 games, Dobbins would have rushed for over 1,150 yards and scored 12 touchdowns, despite sharing the load with Gus Edwards.

With excellent fundamentals at keeping the ball high and tight at all times to avoid fumbles (none in 2020) and his six yards per carry as a rookie, I expect even better numbers.

JK DOBBINS 72 YARDS TO THE CRIB(via @NFL) pic.twitter.com/Tx0Iqbg4yx

— B/R Gridiron (@brgridiron) January 3, 2021