Hillis and Cribbs Backfield

[Greythan]

I'd love to be a fly on the wall in Berea considering the complete lack of health RB's on the roster and the slim pickin's in the open market.

[golfer704u]

Well in his presser, Shurmur has said that using Cribbs in the backfield is a good idea in this story.

Cleveland Browns running back Montario Hardesty is out for multiple weeks | cleveland.com

The Browns also have Armond Smith on the practice squad and Josh Cribbs willing to do anything that's asked of him. Earlier this season, he said not to rule him out playing in the backfield.
"Josh can do a lot of things," said Shurmur. "That'd be a good choice."


SO I am sure that will change Vegas's mind that "that ship has sailed" since Shurmur is for it.

[Masters]

Originally Posted by Flugel

What alignment did Lindy Infante use back when Mack, Byner, Oliphant and Dickey combined for 120 receptions from the backfield in 1986? That was some pretty fun football to watch while we didn't have the most mobile QB in the league. If you swing pass the outside with big dudes running 4.5s (like Mack and Hillis), they're gonna STOP blitzing LBers or choose to run out of healthy corners real fast.

The choice is to dictate by attacking or to continue on with project absorb via max protections. I gotta tell you I've seen enough of the Double TEs and Tur-telle Smiths at FB making it easy on fast defenses like Pittsburgh to last me an eternity. They want us thinking it's the 1950s because while we work harder - they work smarter. Nobody ever looked SMARTER than our offense when Infante was spreading defenses out horizontally. BTW, our leading Receiver that year played mostly on 3rd downs - Brian Brennan with 55 receptions. He wasn't a speedster by any means but having the opposing defense spread out created seams of opportunity for our WRs. I don't get the feeling Infante would have square pegged Cribbs like this organization has done in recent years. At least Shurmur WANTS to use Cribbs in the passing game so if Shurmur swing passes the backs to the outside - we'll help our WRs get seperations they've struggled with thus far.

This isn't the the 80's unfortunately. You can't pull off the same plays with Hillis/Cribbs they did then with Mack and Byner. LBs are much faster and more athletic today than they were in the 80's.

[Greythan]

I think there is a ton of room to implement Cribbs as an RB. I don't necessarily mean as an every down RB, but say 40% of the snaps. I'm highly confident you could use him as a decoy and keep him in to block. I'd take Cribbs picking up a blitzer over 99% of HB's. Imagine Hillis/Cribbs split to either side of McCoy in a shotgun; say on a 2nd and 5. We can run, swing pass, screen, go downfield, etc.

Just seems like some real creative matchup challenges could be for the taking.

(This post simply confirms why I'm not a paid offensive coordinator and just a homer. Go Josh!!)