Don't call it a comeback

'Old' Eddie George might just prove you wrong

NASHVILLE -- Eddie George won't turn 30 until next month. But I know one thing about him that has gotten real old, real quick. That being the two-year running debate about his running, and whether or not the "old Eddie" is gone forever or merely missing.

I have this theory about Tennessee's overscrutinized franchise running back as he heads into his eighth NFL season. What if the "old Eddie George" is not all that much different from the current model, as he closes in on the 9,000-yard career rushing mark? What if George's running style when he broke into the league in 1996 is basically the same power-back approach that he displays today?

What if it's our perception more than the reality that has changed? Or at the very least we're forgetting to factor in his surrounding circumstances, as if he has performed in a vacuum all these years.

My way of thinking on George has come around to this: The guy's a grinder. Always has been. Always will be. Most of his yardage will come in chunks of 3-to-5 yards, with the occasional double-digit scamper tossed in. He ran that way as an emerging star, to great fanfare, and he's still running that way, albeit to considerably less fanfare and quite of bit of fan consternation. Excluding playoffs, George hasn't ripped off a rush for longer than 40 yards since his rookie season, when the Titans were still the Oilers and played in Houston.

So why does everyone continue to pine for the George of yesteryear, like he was once Tony Dorsett, streaking into the free and clear on countless highlight films? And why do we treat him like he underwent an elaborate identity change in 2001, after offseason surgery on his right big toe, and later problems with an ankle and a knee, limited him to the only sub-1,000-yard rushing season of his career?

George, he of the 1,165-yard, 12-touchdown rushing season in 2002, is basically what George has always been: Workhorse lead running back whose performance ranks him among the game's elite rushers. Stick him behind a quality offensive line and a good blocking fullback, on an offense that loves to chew up the clock, and he'll get the job done most days. If its game-breaking highlights you want, sorry. You might check with St. Louis and see if Marshall Faulk is back up to snuff yet.

"People get a giant misconception about running backs in the NFL," Titans general manager Floyd Reese said Tuesday morning. "First of all, running backs in the NFL just don't rip off 50-, 60-, 70-yard runs. Those things don't happen. You see one a week on the highlight films, and people say, 'Geez, we need one of those guys who can go 80 yards.'

Slipping? Eddie George's 100-yard games, by season. Year  No.  2002  4  2001  1  2000  8  1999  5  1998  6  1997  8

"But what you really need are the guys who can go out there and as we say continue to chop wood. They're going to keep carrying it and picking up their 5-to-7 yards. And then they'll pop a 15-to-20-yarder, but come back with 5, 3, 7 yards. And I think Eddie's done that over the years. He's that kind of a back."

Notice Reese said "Eddie's ... that kind of back," not Eddie's back. That's because he marvels at the number of folks who are ready to adjust their Eddie-meter at the slightest hint of changing wind direction.

"It comes and it goes," Reese said of the George chatter. "He'll go out the first two weeks of the season and gain 200 yards and people will be saying, 'Well, the old Eddie's back.' You know, Eddie never left. It's overreaction and overanalyzing. He's going to be the same, and he is the same. We expect him to be as productive this year as any year."

Wanna see George's eyes glaze over in the time it takes to snap a football? Just bring up the "Whatever happened to old Eddie?" debate in your next one-on-one interview with him. Can you blame him? The guy has heard every possible question on the topic, and no matter how well you craft it, it still comes at him like you want to know if he has stopped beating his wife? (Alas, George is single, but you get my point).

"That's pretty much a tired topic," George said, nicely enough. "At this point, it's either you're riding with me, or you're not. I feel like this is the prime of my life and the prime of my career, and there's a lot bigger things in store for me. So when I hear that stuff, I just remember that at some point in time, every athlete who plays this game is going to hear something like that. I just take it with a grain of salt."

In Nashville this week, there's been a fresh round of Eddie-talk and "old-Eddie" sightings because George ran hard and ran well in the Titans' 10-6 preseason-opening win at home against Cleveland on Saturday. On the opening possession, a methodical 15-play, 72-yard scoring march that was a classic display of Titans ball-control offense, George rushed five times for 20 yards with a long gain of six. He capped the drive with a 1-yard touchdown plunge.

On his 6-yard gain, George carried a few Browns on his back -- just like in days of yore -- and his brief seven-carry, 24-yard rushing night drew positive reviews all around. The past two seasons, George has drawn criticism for tiptoeing into his running lane at times, hesitating rather than aggressively hitting the hole. No sign of that tendency was present against the Browns.

About as close as George gets to tiptoeing toward the tiptoeing debate is his admission that at times he has gotten away from his power running style upon reaching the secondary. Other observers, some within the organization, believe his 2001 toe surgery and its aftermath may have impacted how he attacked a hole.

"At times when I was in a one-on-one situation with the safety, I may have tried to make him miss," George said. "Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn't work. But I don't think I've come out of character, where I was trying to be like Barry Sanders. If you do your research, go look at the films, you tell me what you see. When the holes where there, I was able to hit them.

"But there were times when there were breakdowns, misreads on my behalf, and I was hesitant a couple of times. But that's going to happen over the course of a year. Every run is not going to be perfect. It has been frustrating. But once again, looking at my numbers, if you call getting almost 1,200 yards rushing and double-digit touchdowns, if that's a slide, so be it."

George's rushing average was a career-low 3.0 in 2001, when his health was a constant battle, but it did rise to 3.4 last season, which is still a half-yard shy of the 3.9 mark he posted in his first five NFL seasons. If he can push it to 3.7 this year, he'll match his level of production from his career year of 2000, when he ran for 1,509 yards and found the end zone 14 times.

It seems to me the magic figure of 3.7, accompanied by another 1,200-yard rushing season, would just about dispel the remaining "old Eddie" questions. At that point, reports of his demise officially will have been greatly exaggerated.

"I don't know if all the talk the past two years has gotten into his head," Reese said. "But I think he's been probably stronger than a lot of us, a lot of his backers. A lot of people that he maybe expected to hold the line with him maybe caved in a little bit. If everybody was as strong about the commitment as Eddie is, then none of these questions would have ever popped up."

But pop up they did. And for now, there's only one way for George to stamp them down once and for all: run the football so well that no one can tell the "old Eddie" from today's Eddie. Then again, that could inspire another round of coverage.

You guessed it. The story of the "new Eddie George."

Don Banks covers pro football for SI.com.

 

Related information

Stories

Peter King's MMQB: It's a sin that football in Tempe has been such a disaster Banks: Postcard from Titans Camp

Multimedia

Visit Video Plus for the latest audio and video