PITTSBURGH- The first Mike Tomlin game week press conference brought us another phrase that stuck and another debate because of it.
When asked about how he was going to use his running backs this year, Tomlin said that James Conner was his “bell cow.” What does that mean for how much he’ll be used? Is it the wrong move based on how injury prone Conner has been throughout his career?
The Fan Morning Show with Colin Dunlap and Chris Mack debated this on Wednesday morning.
“Mike Tomlin gets a lot right. Mike Tomlin is not a good football coach, he’s a great football coach. This is one thing that I don’t know if it’s born out of being hard-headed, this is the one thing that he refuses to get right. If you have Conner and [Benny] Snell and [Anthony] McFarland, why not throw a curveball at defenses and utilize them?
I’m not asking James Conner to get 10 carries. Knock that down to 12 carries instead of 17, make that percentage a little different and skew it down. Use the arsenal and the weaponry you have at your disposal instead of just Willie Parker’ing a guy and running his legs off whenever the guy has proven one thing, that he gets hurt. He might be better with less use anyway, why force this all the time?”
Chris Mack had a bit of a different look on it.
“Conner, traditionally, has been better the more he’s carried the ball in games. He does better with a heavier workload, it seems to me anyway. You’re going to find out in the first month of the season, first 3 to 4 weeks, is James Conner up to the task of being that RB1? Is he your guy? Can he be the bell cow and the primary ball toter and all the other clichés and turns of phrase Mike Tomlin wants to use.
If he doesn’t look like it then guess what…you very quickly detach yourself from that idea and you infuse a lot more Benny Snell Football and Anthony McFarland Jr. will have had time to ramp up and you’ll be able to get more diverse at that point.”
Colin then countered with, “Why does there need to be an RB1? Why can’t it be an RB1, an RB1A, an RB1B?
Chris said, “Conner has looked better and has been more productive traditionally. You can go back through his game logs and all the box scores. You pump it to James Conner and let him look like the guy he was in October of 2018.”
Colin finished with, “I think the way to limit him getting hurt is not allowing the other team to hit him as much, thus maybe less is more out of James Conner at this point in his career. The one constant in his career has been him getting hurt, more so than him putting together great games.”
How do you think the Steelers should be handling James Conner and the running backs this season?