RB comparison

[Phins054]

I seem to think that Travis and Ricky have two different styles of running...

Ricky is a tank. He likes to run between the tackles, but has shown that he has the speed to get to the outside as well. He is a clock chewer and a chain mover type of back.

Travis is more of a traditional tailback. He is quick on his cuts, has the speed to get outside, and if he can make someone miss or break a tackle or two, has the ability to make a long gain.

Do you think this is a fair assesment or am I completely off???

[Voltron]

I agree but RW has some crazy break away speed. It is like when he gets outside all the sudden he says "TURBO BOOST" and wooosh he is gone. Travis is some what good at breaking tackles and getting the yards after the first hit.

[Novacane]

There is a big differance! Ricky does'nt fumble every game!

[WG]

To an extent. I would disagree that Henry has any more ability to make the long gain. His long career run is 29 this year. That's currently good for 28th in the league on this season with only the best run of each back taken into consideration.

He runs well when on. Williams is more consistent. They both have fumble issues and histories although Williams' is more in check now. I'd take Williams over Henry at this point.

Henry's had only 2 - 100 yard games to Williams' 4. Henry's also had 2 games at 30 and 35 yards and twice the fumbles. Williams' 5th best game is better than 3 of Henry's.

If I could choose one word that vexes Henry and his running game besides "fumble", it would be "inconsistency." Last year, this year, he isn't consistent. He has a chance to be consistent this week and then v. two teams that he really shouldn't have difficulty rushing against in Detroit and N.E.

But if he just keeps on putting up a 100 yard game every 5 weeks and disappears completely for two of the games in between, then that coupled w/ the fumbles is easily enough to make him a liability instead of an asset. Not to mention that his only two 100-yard games were v. Texas and the Jets.

Time will tell. His first chance is on Sunday...

[Phins054]

My point...by comparison...is to see whether they have different running styles. Ricky is a power back. Does Travis' style lean towards the "Power" side or the "Traditional" side of the bar???

[SoCalBillsFan]

Phins, I think he is more the power style. He is not super quick, he doesn't really juke a lot of guys out. He is a downhill runner. I think if you want to prototype him, he fits the terrel davis mold: downhill, willing to take the hits. He uses vision to find seams, and runs full spead ahead. He is neither a power back like williams, or a speed back like barry sanders, but more a a terrel daivs like runner IMO.

Of course, I'm not saying he is as good as terrel davis...

[WG]

Some of both. He has power, but not as much as say as Green, Dillon, Taylor, or James IMO.

When you say "traditional", you'd probably have to define it by era. The "traditional" '70s RB is different that the "traditional" late-80s/early 90s RB. Payton was both.

Henry can take a corner, but it isn't his strength but then again he's not bad at it.

[John from Hemet]

I actually think you are off...

Ricky is one of those backs that if you can get a hit on him at the LOS....he is going to have a hard day...a guy who runs downhill...but if he gets his shoulders squared past the LOS then then pity the poor defender who has to take him down....

Travis Henry is a back with a little bit of shiftyness, is a north/south runner who breakes tackles pretty easily...he does not have home run speed rather he is a move the chains back that wears down defenses and gets his yards in chunks small and large......he is also excellent at blitz pickup and hasn't dropped a ball as a receiver

Like Ricky he has a nose for the end zone....Travis has 499 yards and 7 touchdowns

[Drewpac]

Good Post John from Hemet! I agree. Henry has alot of shiftiness. He bounces off of tacklers as opposed to just faking them out of their shoes. I think they're both good backs.

[casdhf]

Originally posted by Wys Guy
To an extent. I would disagree that Henry has any more ability to make the long gain. His long career run is 29 this year. That's currently good for 28th in the league on this season with only the best run of each back taken into consideration

He's only 6th in the league in rushing too.....he really does suck. Besides, we factor out those long runs anyways, right?

[Kelly The Dog]

I think they are a lot alike actually. Ricky Williams is a bit better at this point in his career, having an extra two years, and was a bit better as a college player too. He has more breakaway speed but IMO Henry has more quickness. Neither has any "moves" per se. Both are nearly impossible to bring down hitting them up high. I think Henry actually makes more people miss and breaks more tackles at the line of scrimmage but Ricky has a little better vision for finding the tiny seam to accelerate and take it to the house. Henry hasnt done that as a pro yet but I think it's soon coming. he was able to in college and has surprising speed. He rarely in his two years as a pro has had a wide open hole to run through. Ricky seems to catch the ball a little better and smoother to me but Henry has vastly improved his hands from his rookie season, and is damn good at blitz pick-ups whereas he sucked last year at it. They both fumble too much at this point. Neither are academic All Americans but I think Rickey gets a bad rap in the press. If anyone say the ESPN Doak Walker segment with Rickey a couple years ago I dont see how people could not think he was a good guy off the field, he's just shy and not about to be a nice guy to the press just to be a nice guy, he simply doesn't care about that. To some he's aloof. I happen to like him as a person, too. They are both excellent backs at this stage in their career. If you had to make a choice I would say Rickey is a bit better but not by much. This is obviously total conjecture, if not stupid, but IMO if you gave Travis Henry the exact same teams, games, carries and holes that Rickey Williams has had so far, their yardage would be almost identical.

[TigerJ]

Travis Henry probably has a slower 40 time than RW, though not a lot slower. He hasn't had a real big gain this year as Wys has pointed out, but he's had a lot of carries in the 15 yard range and even more in the 5-10 yard range, which in my opinion makes him very much a chain moving back, and probably a little less of a big play back than RW. RW may have more ability to move a pile than TH, but that's probably splitting hairs. In the open field they will both punish tacklers and break a lot of tackles. Maybe RW does it more with power and TH more with his ability to make a quick move, though TH has made it known he likes to run over people. While ther are some subtle differences between RW and TH in terms of abilities and styles, I think they are probably a lot closer to each other than say RW and Charlie Garner or TW and Alstott in Tampa (whatever his first name is).

[Halbert]

I like the way Henry runs and I think he's going to be quite productive here, but as of today he's a "B" compared to Ricky's "A".

imho.

[WG]

"He's only 6th in the league in rushing too..."

Doesn't it impact your thoughts at all that of Henry's 499 yards, 308 of them were in two games against the weakest teams we've played all season? That's over 60% came in two games with the other 38% or so coming in the remaining 4 games.

2 games: 308 yards
4 games: 191 yards

That defines inconsistency to me. Henry still has a lot to prove this Sunday and in the two weeks before the break if he wants to be this team's starting RB for a long time.

[Ingtar33]

Henry has the best straight-arm in the game today... other than that, he is tough to beat down... and reminds me of E.Smith (not T.Thomas, who was a quite a bit better at avoiding hits, and not so good at breaking tackles) in both his style and technique... too bad he fumbles like Ricky (just kidding... RWilliams never fumbled like this).

BTW: my short answer is he runs like E.Smith, not like R.Williams (who remindes me more of E.Campbell).