Sunday, December 23rd, 2007 by Adam Wagner
How big of a loss is Willie Parker?
When Willie Parker broke his fibula Thursday in St. Louis, panic among the Pittsburgh airwaves as the everyone wondered who would be running the football for the rest of the season. Sure, Najeh Davenport stepped up and had the biggest game of his Steeler career, going for 123 yards on 24 carries with two touchdowns, but he is not the star that Parker has become. The fact of the matter, however, is that whoever is running the football will get the Steelers just as far as Parker would have.
That premise seems absurd, based on the fact that Parker has become one of the elite runners in the NFL, leading the league in rushing at the time of his injury. He has also become a home run threat, always capable of breaking a game open with a huge run, right?
Not so much. Parker was leading the league in rushing, but his longest run of the season was 32 yards and he was averaging 4.1 yards at the time of his injury. By comparison, Davenport has broken a 45 yard run and is averaging 5.0 yards this season. He has about a third of the carries that Parker does, but Davenport has shown that he is a solid NFL backup who may turn heads if given a starting role.
Most importantly, Davenport is not that much of a step down from Parker. Where Fast Willie has star status, Davenport has size, weighing 247 pounds to Parker’s 209. This means that Davenport is able to take a bigger beating than Parker, which was especially important this season, as Parker was leading the league in carries (321) by about 30, or a full game, at the time of his injury (Willis McGahee, in second place at the time, had 289). The Steelers will likely benefit, to some extent, from the infusion of fresh legs into the lineup.
Furthermore, the holes on the offensive and defensive lines mean that the player in the backfield is largely irrelevant. Even a good running back will not be able to consistently run behind the Steelers’ makeshift offensive line, while most backs are able to run over the Aaron Smith-less defensive line. This means that the Steelers will not be very long for the playoffs, possibly getting out of the first round if they play Cleveland or San Diego, but definitely not defeating Jacksonville, New England, or New England.
The loss of Parker is not important in the short run because of the team’s other weaknesses and because the step down from Parker to Davenport is not that large. As a slight consolation, the rumors that the running back broke his leg when his toe got stuck in the turf may finally put to rest the argument over whether the Steelers need an artificial surface of their own.
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