Game Tape: Ryan Torain

Ryan Torain is a hard runner who rarely gives up on a play. He's just not a particularly effective runner. But he's the kind of guy who will tear to shreds a terrible run defense (such as Tampa Bay) because there are gaping holes in the defense created by the blocking, and he usually powers through the first tackle and drags other players for extra yards.


I had the same fear that he was only doing well against poor run defenses (Indy and Tampa who were both in the bottom 10 in the league). However Torain also averaged over 6 yards per carry with a 120 yards rushing against the 4th best run defense in Chicago so at the very least he has that to his credit. Bottom line though, with eight 3-4 games on next years schedule we desperately need Torain to be healthy as a huge part of running against 3-4 teams is breaking arm tackles.

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I had the same fear that he was only doing well against poor run defenses (Indy and Tampa who were both in the bottom 10 in the league). However Torain also averaged over 6 yards per carry with a 120 yards rushing against the 4th best run defense in Chicago so at the very least he has that to his credit. Bottom line though, with eight 3-4 games on next years schedule we desperately need Torain to be healthy as a huge part of running against 3-4 teams is breaking arm tackles.Some of his more careless ball security issue aside, I thought Chicago was his best game as a runner. That was also a particularly good game for our rushing scheme. We really did have the Chicago D off balance all game.

The last play of the Bears game was Torain's best play of the season. If he learns to take that run to the end zone, he can be a true NFL feature back.

The thing that bothers me is how few carries I'm finding in the second half of games and so far I've come up with only two explanations. Either the defense has allowed to many points (Dallas and Indy) or they're getting tired in the second half and giving up long drives allowing the opposition to control possession in the second half (Tampa). Either way this has to change.First off thanks for these youtube clips.

Or Kyle gets away from calling runs?

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I think Torain makes a lot of good things happen simply by moving his feet in the hole. He doesn't really ever run to daylight, so there's limited upside to his strong balance and lower body strength. The upside is that he'll keep running until two or three guys bring him down. But Keiland Williams, for example, runs with much better vision and often does find space to break a long run that Torain wouldn't have.

Ryan Torain is a hard runner who rarely gives up on a play. He's just not a particularly effective runner. But he's the kind of guy who will tear to shreds a terrible run defense (such as Tampa Bay) because there are gaping holes in the defense created by the blocking, and he usually powers through the first tackle and drags other players for extra yards.

Those yards after first contact aren't meaningless, but they don't outweigh the frequency at which a Torain carry can put the Redskins in long yardage.
I think we agree for about Torrain for the most part but I don't understand why you would call him ineffecitve or think he puts the team in long yardage any more then any other RB.

I think Torrain's vision and his ability as a runner are better then you give him credit for.
I'm not saying he's a special back because he's not; but he's decent.

He likes to keep the play frontside he's not looking to cutback, which limits the explosive runs he can make (on his own) in this scheme.
I also think Torrain is right not to look for the cutback because he doesn't cutback very well, which might be because of his upright running style and stiff hips.
He also lacks the top end speed to exploit the huge holes when then happen.

Torrain's best ability is that for some reason he's hard to bring down, he doesn't have wiggle nor does it look like he's running hard, but he's tough to bring down.

Torrain success as a runner comes from trusting/being dependent on the OL and his ability to stay up.

And at a 4.5 ypc carry clip he's not a bad back.


I like Keiland more then Torrain also, but Keiland is a young back who needs playing time (that he didn't get) to build confidence.

Where Torrain lacks the ability and is right not to make aggressive cutback moves I think Keiland does have the ability but lacks the confidence that comes with experience to make those risky cutbacks.
Therefore Kei often runs with the aim of picking up whatever yards are there at the POA much like Torrain.
But, I think Keiland has the potential to be more then a frontside runner.

Dirt-
Are you taking requests?

Could you cut up Keiland Williams stuff from the Titans game?

BTW-You are my hero.

I think we agree for about Torrain for the most part but I don't understand why you would call him ineffecitve or think he puts the team in long yardage any more then any other RB.

I think Torrain's vision and his ability as a runner are better then you give him credit for.
I'm not saying he's a special back because he's not; but he's decent.

He likes to keep the play frontside he's not looking to cutback, which limits the explosive runs he can make (on his own) in this scheme.
I also think Torrain is right not to look for the cutback because he doesn't cutback very well, which might be because of his upright running style and stiff hips.
He also lacks the top end speed to exploit the huge holes when then happen.

Torrain's best ability is that for some reason he's hard to bring down, he doesn't have wiggle nor does it look like he's running hard, but he's tough to bring down.

Torrain success as a runner comes from trusting/being dependent on the OL and his ability to stay up.

And at a 4.5 ypc carry clip he's not a bad back.


I like Keiland more then Torrain also, but Keiland is a young back who needs playing time (that he didn't get) to build confidence.

Where Torrain lacks the ability and is right not to make aggressive cutback moves I think Keiland does have the ability but lacks the confidence that comes with experience to make those risky cutbacks.
Therefore Kei often runs with the aim of picking up whatever yards are there at the POA much like Torrain.
But, I think Keiland has the potential to be more then a frontside runner.All good points. I'll address the YPA argument here because it's something I haven't already covered above.

RBs get their value (well, rushing value, blocking/receiving are such underrated skills for RBs) in one of two ways, they must either consistently get positive yards that are also valuable, or they must provide the "shock" play, usually a long TD run, at a better than average rate. I struggle to put Torain in one of these two categories because he doesn't neatly fit.

Torain provides "shock" plays to a starving offense, which is why I believe some overvalue him in an offense like the Redskins. When Torain gets loose on the edge and moves beyond the linebackers and into the secondary with long strides, the Redskins move down the field fairly quickly. Torain has a knack for bunching his 17 yard gains together and moving the offense down the field. In the red zone, he's an average player. His skill set doesn't diminish in the red zones: his TDs scored are pretty proportional to all of his value statistics.

On the other hand, Torain would probably be better classified as a running back who gets his value from consistently getting positive yards. When the Redskins move down the field on the back of their running game, it's usually because Torain is stringing together a bunch of plays. So Torain gets and deserves the credit for these drives. But if we increase the sample to include all Redskins drives in the ten games Torain was active for, the offensive production doesn't look like it has a 4.5 YPC running back touching the football 17 times per game. Mostly because if we think of Torain as a 4.5 YPC back, we miss the boom or bust nature of his runs. Ryan Torain lost yards on 28 of his 164 (17%) carries. Clinton Portis, who was deemed too old and ineffective to earn a roster spot next year, lost yards on 6 of his 54 (9%) carries behind the same (arguably worse because it was earlier in the season) OL.

So it's not the OL that's causing Torain to lose yards so frequently. It might be Cooley and Sellers, but the reason I believe that those two are blowing so many blocks that causes Torain to be TFL is because he never cuts it up inside the tight end, so he's putting those players in a no win situation on blocking...a situation that Cooley and Fred Davis are actually winning way more likely than they should.

Like I said above, YPC is always going to overstate Torain's effectiveness on runs, but if he either stops losing yards so frequently or learns to take the ball to the house from 40+ yards out, you'll see that YPC extend over 5.0 and he'll be a positive value runner at that point. Right now, I think he's slightly negative in terms of value as a runner, although he's an above average pass blocker and he adds something to the passing attack as a receiver.

Dirt-
Are you taking requests?

Could you cut up Keiland Williams stuff from the Titans game?

BTW-You are my hero.

I take donations. Big donations and cup holders. Lol, but yeah, Titans game is a good game to study so making a Keiland Williams cut shouldn't be a problem. I'm glad though you asked for a running back. The Landry videos were fun to put together but sort of time consuming. The QB's were a little tedious to put together but at the same time easily the most informative. Running Backs are by far the easiest ones to assemble.

Actually the funny thing is InsaneBoost deserves a lot of the credit as he provided the raw material for virtually every single video I've posted the past week. Kind of hope he starts posting here again so I can thank him.