Three.

SFIAH

It's not a matter of eating the subway sandwiches. Reggie lacks a critical element that these other backs either came into the league with or learned pretty quickly: patience.

What Reggie does is get the ball and then tries to make that spectaular move to get free as soon as he gets the ball. Or tries to make it to the edge of the defense to score.

He's failing pretty badly on both because he doesn't have patience. Up until now he was so far ahead of most defensive college players that the strategy worked pretty well.

But dude is in the NFL now. He's going to have to rethink that strategy a bit.

I watch LT, Tiki, Gore, Portis, and even that hated Warrick Dunn. They all do what Duece does, which is patiently follow the blocking scheme through the hole to daylight. Speed and elusiveness works at the second and third levels of the defense. It even works sometimes in the backfield when the blocking scheme has broken down. But it defeats the play to start juking 6 yards behind the line. And that's what Reggie is doing right now.

Payton is going to have to rework Reggie's running game into 4 yards and a cloud of dust. He's going to have to teach Reggie to trust the line to do its job, so that he can do his job. It won't stay 4 yards and a cloud of dust long. It'll turn into Duece's (and the other elite RB's) game where they go into the line, and then the next thing you see they are 12 yards downfield running to daylight.

Just think about Reggie's punt return in the Tampa game as a sample. Earlier in the season he kept running backwards trying to get to daylight. On that play he trusted his blockers to set up the wall. Once he got to it... GONE!

Reggie was thrown into a nuclear inferno. Frankly he's done very well so far. We really don't need him to run for 1500 yards this season. We just need him to learn how to do it this season so that he can be the man for the next decade.

SFIAH

Hence the designation "1st season as the starter" in my post. :?

he is adjusting still to the NFL. Hate to say that but it is true. his best runs to date have been between the tackles and cutting in a north and south directions. Outside the tackles he is still dancing to much east and west. each week he seems to be catching on that those moves are better saved in the second level of the defense. funny thing he is playing behind an OL that was thrown together this year. they are the real surprise this year and deserve alot of credit. I like the core we put together and with next years draft and FA I only see things getting brighter for the OL and all the players that depend on them. Sooner or later teams will stop shadowing Bush so much. Drew and the passing game is proving to a legit weapon that can win games. God knows we have not had that for years. Then Bush will shine. A legit TE weapon would go along way to helping Bush out. I give him a solid b for his first year.

Sure.
But there is no basis for comparison. Yet.
Deuce is the starter and Reggie is the backup.
Don't think it will play out the same as Rickey/Deuce.
Deuce isn't going anywhere next season.