Colts draft RB DJ Giddens - Round 5, Pick 151
 

https://x.com/RomeovilleKid/status/1916201547194941615

https://x.com/ZachHicks2/status/1916200068127883631

Nice. Definitely has issues elsewhere (which is why he's a 5th round pick) but he is great at running the ball.

I like this pick, if in time he works on his pass blocking skills, he could be a nice weapon. He has very high agility, and good lateral movement, with nice top end speed.

D.J. is the starter by 2027.

If not 2026. I want JT kicked to the curb.

Giddens reminds me so much of Addai. Watch their college tape side by side and you'll see what I mean.

Why do you want him kicked to the curb?

#1 He has Russell Wilson disease (a complete phony)
#2 He has no desire to improve (see below) (see above)
#3 He sucks in the passing game...can't catch or run routes
#4 He sucks as a pass blocker
#5 No situational awareness or football sense. People want to point out the Denver game, but his gawd awful performance in the Giants game put him on my shit list.

I see what you're saying, but Addai's shimmies never worked that well. Honestly as a runner he reminds me of JT with less fumble issues, and as a receiver, when he catches the ball he reminds me of Edge, but he has to get more consistent with catching the ball. Honestly the place he reminds me most of Addai is pass pro, where he's willing but not great at it, but that's a step up from unwilling JT.

There are two parts of football that are all about effort and desire for a RB, IMO at least. They are protecting the football (keeping fumbles to a minimum) and pass pro. JT sucks at both, which tells me he has all the talent in the world and no or very little desire to improve.

Addai had a great headfake, a solid jumpcut, and could run with power. I didn't think the dancing was all that effective either but when he was hitting on all cylinders he was a pretty damn good running back.

I think he ran with a lot more power at LSU then the kid out of KS does but I see the similarities in their elusiveness. Some guys have that, some guys don't. This kid out of KS has it, clearly, and Addai had it in a way Donald Brown simply didn't (Hated that pick but loved how he finished here).

Comparing Addai to Taylor, to me, is nuts. Taylor is a North South guy at his very core. Whenever Taylor starts trying to go lateral and play with an agility skill set he looks average.

I am not sure what you are on about regards fumbles. He has had 1369 touches of the ball and lost a total of 7 fumbles, thats once every 196 touches.

Derrick Henry has 2355 touches in his career and has 10 fumbles lost, so 1 every 234 touches.

But over the last 2 years in Taylor's 509 touches of the ball he has fumbled just the once where he has lost the ball, that's actually amazingly good, and not bad in any way shape or form!!! Henry is actually even better
over the same time period he has 1 fumble lost in the last 652 touches.

JT cost the Colts a game in his rookie year and their season last year with fumbles. Say he doesn't have a fumble problem if you want, but he has a fumble problem when it matters.

Who compared Addai to Taylor? YDFL compared Giddens to Addai, while I said that Giddens reminded me of JT as a runner, a less consistent Edge as a receiver, and Addai in pass pro.

That said, watch Giddens run and tell me you don't see JT with better ball protection and less breakaway speed.

That's just BS, he clearly doesn't. He royally effed up with dropping the ball as he crossed the goal line this year, but that is a one off, that is his lone fumble. It was unbelievably dumb and definitely cost the Colts the game this year.

Often any fumble that results in a turnover will cost a team a game. That's the same for every single skill player and isn't a slight on JT and absolutely isn't a cause for concern.

I am absolutely not disagreeing that JT's pass blocking skills and abilities as a receiver out of the backfield are below average. But his pure running skills are right up there with anyone in the NFL to ever have played the game.

I think people don't truly appreciate just how good of a skill player JT is, and in my opinion we are extremely lucky to have him on our team.

Did i like the way he held out a few seasons ago..nah of course not, is he the sort of guy who i would personally gravitate towards, probably not, (never met the guy and he might very well be the nicest human being alive) but he is a damn good running back.

Colts clearly like him, as he was announcing draft selections in the draft on behalf of the Colts.

I couldn't care less. Let's just agree to disagree. Hope Giddens beats JT out for RB1 this year.

JT is an elite runner. Edgerrin James was an elite running back. Hopefully Giddens becomes more like the latter than the former.

I can't fucking read, you're right; My bad.

I genuinely see more Addai in the guy, personally. I do not really see how he compares to Taylor.

Piqued my interest regarding fumble stats, so I looked it up. Fumble rate is apparently not conveniently aggregated, but I found this list of NFL RB's with 3000+ career rush attempts and how many fumbles they had:

https://www.statmuse.com/nfl/ask/low...-3000-attempts

If you do the math:

• Curtis Martin was a freak, fumbling once every 121 attempts.
• Ladainian Tomlinson was next best at once every 102 attempts.
• Jerome Bettis once every 85 attempts
• Frank Gore once every 81 attempts.
• Barry Sanders once every 75 attempts.
• Emmitt Smith once every 72 attempts.
• Edgerrin James once every 69 attempts.
• Adrian Peterson once every 66 attempts.
• Walter Payton and Marcus Allen were worst, fumbling once every 45 and 46 attempts respectively.

If you do the math on JT, he's got 13 total fumbles on 1228 carries. Meaning he fumbles once every 94 attempts, which would be good for third on this list. Even if he gets worse in the latter part of his career, he probably ends up in the range of Sanders, Smith, James, and Peterson at worst.

Just to give an idea.

I know JT was a shit head, and he definitely had some costly, untimely fumbles for us... and his pass blocking is not there.

But the good outweighs the bad by a lot. His vision and patience is really good, he's big and downhill on contact, and nobody can catch him if he hits a crease. Rewatch even last year's tape. He had 1400+yds in 14 games. Only two others were better.

I'm not anxious to lose him, although I do like the young guy the more I watch him.

Because Addai's shiftiness never made people miss. Taylor's does. That's the difference for me. Also, Giddens never dances in the backfield.

I'm not saying JT is not a net positive, I'm saying he's an elite runner and poor at every other aspect of being a RB, including ball security. I'm hoping Giddens can be a better all around RB.

That is a hyperbolic statement, if I've ever heard one. JT has elite speed, JT can can make guys miss in the open field and JT has decent power, when he decides to use it. He often fails in goal to go situations and isn't incredibly elusive in tight quarters.

That said, "best pure running skills of anyone to have ever played in the NFL"?

No he's not that. Edge was that. Dickerson was that. Faulk was that.

Happy to disagree, no issue with that. But i do find it odd that you still believe he is a liability regards fumbles when the stats back it up that clearly he isn't.

Thanks Chaos. I was going to actually do something similar w/ RBs from the 2024 season, but this is a better list.

Not disagreeing with JT being a below average receiver and really bad at pass pro, but as the stats show you're clearly wrong on your ball security take. Unless you believe that the 8 HOFers/Future HOFers on the list Chaos posted also had ball security issues.

Also, as UK pointed out you can cherry pick bad plays by almost any player in NFL history like you're doing w/ JT. Take for example Edge, who we all love for good reason. But he did have some REALLY bad fumbles that cost the Colts big time on multiple occasions. Most notably he lost 2 fumbles in the red zone (one of which was at the goal line) at the Cheats in '04 in a 3 point loss that gave those MFers HFA over us in the playoffs. He also lost a fumble at the goal line in a 3 point loss to Mia his rookie year. I believe he also lost a fumble @NE in OT that year as well which set up their game winning FG.

That's just Dam being Dam. He was of the opinion that JT would have fumbling issues after we drafted him, and he'll take that opinion to the grave whether he's wrong about it or not like every one of his takes.

JT may not fumble often, but when he does, it costs the team the game or possibly the season.

JT was labeled as a fumbler due to his college days.

Over the course of his college career, he had 18 fumbles on 926 carries which is a fumble every 51 attempts.

So if the NFL numbers above are correct, then it appears that his ball security skills have improved quite a bit.

I imagine that Tom Rathman had a big influence on that since he was always preaching to protect the ball.

Do you think Edge had fumbling issues since he cost the Colts multiple games and HFA in the playoffs?

Or what about Jerome Bettis? He would have cost the Steelers a SB if Nick Harper's wife wouldn't have stabbed him in the league the night before our playoff game.

o


Or, if Nick Harper had simply kept running straight instead of cutting back to the inside portion of the field ...... Ben Roethlisberger said that there is no way that he would have been able to get his hand on Harper's ankle to trip him up if he had kept running straight, and not cut back inside.

o

Bull Shit

https://i.makeagif.com/media/2-14-2014/oyF8Ob.gif

Or - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BXsKy1OT0Ho

Exactly what I'm saying. JT has great vision too and he's decisive but he is not a shifty player.

He's the type of guy that punishes you when you make a bad step, he doesn't create the space, he punishes mistakes.

o


I don't blame Harper for making what turned out to be the wrong move ...... he went with his instinct to cut inside to avoid the possibility of getting pushed out of bounds in case somebody was right behind him, and it was the wrong move. It was a qucik, split-second decision, and sometimes those decisions work, and sometimes they don't ...... he was also right there to grab the loose ball and start sprinting the other way in the first place, which at least gave the Colts a chance to win what looked like an unwinnable game only one play earlier.

o

No doubt. Obviously it would have been great if he had not cut back and (likely) ran into the end zone, but he along w/ Brackett gave us a legitimate chance at a miracle comeback. And to be fair the Colts deserved to lose that game w/ how flat we came out.

That was a sick cut. But I think I get what Dam is saying. I remember watching Addai all the time, bending like Gumby and half the time he'd lose balance and almost tackle himself. Ha, I'm picturing it now, can't remember the game, but like catching a wide open swing pass and starts juking back and forth with the guy 10 yards away.

I sound like I'm shitting on the dude, but it was his quirk. I liked him.

It was PTSD. Only thing on his mind was to cut for some reason...

I think that's it. His have been pretty consequential. Even when it's not his fault... like when he got his ankle crushed against TEN and dropped the ball. Seems like we lost because of that one, too.

Objectively, yes, Edgerrin James fumbled too much. That said, I don't ever remember him fumbling by dropping the ball at the half yard line, and I can’t imagine him doing anything that boneheaded.

I loved Addai, I was one of the few people back in 2006 who thought the Colts should draft him over Maroney.

That said, you cherry picked the best juke of his career and a pass play where he wasn't particularly elusive, but just followed his blocks and a bunch of Cheats defenders just fell down. There's no two play selection that will prove or disprove either of our opinions, and if you go look at his whole body of work, you'll see that most of the time, Addai's dancing and juking doesn't create additional yardage.

Here, do this: watch an Addai LSU highlight video, then a Giddens KSU highlight video. If you still can't see what I'm talking about after that, I don't know what to say.

Exactly. Addai's juking, shiftiness, change of direction, whatever you want to call it, more often allowed defenders to close on him and reduce his gains than it caused defenders to miss him and increase his gains.

IMO Addai was a really good RB, three down player, had ability as a runner, receiver, and blocker. But elusiveness was not one of the positive traits of his game.

Addai LSU

https://youtu.be/pT5Q0HTkPY4?si=xvQsYKS9afiGGtRx ( I do like the soundtrack on this, but also couldn't find a higher res/better quality one)

Giddens KSU:

https://youtu.be/kZXml-eYSIg?si=JsCoSmyNVbjywAf0

First minute of each video should give a clear picture.

https://media-hosting.imagekit.io/46...ZNx4nebxR5tg__

https://media-hosting.imagekit.io/36...9HA8r7Y9M4Kw__

https://media-hosting.imagekit.io/f6...R8hTbui3h0jQ__

You're Cappin'

Now do the ones where he dances in the backfield and gets TFL'd that outnumber these by 10:1.

I don’t have to.

You said it never worked and then you moved the goal post with the statement that I was cherry picking.

Nothing will ever be enough because you’re committed to being unreasonable. Didn’t you go to Purdue or some shit?

Statistically never, as in it didn't work 95+% of the time. I did go to Purdue, that's why I know how math works.