Vikings rookie RB Toby Gerhart gaining yards,trust

**Marrdro** · 12-01-2010, 02:55 PM

The girlfriend was using the car, so Toby Gerhart borrowed the keys to teammate Adrian Peterson's ride in order to make a team meeting last month.

Only one problem: Gerhart, a former Stanford star, was still on California time, not Minnesota snow time. Minutes after hitting the roads, Gerhart was stuck in the snow on a quiet road.

Rookie mistake.

"I thought I was going to miss the meeting, so I was calling a bunch of players," said Gerhart, who playfully blamed Peterson's low-rise sports car for the snow jam. "Joe Webb finally picked me up, and I made it in time."

Vikings rookie RB Toby Gerhart gaining yards, trust

**Marrdro** · 12-01-2010, 02:58 PM

How many of you still don't like him? Comeon, be honest. Again, I remember who you are and can go dig up a post or two.....LOL

I for one, liked the pick and really like how he is growing. Can you guys/gals imagine what kindof back he will be in 3 years?

**jmcdon00** · 12-01-2010, 03:07 PM

Originally Posted by "Marrdro" #1080761

How many of you still don't like him? Comeon, be honest. Again, I remember who you are and can go dig up a post or two.....LOL

I for one, liked the pick and really like how he is growing. Can you guys/gals imagine what kindof back he will be in 3 years?

I have been a little disapointed so far. I really thought he would step in and fill C taylors roll right away. Maybe my expectations were a bit too high.
Would like to see him get 5+ carries in every game down the stretch, wish we had seen more all season.

**HEY** · 12-01-2010, 03:14 PM

I especially liked two quotes from the article.

RB coach Bieniemy:

One thing about Toby is he takes a tremendous amount of pride using his pads on people. He's really flourished in the last month. He plays hard all the time and has tremendous hands to catch the football.

Wow, "tremendous hands" is a pretty big compliment from Bienemy.

Instead of trying to match Peterson's explosiveness, Gerhart decided in training camp to make blocking and blitz pickup his priorities.

That's exactly what I hoped he would focus on. I haven't exactly paid notice to it, but he seems to do a good job blocking. Better than Adrian perhaps.

**Infidel** · 12-01-2010, 03:44 PM

I was liking him early on, but as we moved into regular season I had reservations about his strength.

Maybe he's been spending a lot of time with the weights, but he sure seemed to be moving people on Sunday. I realize the Redskins don't have the greatest run defense, but he was doing well considering the quality of our blocking.

I'm not convinced, but he has promise, that's for sure.

**snowinapril** · 12-01-2010, 03:45 PM

Originally Posted by "Marrdro" #1080761

How many of you still don't like him? Comeon, be honest. Again, I remember who you are and can go dig up a post or two.....LOL

I for one, liked the pick and really like how he is growing. Can you guys/gals imagine what kindof back he will be in 3 years?

Which NFL player to you see him most like in 3 years? Like Mike Alstott?

As long as AD is here, he will get minimal touches, we will see.

**Infidel** · 12-01-2010, 03:54 PM

Also, as I said a month or two ago, Peterson will be benched by injuries if he doesn't change his running style to be more evasive and less collision oriented. You can't intentionally run into people and expect to have a long career in the NFL.

Toby could be the number one RB any day now. We may be depending on him totally, so I hope what we're seeing is legitimate and powerful maturation and improvement.

**HEY** · 12-01-2010, 05:04 PM

Originally Posted by "snowinapril" #1080767

Originally Posted by "Marrdro" #1080761

I for one, liked the pick and really like how he is growing. Can you guys/gals imagine what kindof back he will be in 3 years?

Which NFL player to you see him most like in 3 years? Like Mike Alstott?

No offense, but I'm sick of people comparing every white runnningback to Mike Alstott. Whenever a runningback who is white and runs fairly physically comes in to the NFL, he immediately receive "The Next Mike Alstott"-stamp. It's ridiculous!

First of all, Mike Alstott is unique. I love power runningbacks and Alstott has the greatest combination of lower body strength and balance that I've ever seen, combined with a never-say-never mentality. When I think of Alstott, I picture him carry a couple of defenders on his back for several yards.

Toby Gerhart is not that type of running back. He's physically, but I've seen a tendency of him bouncing off defenders after he lowers his shoulders. Alstott would definitely deliver the blow, but he always continued the force all the way through the impact and to the point where he was forced out of balance.

With that being said, Gerhart looks promising. He shows good blocking skills and receiving skills when you take into account that he rarely had to do that in college and he had to learn a lot in a very short time. As for the running part, I see strong running between the tackles with good resiliency and vision.

... but when compared to Adrian Peterson, it's like watching the game in slow-motion. The difference in speed and quickness is really apparent on tape. Of course, it's perfectly natural as Gerhart is bigger than Peterson and there's also the fact that it's Adrian Peterson we're talking about. The man has the craziest combination of speed and power at the runningback position of the last decade. Almost everyone would look slow compared to him.

**Marrdro** · 12-01-2010, 05:11 PM

Originally Posted by "jmcdon00" #1080762

Originally Posted by "Marrdro" #1080761

How many of you still don't like him? Comeon, be honest. Again, I remember who you are and can go dig up a post or two.....LOL

I for one, liked the pick and really like how he is growing. Can you guys/gals imagine what kindof back he will be in 3 years?

I have been a little disapointed so far. I really thought he would step in and fill C taylors roll right away. Maybe my expectations were a bit too high.
Would like to see him get 5+ carries in every game down the stretch, wish we had seen more all season.

I think that was the problem for most. Why people think these kids are gonna come right out of college and play at the next level without issues is beyond me.

If memory serves, a few dings early in camp and the first couple of games, could also be contributors to the slow progress as well.

**Marrdro** · 12-01-2010, 05:14 PM

Originally Posted by "HEY" #1080763

I especially liked two quotes from the article.

RB coach Bieniemy:

One thing about Toby is he takes a tremendous amount of pride using his pads on people. He's really flourished in the last month. He plays hard all the time and has tremendous hands to catch the football.

Wow, "tremendous hands" is a pretty big compliment from Bienemy.

Instead of trying to match Peterson's explosiveness, Gerhart decided in training camp to make blocking and blitz pickup his priorities.

That's exactly what I hoped he would focus on. I haven't exactly paid notice to it, but he seems to do a good job blocking. Better than Adrian perhaps.

Why I liked him so much coming out was that he came from a WCO scheme. In it he had blitz pickup resonsibilities close to what he would see with the Vikes.

AD has struggled a bit, but again, I kindof see that as an issue only when he is on the wrong side of the QB in the shotgun formation. He kindof struggles getting over there.

I don't blame him for that as the QB has the responsibility to read that for him pre-snap. With time I think he will start to get the reads on his own and can anticipate them better based on what he sees and won't have to rely on what the QB sees.