A year after many expected it to happen, Brian Schottenheimer says Shonn Greene will become the primary ball carrier for the Jets in 2011.
Schottenheimer admitted that "without a doubt" Greene will be the primary ball carrier with an opportunity to be a consistent 18-20-carry RB each week, which projects to 300+ carries for the season. The bruising back has just 293 regular-season carries through his first two seasons.
It would have been nice had Schotty recognized in 2010 that it is best to try and keep a back in his 30's like Tomlinson fresh. One cannot help but remember games like Week 16 against the Bears when Greene averaged 5.8 yards per rush and got 12 carries, while Tomlinson averaged 2.1 and got 13. How about the AFC Championship Game where Greene averaged 5.8 and got 9 carries. LT averaged 1.7 and also got 9. These numbers displayed two things. The first is that the Jets let LT take too much of a pounding early in the year. The second is that Schottenheimer could not see what was evident to most of us watching, that Greene was more dangerous and should have gotten more carries.
In any event, more carries for Greene probably means a fresher LT, which likely means the kind of productive LT we saw early in 2010 and then again in the Playoffs after his Week 17 rest.