Oct 27, 2008 12:29 am US/Eastern
Jets' Analysis: Just Give Leon The Damn Ball
It's Hard To Know If Gang Green Realizes Just How Much Of A Game-Changing Player Washington Is
By JEFF CAPELLINI, WCBSTV.com Senior News Producer
NEW YORK (CBS) ―
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Leon Washington -- No. 29 -- didn't touch the ball all that much against the Kansas City Chiefs on Oct. 26, but did manage to score twice and set up the game-winning touchdown.
Al Bello/Getty Images
Leon Washington is a yards-after-the-touch machine.
How many times does it have to be said? Come hook or by crook, Jets coach Eric Mangini has to find more ways to get the ball in Washington's hands.
Washington touched the ball six times from scrimmage during Sunday's 28-24 win over Kansas City – three receptions and three carries – and still finished with both a rushing and receiving touchdown and 100 total yards.
And that's not even taking into consideration what he did on special teams late in the game. He finished with a 25.5-yard kick-return average. Last anyone checked, that's Pro Bowl-worthy.
Washington is the single most electrifying player the Jets have had at tailback in ages. Of course, Curtis Martin was great and Freeman McNeil was a true pro, but Washington is the complete package. Martin in his younger years could run away from a defense, but as he got older became more of a compiler – a guy who had to get the ball 25 times a game to make a serious dent stats-wise. Washington may be smaller but he may be more explosive and more of a game-changer than Martin was during his prime.
And Martin is a sure-fire first ballot Hall of Famer to boot.
Washington is also proof you don't have to be the size of an Adrian Peterson to be successful as an NFL tailback. At all of 5-foot-8, Washington is like a mini Humvee with nitrous-oxide canisters. He's fast, he's elusive and he's got moves like a poor man's Barry Sanders.
Yet the Jets only use him as a change of pace back. Actually, they really use him as a change of pace to the change of pace. How else does anyone explain Washington having just 27 carries in seven games? He does have 22 receptions – or a little more than three per game – but that's not nearly enough.
The Jets pay Thomas Jones to be the featured back. We all get that. But Jones can still be the featured back and red zone force he was brought here to be if the Jets just let Washington run wild a bit more between the 20s.
After scoring the game's first touchdown on Sunday on an 18-yard
reception, Washington showed just how dangerous he can be as a running
option when he scampered 60 yards up the gut to put the Jets up 14-7 in
the second quarter. He then basically made Brett Favre's life a lot
easier with a 37-yard punt return that set up Laveraneus Coles' winning
TD catch late in the fourth.
The guy simply does it all.
He's so much like former Giants standout Dave Meggett it's scary. Washington is a guy, like Favre, who can help the Jets snatch victories that in the past they almost would have surely lost. He did it Sunday.
How many times have we seen the Jets play down to the opposition? How many times have we see an interception returned late in a game and known even in the most optimistic part of our brains that there was no they were coming back?
The Jets have rarely had players like him.
Mangini needs to run more screens to this guy, like what the San Diego Chargers used to do with LaDainian Tomlinson. Washington has that kind of game.
And if they use him properly Jones, Favre and all the receivers will be put in a better position to contribute.
If you're a Jets fan, you want Washington touching the ball. You want opposing defenses worrying about him.
Mangini may have the most dynamic player in the AFC East at his disposal.
He can't waste a talent like this. The Jets rarely have the pleasure of seeing one in green.
(© MMX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
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