True he did have a high volume of carries, he had a average YPC of 4.0 On good, bad and between teams, having a 4.0 average is excellent
On a whole you are right. Alot of Martin's numbers were accrued due to the high volume of carries & a good OL. But that does require top notch toughness & durability..so this should not diminish his feats. Let's not forget he was a 3 down back either. Very good in pass blocking as well as catching balls both short & medium range.He was very well rounded. Additionally..in his really top seasons w. the team he really was a top level back physically. Very quick to the hole,could make guys miss on the second level & good vision in the open field.If he had that break away speed he'd be held in a much different esteem.
I remember when Steve Young first moved into the broadcast booth, and every time he talked about the Jets, it was all about how everything flowed through Curtis Martin. Any defense coming up against the Jets knew that he was going to get 20+ carries (averaged 20.9 carries per game for his career). Often he was smashing into stacked boxes all game, and averaging 2-3 yards per carry anyway and racking up 1st downs. Then, late in the game, he'd suddenly start breaking long runs. Defenses got tired, Curtis never did. Go back and watch some of those games now, and you might appreciate how Martin's presence kept the defense honest and opened up the passing game. A lot of times, teams would stay in their base D when the Jets put out 3 WRs, or put in an extra FS instead of a CB at the Nickle spot. It was interesting to me to go back and see how many of Chrebet's 3rd down conversion catches were made while he was being covered by a LB or FS. Of course, the the other side of this is the number of stupid draw plays attempted of 3rd-and-12 after somebody took a sack.
Totally agree. When i was younger i didn't appreciate that aspect of the game as much. I would complain how he wasn't flashy like some other RB's. I didn't really understand how much easier he made the game for our QB and passing game by influencing which defenses were out on the field. I'd kill for a player like him again
Toss sweep with mawae getting out there to block. It was the last time we had a team that could run a play everyone in the stadium knew was coming and still couldn't be stopped.
I can't really remember too many plays off the top of my head. I was pretty young and it has been awhile. But, Curtis is my all time favorite Jet. My favorite moments were the HB pass in this game Also, towards the end of his career he played a whole season, without missing a game, with two sprained ankles. His ankles were fucked up all season, but yet he played and managed to break 1,000 yards.
"bull rush" ???? What do you mean exactly. The way that term is normally defined doesn't fit CuMar at all.
That's basically how I would describe him, except I'm not sure about the "great leader" part. He led by example with his hard work and good character, but was not a vocal or fiery-type player. I would add that he was pretty good at picking up the blitz, and is one of the best RBs that they've ever had. Statistically, he is the best. He had great character, was a class act, and was a consummate professional. He worked hard to stay in shape. In that way, he created a lot of his luck in staying healthy. The rest of what I'm about to say won't be received well by many of you. While I liked CuMar as a man and as a player, there was a lot about him that frustrated me. IMO he had more than one weakness (not being a breakaway back or lacking in elite speed). His stats were greatly padded by his longevity, and his running style was a major contributor to his longevity. He went down (was tackled) all too easily, and often ran out of bounds to avoid taking a hit. It often used to look to me that he would start to go down as soon as a defender got near him. He almost never fought for additional yardage. I rarely thought he finished a game without having left and additional 30-50 yards on the field. I remember one offseason that his mother criticized him for not running hard enough. The next season was the best season of his career and he led the NFL in rushing, I believe. That season he did fight for additional yardage. I also remember that he seemed to me to have an almost pathological need to cutback. There were times when he would break into the secondary and the road ahead would be clear, yet he would cutback for some reason, and run right into a tackler. It also used to really bug me that in order to see the holes better, he had to line up 8 yards deep in the backfield. Owing to his lack of foot speed often times the hole would close before he got to the LOS. He probably led the league in rushes for no gain or a loss of a yard or two. As a result, an inordinate amount of the Jets offense ran through him. Additionally, a lot of his yardage was picked up on 3rd and long draw plays. He's pick up at least a couple of hundred yards a seasons where the Jets were 3rd and long. He'd pick up a big chunk of yardage, but almost always come up a few yards short of what was needed. Finally, he usually managed to come up small in big games. He rarely fumbled, but when he did, it was almost always in a big game. He fumbled and came up small in the loss to Denver. He fumbled in the season opener in '99 vs NE that resulted in Vinny's torn achilles tendon. Most of his yardage was racked up against weaker teams.
Only statistically, otherwise, no way. Riggins was better, McNeil was better, and Boozer may have been better.
He was NOT quick to the hole. Because he lined up so deep in order to see holes better, and because of his lack of foot speed, many times the holes closed before he got to the LOS. He probably set an NFL record for the most runs of no gain, or -1 or -2 yards.
Run with power,Lower his pads,engage contact,drive his legs & push the pile. Least I think that's what it means
This is true. there were alot of minimal gains. Perhaps what I meant to say was he was quick IN the hole rather than TO the hole. If there was any space between he & the second level defender..he could elude laterally,accelerate w. burst or lower his pads with power. He needed those "18 inches of daylight" just like Gale Sayers. That's about all they had in common though. Sayers had that break away speed that eluded Martin. Sayers wished he had CMart's durability
As I said, a LOT Of CuMar's durability was due to the fact that he rarely fought for additional yardage. He'd go down quickly, and would avoid taking big hits. He also ran out of bounds a lot to avoid taking hits. Sayers fought for yardage, and I don't recall his running out of bounds a lot to avoid hits, either.
Great vision, and he would use slight shifts throughout his body to deceive tacklers, get angles, and avoid hits. The time he played through a serious, painful, high ankle sprain proved what a great competitor and team mate he was. Dude played hurt. Mangold the same thing.
Here is the story of how Curtis Martin saved me from being a patriots fan. When I was a young buck I was not a football fan. The only team I cared about was the Yankees and even then I did not have the attention span to watch sports on tv. I did , however , love playing them with all the neighborhood kids. Football was good one to play as it gave an excuse for all the bigger kids to beat up on us . Anyways.... I needed a winter coat and my mom happened to find a nice one on clearance. It was one of those sweet starter jackets with the big pouch in the front. Just so happened it was a patriots one. Now you know as kids everyone pretends to be their favorite player when they are having fun playing with their friends . Me , not even being able to name a single football players name, had no clue who I was going to play as for the game( I knew Barry sanders actually because he was unstoppable in the sega genesis football video game we played and caused the rule of nobody being allowed to pick the lions but somebody else had already grabbed the honors of being sanders... but I digress ). I was wearing my N.E. starter jacket and always played running back aka hand me the ball and chase me down and tackle the shit out of me . This was when Curtis Martin had his emergance with the pats so I was deemed Curtis Martin and he was the only player I knew or cared about . Then I find out that he got sent to the jets . I now know that he left on his own in free agency, even tho it was a shady deal and I think the jets somehow got shafted out of some draft picks because of it , but at the time I felt that it was a personal attack on my favorite player by the patriots. I then deemed the jets my new favorite team and the pats were now the enemy. Didn't start actually really watching and keeping up with the team until the Mangini era , but the seed had already been planted all due to Curtis Martin and that damn patriots starter jacket
At one time I read that Barry Sanders has NFL the records for the most career negative yardage plays and the most career negative total yards, although I can't find any reference to that claim today. Obviously anybody who holds those records was pretty good, or they wouldn't have had a long enough career to achieve those totals.
Curtis easily, had one of the best stiff arms for ANY rb. Dude would stiff arm you to hell. When he got to the outside it was OVER if he got you with one of those. 2004, this fucker led the league in rushing and he didn't have ONE explosive long run in 2004. His longest run as 25 yards. I will never forget how hard Curtis played. He along with Wayne Chrebet are the reasons why I am a Jet fans for life.
Barry Sanders might own the record because of how bad his OL was, and how often he was having to create on his own. If so, I'll bet CuMar isn't far behind. CuMar was better than pretty good. He was a very good RB, just not great. CuMar had a long career because he was a professional and worked hard to get in and stay in the best shape possible and because of his running style, which was to avoid taking big hits. He went down easily. He didn't fight for additional yardage. He also ran out of bounds a lot (to avoid taking shots) 2-3 yards short of the first down marker.
