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Frank Gore, Marshawn Lynch to see more action in ‘08

For all the attention those glamor-boy quarterbacks get, this is still football. You need ground-pounders and you need to use them a lot.

San Francisco and Buffalo get that message and plan to give their running backs heavier duty.

New 49er offensive coordinator Make Martz understands that Frank Gore is San Francisco’s best offensive player. So he’s planning to build the Niner offense around the running back. That’s in contrast to Martz’s rep as a pass-oriented genius.

The story on SFGate.com says Martz plans 25 touches per game for Gore this year; 20 on running plays and five receptions.

Gore had a fall-off in production last season after exploding for nearly 1700 yards and eight touchdowns  in 2006. The SFGate story attributes that mainly to San Francisco playing catch-up so often that they were forced to go away from the ground game.

That’s the worrisome thing about Martz’s plan. He may have less to work with in San Francisco’s passing game than he did in Detroit and may still play from behind a lot. He’s also Mike Martz and he loves to sling the ball. If he can resist his inclination to pass while running the ball more to keep games close, both the ‘Niners and Frank Gore can have a good year.

Lynch on third down

Marshawn Lynch was one of the few good things to come out of Buffalo last season, rolling up 1115 yards for seven touchdowns. But he only caught 18 passes for 184 yards.

Lynch wasn’t on the field on situations for third down and greater than three yards. Bills offensive coordinator Turk Schonert figured that Lynch was too low on the learning curve to pick up that part of the offense.

Now Schonert thinks the first year veteran is ready for more according to a story on buffalobills.com.

“I anticipate him being in on third down a lot more,” said Schonert of Lynch. “He’s had a year, he understands the protections now and I think this year he’ll be an integral part of our third down package.”

The story says the Bills have been practicing passes to Lynch during the offseason, with Lynch occasionally lining up wide on occasion.

Marshawn Lynch’s growth as an every down back should make him more valuable to the Bills and to your fantasy team.

    

This entry was posted on Sunday, July 6th, 2008 at 10:19 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.