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One of the most dissapointing players on the field last night was TJ Duckett. Once he hit the line he either got stuck and went no where or got pushed back. He also couldn't convert on a big 3rd & 1. TJ, your 254lbs dawg, 3rd & 1 should be no thing for you even when the O-Line gets no push!

The only time TJ looked effective was on the goaline (which Knapp actually used him on the goaline! Novel idea!). I'm still not convinced that Duckett isn't the second coming of Ron Dayne.

TJ looked like he was being very timid last night. I think this is a result of the coaching staff pressuring him to be a cut back runner. TJ will never be a cut-back runner, he's not agile enough to be. He'd of done a lot better if he'd of just hit the hole as hard as he could and hope to pop out the other side. If nothing else he would have gotten at least 3-4 yards every time.

To TJ's credit, he has already surpassed anything Dayne dreamed of doing in the NFL. He had an off game against a good D. Hell, there were 9 guys in the box the whole night. Last year he was the only player in the league not to get tackled for a loss.

Cut the big man some slack.

Truth of the matter is that Dayne is more an ideal fit of what Gibbs wants to do with this rushing attack than T.J. is. That's why Dayne was able to make the roster in Denver over a guy like Quentin Griffin. Dayne has quickness to his game and cut.

Watch T.J.'s feet when he tries to change direction, he chops and has to slow down. You really can't have success in this league if don't change direction well.

But for whatever reason (I think it has to do to weight), T.J. never performs very well early on in the year. He's always extremely average in preseason, and doesn't usually start to his his stride until Week 6 or so of the regular season (it was the same with Ray Buchanan).

I'll give T.J. a few more weeks to do whatever it is he does. But basically if T.J. continues to run like this down the stretch, the team would be foolish not to trade him. But the bad part about that is that this past off-season Duckett probably had his best trade value since so many teams were looking for young RBs. At this point, I see only maybe the Panthers, 49ers, Browns, Jaguars, and Eagles as teams that may want to give up a middle round pick for Duckett. At this point, the best we could hope for is a 3rd rounder for him. BUt we'll see how the rest of the season goes before we start to really get into that...

Agreed. I was let down by a couple of his runs, but he did get a TD when we needed it. I really think he is discouraged about sharing snaps with Dunn, but he's going to have to earn that starting job unlike most first round RB's...which may be good for him in the long run.

I was at the game and TJ just seemed to look for the pile to run into. He was not quick at all and seemed too slow to the hole. I hope it was early season/MNF jitters because we need that power to complement Dunn.

I would really like to see what T.J. could do at about 235-240 pounds. Currently my opinion of him is his change of direction is too slow for this scheme.

Hopefully, this was just a bad game for him and not what will be the norm...

Irregardless of how good he should be; it is clear that Duckett is not a starter on the NFL level.

I think we just use Duckett wrong to an extent. I don't see Duckett being anything more than a straight ahead runner. Let him pound it up the middle long enough and he'll start breaking the longer runs. Unfortunetly to do that we'd have to give him 20 carries a game and that would take carries away from our best RB in Dunn.

That's exactly how I see it too Steve. Big backs typically get better as the game goes on because the opposing D starts getting arm weary & missing tackles.