There is no doubt Peyton Hillis is a popular player in Cleveland, Ohio.
Hillis is a big, physical runner and a good-looking guy and his style fits perfectly with the blue-collar mentality that Cleveland has.
The fans have his back in his ongoing contract talks with the Browns. Sports talk is filled with people wanting Mike Holmgren to give Hillis whatever he wants.
Of course, it isn’t their money.
The truth is Hillis has had one good season. Not great, but good.
In today’s NFL, the great backs get around 1300 yards in a season, an average of 80 yards per game.
Hillis gained 1177 yards last season, a figure that didn’t even rank in the top ten in the league. To be fair, his 1654 yards from scrimmage did rank 6th in the league because he is a good receiver.
He definitely deserves more money than he is currently making, but he shouldn’t get what Adrian Peterson got from the Vikings.
That’s because he’s only done it for one year.
Fans also think coach Pat Shurmur would solve all of the Browns’ problems by giving the ball to Hillis 30 times per game. That totally ignores the fact that in four of his last five games in 2010, he gained less than 60 yards.
In three of those games, he averaged less than 3.2 yards per carry.
In truth, the Browns need to be able to throw the football to be successful.
The Plain Dealer’s Tony Grossi pointed out the other day that if you look at any period the Browns were successful, they had a great passing game.
In the 1950’s it was Otto Graham throwing to Dante Lavelli. In the 60’s it was Frank Ryan and Bill Nelsen throwing to Paul Warfield and Gary Collins.
The Kardiac Kids had Brian Sipe, and the teams of the late 80’s were led by Bernie Kosar firing passes to Webster Slaughter and Ozzie Newsome.
Running the football is great when you have the lead and you want to choke out your opponents. However, you get that lead by passing, and the Browns haven’t been able to do that effectively since Derek Anderson’s great 2007 season.
Peyton Hillis is probably frustrated that he hasn’t played well, but he has handled the situation wrong, no matter what his fans think.
He has hired agents with the frequency of Lindsay Lohan appearing before a judge. His latest agent gave him some bad advice by telling him not to play with strep throat.
Hillis made it worse by saying his agent told him to do that.
And he keeps bringing it up. He’s the one who won’t let the issue die. Every week it’s something new.
His teammates have to be irritated that they have to keep answering questions about the big running back.
The problem seems to be that Hillis and his agent have overestimated his worth within the league. Although he may be very popular here in Cleveland, he’s not an elite running back.
Therefore, he shouldn’t be paid like one.
He needs to get back out on the field and produce like he did in 2010, and establish himself as one of the NFL’s upper echelon runners.
Getting on the cover of Madden really doesn’t give him an automatic 100 yards rushing per game.
JD
Cleveland Sports Perspective 