Powell’s lack of rushing action grounds for Redblack concern

It should be simple, really.

The Redblacks have one of the two best running backs in the CFL and they generally win when they feed him the ball.

They are 5-1 when William Powell has rushed for 100 yards or more this season, 3-6 when he hasn’t.

Powell has averaged 5.5 yards per carry, which theoretically means he needs 18 hand-offs to reach triple digits.

So give him the damn ball. Of course, the math doesn’t always work out because the games, as we are often reminded, are not played on paper.

But what makes no sense at all is this: of the Redblacks’ 15 games, Powell has had at least 18 carries on five occasions.

In last weekend’s 34-16 loss in Edmonton, he touched the ball just nine times.

Powell is the league’s leading rusher by six yards over Winnipeg’s Andrew Harris while having played one fewer game. That he had just nine touches is unacceptable.

“We do call some more run plays than it looks ... end up reading some stuff out,” said head coach Rick Campbell. “But that is a guy we should get the ball to.”

So why didn’t it happen Saturday at Commonwealth Stadium?

Well, the entire offence took a big dump in the second half. Quarterback Trevor Harris took only six snaps in the third quarter and 13 in the fourth quarter.

“We threw the ball insanely effectively in the first half and loosened up the defence to try and run the ball,” he said. “In the second half, we didn’t get too many plays, we didn’t have too many opportunities.

“Obviously Willie P is going to be in the fold every game, but we threw it under 30 times and rushed it under 10 for him, so we’re not getting too many offensive plays.”

Maybe if they had done a better job establishing the run early, that wouldn’t have been the case.

Powell carried the ball three times in the first quarter. He had four carries in the second.

In leading 16-14 at the break, they should have had control of the game. But the desperate Eskimos turned up the heat and the Redblacks essentially abandoned the run.

Powell had one carry in the third quarter and one carry in the fourth.

Offensive co-ordinator Jaime Elizondo also said the lack of Powell had to do with a limited number of plays.

“When you run 50 plays in a game and we call, I want to say, 19 runs and a lot of those were pulls (pass/run option) based on how the D-end was playing, so the ball doesn’t get into Willie’s hands,” said Elizondo. “But when you only get 50 plays in a game, you can’t call enough runs. You can’t call enough screens, enough throws, enough movements. We need to stay on the field.”

That no screens were thrown to Powell was also baffling. Get the guy some open field and let him do his thing.

“Whether it’s running the ball or him catching the ball out of the backfield ... look, I think sometimes things get a little overaddressed,” said Elizondo. “And what I mean by that is, of course, when Willie has 20-plus touches in a game, it’s because there’s multiple factors. We’re running the ball well. We’re running 75-80 plays a game. And so you can disperse things a little bit more.

“You’ve got six skilled guys on the field. They all want to touch the ball. Obviously we have to be able to produce in the run game on first down better or overall success on first down. There’s going to be some games where Willie gets 30 touches and there’s going to be some games where unfortunately the defence takes him a little bit out of it.”

The Redblacks now have back-to-back games against the Hamilton Tiger-Cats that should decide their fate. The Ticats have the fourth-worst run defence in the league, surrendering an average of 109.3 yards per game along the ground.

“It’s frustrating,” Powell said when asked about his lack of involvement in Edmonton, “but I also like to focus on what I could have done better. I feel like I could have got some more yards out of each run I had. I feel if I just focus on what I have to do, when the carries do come to me, I’ll be able to make the most of them.

“We’ve just got to execute better and keep control of the game. I feel if we’re controlling the game and controlling the time of possession, we pretty much have the whole playbook and we can run whatever we want.

“As long as we do that, I feel everything else will fall into place.”

Give Powell the damn ball more and it will.