Notorious in his four years as a Bronco for streaky play, C.J. Anderson entered 2016 as the team’s go-to tailback, vowing to supply a complete season after slow starts in back-to-back years…
Not done any favors by a shoddy offensive line, Anderson and the Denver running game ranked 22nd in the league at the time of his season-ending right meniscus tear in Week 7. Returning from those disappointments, does Anderson have what it takes to come back with a vengeance in 2017?
At a mere 5’8, Denver Broncos running back C.J. Anderson couldn’t reach the top shelf of a liquor cabinet in Timberland boots. But bet him a steak dinner and he could probably burst through a brick wall like the Kool-Aid man.
At his best, he totes the rock like a bull rampaging through the streets of Pamplona–a stocky boulder of muscle powering upfield with brutish determination. That’s the C.J. Anderson the Broncos elected to re-sign last offseason by matching Miami’s offer sheet of a four-year, $18 million contract. At last June’s mandatory minicamp, head coach Gary Kubiak endorsed Anderson for the starting job, saying, “I think C.J. is ready to be an every-down guy.”
By early-September, the Broncos exhibited additional faith in him by releasing 2015’s leading rusher, Ronnie Hillman. With rookie fourth-round draft pick Devontae Booker serving as a backup, it was clear the team was counting on Anderson to keep hold of the starting role by running with consistency all year.
While his 2016 season was interrupted by injury at the point where he normally cranks up, Anderson’s first and second half splits in 2014 and ’15 are rather remarkable: He averaged 3.8 yards per carry and netted only one touchdown in the first eight games of those seasons; as opposed to totals of 12 combined touchdowns and a 5.8 yards per carry average in the final eight games.
The latter numbers are all-pro worthy. But Anderson’s rusty first-halves have become habitual in his three seasons as a regular ball carrier. Off to another troubling start last year, his tame four yards per carry average prompted Kubiak to entertain a shakeup on the depth start, saying of Booker before Week 7, “I think he deserves some more opportunities to touch the football, and when he’s had the opportunities he’s done some good stuff.”
Alas, no such executive decision had to be made on account of the season-ending right meniscus tear Anderson sustained in Week 7 versus Houston.
With Anderson out-of-commission, the Denver offense endured the rest of the season with a first-year starting quarterback and a rookie tailback laboring to scratch out yardage behind the league’s 24th ranked offensive line. While proving durable, Booker did not fare well statistically, compiling only four touchdowns and a 3.5 yards per carry average.
The Broncos were 4-2 and en route to defeating Houston when Anderson’s season vanished into thin air; without him, the offense sunk even deeper into dysfunction and increasingly served to undermine the team’s desperate efforts toward a playoff berth.
Wholly dissatisfied with a mediocre 9-7 title defense, the organization seems fittingly determined to fight back and aim high once again in 2017. Of the guys in pads, one would hope that those who lived the highs and lows of the last two seasons will approach the year ahead with a vengeful attitude. The Denver defense has very little to prove, but the offense is replete with players in need of bounce-back seasons–chief among them is C.J. Anderson.
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For all their talent, Anderson and wide-receiver Demaryius Thomas carry well-deserved reputations for disappearing at length. And although they typically redeem themselves with stretches of superior playmaking, Anderson has invariably (and for whatever reason) postdated his best material for November and beyond.
It could be a fluke. Or it might suggest that Anderson’s offseason conditioning regimen still isn’t serving him well. Instigated by the realization he wasn’t in “peak shape” entering the 2015 season until around Week 5, Anderson trimmed down from his customary 225 pounds to 220 in time for last year’s mandatory minicamp. Despite solid performances in Weeks 1 and 2 versus Carolina and Indianapolis, respectively, Anderson again succumbed to his early-season demons the rest of the way.
For Denver to resurface in the ranks of the elite, they’ll first need to shore up their offensive line with mountains of cash; beyond that, C.J. Anderson needs to shoot out of the gates in September like a raging bull and give the Broncos a well-rounded season.
The next time he does it will be his first.