In front of a nationally televised holiday audience, Washington Football Team rookie running back Antonio Gibson showed those who hadn’t seen him play that there’s another emerging star in the offense other than wideout Terry McLaurin.
McLaurin rightfully gets most of the team’s publicity as a budding superstar on a team lacking in that department on the offensive side of the ball. However, Gibson is starting to make fans notice that he, too, is a young player rapidly ascending the NFL statistical charts.
Against Dallas in a critical NFC East tilt, the former Memphis standout produced 115 yards on 20 carries to go along with three touchdowns. It was his fifth straight game scoring a touchdown. Gibson has five games left to break Alfred Morris’s rookie mark of 13 rushing touchdowns back in 2012. Gibson has generated 11 rushing touchdowns so far.
On the season, Gibson has amassed 645 yards on 139 carries to also go along with 32 receptions for 233 yards.
Washington first-year coach Ron Rivera drafted Gibson and converted him full time to running back after a successful collegiate career that saw him more as a wide receiver.
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Rivera has watched Gibson’s development and growth and is leaning more on the first-year player each week.
“I think the biggest thing with Antonio right now is we’re seeing growth in many places. A lot of it is just because he hasn’t played the position very long,” Rivera said. “Again, we talk about drafting him and the things that we saw when we scouted him. We saw the potential. We saw his ability. I mentioned it all the time that one of the really neat stats that he had was one in every nine times he touched the ball he scored. Those scores came from a multitude of positions whether he was at running back, whether he was in the slot running routes, whether he was outside on the edges running routes, or whether he was coming in motion and getting the handoff. He’s got the skillset that really hasn’t been developed.
“As you watch him and watch what [running backs coach] Randy [Jordan] and [coaching assistant] Coach [Jennifer] King have done with him, you feel really good about that,” Rivera went on to say. “You know that especially with the coaching he’s gotten, he’s starting to show the signs of development and growth that we’ve been looking for. At first, he was a little bit all over the place, and now, like you said, you start to see certain elements of his game coming into focus. The short runs where it’s pressing the hole a little bit longer and opening up and popping through where it never opens up and you gain three or four yards, but you’re getting what you can—those are the things that you’re looking for. Or, he hits a hole or hits an area, and then all of a sudden you realize he has to bounce it or cut it back. Those are things that he’s continuing to learn the feel for. That’s where you see the growth.”
Most football fans know who quarterback Alex Smith is and, more than likely all-time defensive sack leader Ryan Kerrigan when it comes to Washington household names. McLaurin is starting to etch his name in the star category on a national stage and is becoming recognized as one of the NFL’s best young talents.
Gibson now has a chance to put his name in the conversation if he can continue his run. He will have a strong case for his play if he can have another stout performance against the Pittsburgh Steelers and their dominant defense that shuts down opposing teams rushing attacks.
Washington has used a variety of looks with their running backs this year and especially for Gibson. The team employs ‘jet action’ that has helped Gibson burst onto the scene.
“Well, you do those things because it’s all part of the scheme,” Rivera said. “The jet action is really to hold certain elements of the defense. Understanding why we do that is important because, if you’re a runner and you know you’re running the jet action for a specific reason, to hold a specific defender, then there’s an opportunity for a cutback or an opportunity to run through somebody. That’s all part of the design. It’s kind of like routes. You have a combination for a reason. You run a high-low so the quarterback can read from the high to the low or the low to the high depending on what the defender does.”
