just from the eye test, he looked like he couldn't cut very well. top end speed was fine along with some basic cuts/changes of direction.
outside of leak outs after blocking, he wasn't involved in the passing game at all which is the biggest red flag to me. routes require harder cuts and sudden changes of direction. he'd make a small change in direction in a couple of his longer runs and then ran straight to contact. no jukes,hops,jumps,stiff arms.
if he's that diminished then having cj anderson be the lead back makes sense.
The thing is though, Todd Gurley's game is primarily straight line speed with basic changes of direction, dude isn't the type of player who out jukes the whole defense. I think his longest run this year was 36 yards.
Plus Todd Gurley's impact is most felt in the red zone and the Rams had zero red zone trips. Maybe if they got there more often we would've seen more of that factor.
I still think however, the Rams had a bad game plan: Gurley is by far their best player and they needed to at least see what he was capable of more during this game. It was practically a one score difference up until the last few minutes. They should have used dude at the very least to soften the Pats defense a little. Gurley did have some effect out there to that extent such as when Patrick Chung got injured trying to tackle dude.
I mean, that run in the 2nd half looked about normal for Gurley:
I think they just didn't use him enough or were too shook because there was also that run that went for a first down that got called back for a wrong holding call. I mean by all accounts dude really could have impacted the game, but the game plan did not allow him to.
