Ever eaten a rice cake?  That’s Addai’s game.  Ok, so he’s fast; that’s about where the pluses end.  He cannot break tackles, his solution for every play is to bounce it to the outside, and his field vision is sub-par.  His rushing average has dipped over a ½-yard in each of his first three seasons.  Addai never carried a full load in college, so we remain mystified as to why Indy spent a first rounder on him.  He was stuffed as much as any back in the league in ‘08… on split carries!  He was stopped for negative or zero yards 18 times on 155 carries, and to put this in perspective, in ’08, Thomas Jones had 290 carries and was only stuffed 15 times.  As a final nail in the coffin, Addai plays his worst football in December – that’s right, during the fantasy football playoffs.  Check it:

He plays on a great team with the second best QB in the game and a strong offensive line.  Those are the only reasons he managed the stellar numbers he did in ’07.  It doesn’t take much to punch the ball in from the one yard line with Peyton manning under center.

If you don’t know what RBBC stands for, call us when the shuttle lands… and when it does, we’re still not explaining it to you.

Dungy realized Addai’s lack of endurance and brought Dominic Rhodes back for ‘08.  The load was split down the middle and Addai ended ’08 as one of the bigger busts on recent record.  

The Colts finished 30^th in rushing attempts, 31^st in rushing yards, and tied for 19^th in rushing TDs in 2008.  Addai’s ineptitude certainly played a large part in these numbers, but the offensive line deserves a share of the blame, too, as they blocked their team to a dead last 3.4 YPC average.  The Indy schedule was brutal in ’08 as they faced the angry AFC North (Pittsburgh and Baltimore), but they swap those guys out this season for the porous NFC West, so it’s a slight improvement.

Tony Dungy has retired, and assistant head coach, Jim Caldwell, is now running the show... on paper at least.  Manning is the real play caller on that team, so don’t expect any extreme scheme shifts.  The Colts like to pass the ball.  Dominic Rhodes signed on with the Buffalo Bills, but he is basically a poor man’s Addai.  The Colts spent a 1^st round draft pick on UConn’s Donald Brown, a compact, yet shifty in-between the tackles type runner who can handle full time duties (367 carries for 2,083 yards and 21 TDs in college last season).  This effectively keeps Addai in an RBBC, but he should continue to receive most of the goal-line carries as long as he remains effective in that area.  The Colts have a somewhat easier go of it schedule-wise as they face the weak NFC West (SF, AZ, Sea, STL) this season; but they still clock in with a tough run schedule per our Strength of Schedule.  Though Addai’s fantasy value is at an all-time low, he is basically playing this and next season for his next big contract and has plenty to prove.  The RBBC will continue to keep his value down, but perhaps he can produce a decent ROI given his awful 2008 numbers.