Denard's rushing stats "tainted"?

Bo era backs had more blockers because we generally only split one or two wide. Looking at the archives, we don't even start calling it "wide reciever" until the 90's. So if I were defending Denard, I'd bring up the fact that Denard had a bunch of recievers split away, less blockers on the line. Of course he would come back with the fact this spread defenses out (which was the point, of course) and this would definitively show you how dumb of an argument he is making: different players played on different teams, with different schemes, and different blockers (is A Train worse because his blockers all ended pro bowlers?). You can't compare in a vaccuum, there can't be a scientific comparison. It seems pretty thin to throw out what Denard did because of the scheme he did it in. That gives too much credit to the scheme, I think.

Rushing yards are rushing yards man. The fact that he gained those yards rushing the ball is all that matters.

That is dumb.

Denard got his advantage because he can pass (better than any RB). Any other RB could have acquired passing skills so that they can also have the advantage of having more blockers. But they didn't, so they had to have another guy on the field who can pass.

Does this mean that RB's who get their yardage through wildcat formations should have their yards from that play stripped?

Along this same thinking, you can also argue that RB's who could catch the ball out of the back field also had unfair advantage over the RB's who could only run. Or RB's who can bounce outside had unfair advantage over RB's who could only run straigh ahead.

The point of the game is to gain as much ground as possible so that you can get to the otherside. It does not matter how you do it. What matters is that you do it.

now, you may want to exclude scrambling yards, as a qb may have an advantage over rb's there in terms of spacing on the field, but denard rarely scrambled so...poop on your friend's face.

The reason Denard had an extra blocker is because he was the quarterback.  So, by your friend's logic, presumably any quarterback who runs the ball himself has an extra blocker and thus "tainted stats."  Think of how many offenses that involve running QBs. There are the modern spread teams, the old wishbone teams, the flexbone and I-form option teams (like Colorado in the late '80s-early '90s and Nebraska through the '90s), the very old single-wing offenses, the triple-option teams--it's an endless list.  If you try and go back through the record books and disqualify people because they played in offenses with"extra blockers" you're going to X-out an awful lot of people.  Dumb. 

Is the game played 11 on 11 or not? How did Denard acquire an "extra" blocker? Did this "purist" watch Michigan State or Alabama play defense ever? The days of playing 1-high against a running QB are pretty much toast. But even if you want to, there are defenses that still make the numbers work (two gap or 2G1G schemes for instance). 

Not to mention the "yeah but scheme" argument is one that forgets what kind of offense Bo ran and against whom. How many scholarships were available to Bo in 1973? The greater necessity of scheme in the first place comes from the fact that talent differences are less massive. And if you watched '11 and '12, you saw plenty of square peg/round hole problems. Not to mention the injury. So the schematic advantage he had across his 3 full seasons was relatively limited. 

He still ran for 7 yards a pop in 2013, despite the total dysfunction of the offensive line and many of the RBs. That wasn't scheme. That was ludicrous talent with the ball in his hand.

Oh, also: sack yardage? Pretty sure that's counted against a QB total, but not RBs. There's even a plausible argument that says at least some sack yardage should be counted against RBs, since the effectiveness of the run game plays into the effectiveness of play action and other aspects of the passing game as a function of alignment/personnel responses to effective rushing.

He wasn't supposed to be, either. It is a ridiculous premise, and there is no argument unless you take the bait. Just don't do it. Nod your head and ask him to explain Mickey Mantle.

Considering how ineffective our OL was at blocking for anybody last year, saying Denard had "an extra blocker" is a fantasy.

But the most direct rebuttal of your friend's idiot argument is what Blue Badger said.

Besides, anybody who calls himself a "purist" about anything is virtually guaranteed to be the kind of insufferably smug asshat that people do their best to avoid being caught in an elevator with.

Denards stats are tainted......untied shoelaces - not fair

If your friend turned this around and made the more common, practical, and relevant point that Denard often ran against 1 fewer defenders (because there is at leat 1 LB that is going to get sucked in to the RB on read options), then there might be a whimper of an argument. But then you'd quickly realize that draws do the same thing for RBs.

The equally relevnt counterargument is that RBs aren't really providing much run-blocking support on QB runs. They may act as a decoy, but their contribution as an "extra blocker" is irrelevant on typical plays.

You should (semi-seriously) ask him what he thinks of RichRod and the zone-read offense. :)