The Associated Press
Greg Beacham
THOUSAND OAKS, Calif.–Todd Gurley never had a true running partner during his first four regular seasons with the L.A. Rams.
The superstar running back took most of the carries and grinded out most of the tough yards while his back-ups played only sparingly.
When he suited up with C.J. Anderson for the first time last weekend during the Rams’ divisional playoff win over Dallas, Gurley truly shared the big carries for one of the first times in his NFL career.
As the New Orleans Saints already have noticed, the tandem was pretty much unstoppable.
“I guess it was a good thing I got hurt,” Gurley said with a laugh.
Gurley’s knee injury last month led the Rams to sign Anderson, a six-year veteran who had been released by three NFL teams in the previous eight months.
Anderson hit the ground running with 299 yards in the Rams’ final two regular-season victories while Gurley sat out.
When Gurley and Anderson suited up together against the Dallas Cowboys this past Saturday night, their contrasting styles and similar relentlessness made history.
Anderson went for 123 yards and two touchdowns while Gurley rushed for 115 yards and another score as they propelled the Rams to a franchise playoff-record 273 yards rushing and on to the NFC championship game this Sunday.
The Saints already have watched film of this partnership’s debut–and they know what’s coming to the Superdome.
“Being able to split time with [Anderson] and Gurley, it does good things for them,” Saints’ linebacker A.J. Klein said.
“It gets Gurley some rest and gets him some carries, and vice-versa,” he noted. “It keeps them fresh.
“And obviously you can tell when they’re running the ball, they’re not tired. They’re fresh and they’re running hard.”
The Rams’ dynamic duo presents a remarkable contrast at the position.
Gurley is a powerful, majestic runner capable of injuring would-be tacklers as easily as breaking past safeties for a length-of-the-field TD sprint.
Anderson, meanwhile, is 5’8″ and a self-described “fat kid running.” While he hits holes and linebackers ferociously, he isn’t planning to break away from any defensive backs anytime soon.
“From the 40 in. That’s it,” he said Sunday when asked to imagine his longest possible TD run. “Can’t go 70.
“Todd can go 70, 80 if he wants to,” Anderson noted. “Me, from the 40 in, man.
“When they say the 40 at the combine matters, that’s where it matters.”
Gurley and Anderson present a stark contrast in running styles, but they already looked like good teammates against the Cowboys.
They largely substituted themselves, each waving the other on or off the field, depending on whether they were tired or felt they had the metaphorical hot hand.
Anderson, who won a Super Bowl with the Denver Broncos three years ago, still seems a bit surprised to be deep in the playoffs just a few weeks after he was unemployed.
He understands his place in the Rams’ larger picture and he willingly defers to Gurley.
“Whatever Todd wanted to do, we were going to ride with anyway,” Anderson said of the substitution plan against Dallas.
“If he wanted to play 98 percent of the snaps, we were going to let the man be the man,” he noted.
“That’s why he’s one of the best backs in the league.
“But I think him seeing the opportunity of being fresh and not taking as many hits and [not] having the workload on passing downs and run downs, I think that helps him,” Anderson reasoned.
“And vice-versa for myself.
“I’ve always told him, ‘You want to be fresh,’ and when you’re fresh, obviously more explosive runs for the both of us,” he remarked.
Gurley tore his knee ligament during his final season at Georgia, and his rookie season didn’t start until the Rams’ third game.
Since then, he has been one of the NFL’s most durable backs–even without having a heavily-used back-up.
Malcolm Brown joined the Rams with Gurley in 2015, and he has been Gurley’s primary back-up during coach Sean McVay’s two-year tenure.
