Moore May Be Better Than Expected

Fourth-string tailback Mewelde Moore will be the Steelers starting tailback Sunday night.

The Steelers didn't really have a choice as Moore is the only running back on the roster who was a member of the team last Monday night. Gary Russell (re-signed this week) and Najeh Davenport (re-signed this week) will be the backups.

It sounds like a pretty desperate situation, but it's not as bad as it looks. While Moore may have been the Steelers' fourth-string tailback, he's actually shown himself to be a pretty talented back in the rare cases where he's gotten a chance to show his stuff.

Moore has had 11 games during his 4+ year career where he has gotten 10 or more carries. Those games have been few and far between because Moore has spent much of his time as the Vikings No. 3 tailback, and the majority of his playing time came in 2005 and 2006. But when he has gotten plenty of carries he has produced.

Check out the stats:

Carries	Yards	Avg	Long	Catches	Yards	Avg
20	92	4.6	17	12	90	7.5
15	109	7.3	20	7	78	11.1
20	138	6.9	33	5	30	6
23	101	4.4	28	1	3	3
14	57	4.1	19	6	63	10.5
14	57	4.1	25	5	52	10.4
13	45	3.5	15	4	60	15
11	49	4.5	14	1	26	26
22	122	5.5	24	2	16	8
21	67	3.2	8	2	9	4.5
10	49	4.9	22	4	42	10.5
TOTALS
183	886	4.84	33	49	469	9.57

That's a pretty productive 10 games. Notice that he's had at least one run of 14 yards or more in all but one of the 10 games, and he's averaged an impressive 4.84 yards per carry. In his five games he's gotten 20 carries, he's rushed fore more than 100 yards for times, and he's also continued to snag passes as well.

Moore may not be spectacular this week, but there's a lot of reasons to think that he will be competent, and should be good enough to keep the Steelers from abandoning the running game this week.