A Look at the NFL’s Top 20 Running Backs

This is an era when Super Bowl games are won by only passing teams that can run the ball if they have to.

Whenever an NFL game matches good team vs. good team, no ballcarrier can make the difference today.

Even so, a balanced threat is as essential as ever. The best passing teams can’t succeed without a running threat.

So who are the best of the active running backs? Here are my top 20:

1. Larry Johnson, Kansas City -- This year’s new sensation, Johnson, complementing quarterback Trent Green, is a classic power back who can change himself into a scatback in the open field and continue on with great speed and moves.

2. Shaun Alexander, Seattle -- Also coming on this year, Alexander, complementing quarterback Matt Hasselbeck, may lack the speed of the NFL’s fastest backs, but he’s an impressive slasher with power who can move in the open.

3. Tiki Barber, New York Giants -- The kind of back that LaDainian Tomlinson is supposed to be, Barber has the speed and moves that the great backs have always brought to football plus the drive to run through tackles.

4. Clinton Portis, Washington -- Something of a Tomlinson type as well, Portis is faster and more assertive in the hole and makes better moves at higher speed down the field

5. Edgerrin James, Indianapolis -- With the upper-body strength to keep going in close quarters, James, complementing Peyton Manning, excels in the hole and in the first five to nine yards. He also excels in the science of attacking tacklers where they’re weakest.

6. Corey Dillon, New England -- A heavy-duty power back, Dillon lacked production this year because of the Patriots’ ill-fated shotgun-formation experiment and to injuries. Still, now that the Patriots are rolling again, a major explanation is that an injury-free Dillon is giving passer Tom Brady another weapon.

7. Fred Taylor, Jacksonville -- Greatly talented, Taylor is a cross between a power back and a sprinter who can go, and if he could remain injury-free he’d rank higher.

8. Warrick Dunn, Atlanta -- Another Tomlinson type, Dunn at 180 pounds outperforms the much heavier Tomlinson in every respect from moving the pile to running away.

9. Curtis Martin, New York Jets -- A hard-yard specialist, Martin is a pros’ pro, getting most of his yardage after the first hit.

10. Tomlinson, San Diego -- Though he has some open-field speed and moves, Tomlinson can’t pound or drive for the hard yards and is too frequently shut down to be a threat you can count on.

11. Rudi Johnson, Cincinnati -- An assertive type, Johnson outruns his talent level on sheer want-to, providing the consistent three-to-seven yards that balances great passing.

12-14. Pittsburgh’s three running backs have speed (Willie Parker), power (Jerome Bettis), and grit (Duce Staley), making them better as a three-headed unit than their individual talent warrants.

15-17. Denver’s three running backs, similarly effective, are Mike Anderson, Tatum Bell and, now, Ron Dayne, but it’s the Broncos’ stretch-play mastery that lets even Dayne make big yards.

18-19. The Jones boys, Julius in Dallas and Thomas in Chicago, have bounce and fight but may lack the size and toughness for the long haul.

20. Carnell Williams, Tampa Bay -- Blessed with speed and moxie, Williams lacks size and proven durability.

Brees Grounded

The San Diego Chargers, stocked with players who could and did beat Peyton Manning, have run themselves out of the playoffs. And of the several reasons why this happened, the most compelling is that their conservative coach, Marty Schottenheimer, overrates his primary running back, Tomlinson.

The Chargers blew the season because, too often, they were a run-based team in a passing era.

His club has provided Schottenheimer with a bunch of pass-offense talent, starting with fiery quarterback Drew Brees and two first-class pass catchers, tight end Antonio Gates and receiver Keenan McCardell -- plus an alert staff of pass-offense assistants. But the head coach would rather run.

The fundamental irony of Schottenheimer’s love affair with Tomlinson is that the league is loaded with better running backs.

Tomlinson is barely in the NFL’s top 10.

The Chargers’ failed season rests on their failure to understand that when Tomlinson takes off with the ball, they can’t throw it.

That occurred over and over this year, grounding Brees repeatedly in scoring position on first and often second down.

This isn’t to say that Tomlinson is incompetent. More explicitly, he’s just another good running back who lacks heft and upper-body strength.

His are the small shoulders and arms of an athlete who hates heavy lifting -- by comparison with, for example, USC’s Heisman winner Reggie Bush, who has weight-lifted himself into a champion.

Tomlinson thus lacks the power to produce when hit, and, though he has some speed and some moves, he isn’t transcendentally gifted in the open.

It’s a mystery why he’s so highly rated by his team and most of TV’s talking heads.

Bengals vs. Chiefs

The Cincinnati Bengals could end the season with another defeat in Kansas City today but not for the same reason they lost last time.

The Chiefs are a hardy, wily winner with a sound, integrated pass-run offense.

And that’s more than you can say for Buffalo, which upset playoff-bound Cincinnati last Sunday, 37-27.

The Bengal team lost that one primarily because it lacks experience in the art of performing week after week as one of the nation’s top pro clubs against all comers, even 10-time losers like Buffalo. The Bengals are used to being no better than a .500 entry this time of year. Like the Bills, they’re practiced at striving for late-season upsets.

Even with Carson Palmer throwing the ball before a home-town crowd and with the Johnsons, Rudi and Chad, doing what they do best, Cincinnati, along with every other football team that rises from nothingness, has to learn how to act as a division champion.

Falcons vs. Panthers

The Atlanta Falcons will get one last chance to do things right today in the Carolina game after blowing one they possibly had in hand last week -- and extending to three a series of pro games that appeared to be lost rather than won that day. Other teams in that boat were Cincinnati and San Diego.

Falcon Coach Jim Mora, whose team got the ball with two overtime minutes left in a 24-24 tie with Tampa Bay, couldn’t decide whether he should play for the tie or whether he had to play to win, the Associated Press reported.

The AP people, who had better views of the Atlanta bench and press-box areas than any television viewer, reported that Falcon officials “were unable to determine how a tie would affect the club’s chances of making the playoffs.”

So Atlanta punted, and in the end Tampa Bay won, 27-24.

If that’s a reasonable summary of what happened, it’s a severe indictment of Mora, Atlanta’s young second-year coach.

An experienced, prudent NFL coach -- Bill Belichick comes to mind -- would have sought the right answers to all such questions during the week before the game.

There are officials in the NFL’s New York office who are charged with finding the answer to every hypothetical long before the kickoff.

All you have to do is call them.

And, speaking of that, one way to evaluate coaches is to watch them in every kind of crisis situation. Because timeouts are essential in close games. For instance, a coach who calls time to decide whether he should attempt a field goal or a pass or run is a coach who has wasted that timeout because he hasn’t done his homework.

On the preceding Tuesday or Wednesday, any team’s assistant coaches, of whom there are about 20 on each pro club, can ask and answer every hypothetical, based on time of game, score, field position and every other uncertainty.

Well-led teams do things like that. In the computer age, it’s an outrage for the head coach to stand around thinking up the answer to a routine question at 3:10 p.m. of a December Sunday.