St. Louis Rams Closing Evaluations: What Grades Do the Running Backs Receive?

Mark J. Rebilas-USA TODAY Sports

Zac Stacy: While Mason made a mid-season surge to be one of the Rams’ most impressive players of 2014, Zac Stacy ended up being arguably the season’s biggest disappointment. Just like Mason, Stacy had emerged in Week 5 of his rookie season after a brief stint as an inactive, and he went on to light it up, finishing 14th in the league in rushing yards with 973 despite receiving just one carry over the season’s first month. Obviously, something went wrong which prevented Stacy from achieving that same level of success in 2014.

It seemed from the start that the cards were stacked against Stacy to succeed this season, as the Rams’ drafting of Mason on the second day of the draft didn’t exactly signal confidence in Stacy on the part of the administration. Fellow second-year player Benny Cunningham pushed him hard for reps during training camp, and it was debatable whether Stacy would even last as the starter until the opener.

While he retained his starting job until then, he was not given a long leash. He actually put up OK numbers in the season opener, rushing for 43 yards on 11 carries, but he failed to show his explosiveness, with his long run of the day going for just seven yards. Stacy was put into a clear back-by-committee system, with Cunningham, undrafted rookie Trey Watts, and wideout Tavon Austin beginning to see more reps in the backfield.

After Stacy failed to run for any gain longer than 16 yards through the Rams’ first four games, they obviously began to lose patience with him. His reps were decreased for the fifth game of the season, a Monday night battle with the 49ers, and after he ran for only 17 yards on eight carries a need for change was sparked.

Stacy was completely absent from the gameplan in the Rams’ next game against the Seattle Seahawks, and though he remained on the active roster for the rest of the season, he had only 15 carries and three catches over the final 11 games. Stacy did not have a carry in seven of those games, and in three of them, he never even touched the field.

It was frustrating to see Stacy, a player who had such high expectations placed upon him that he was made a prominent part of the Rams’ marketing campaign, appearing on souvenir cups, tickets, and in commercials and the team’s entrance video, underwhelm so greatly during 2014. The odds don’t seem too good for him right now considering Jeff Fisher’s tendency to run through running backs in St. Louis, but since he put up such a good performance as a rookie, maybe he’ll take his failures this season to heart and find a way to bounce back during 2015.

GRADE: F

Next: Benny Cunningham