There’s been a debate over the past few years about the value of the running back position.

With a well-built offensive line, it’s believed, a multitude of backs could perform well in the run game regardless of their pedigree. The Dallas Cowboys are testing this theory to the extreme this season with best runs of the day in the Week 8 game against Kansas City. Justin Houston is rightly pushed to the inside on an outside play but gets loose a little too early and forces Mason to juke to the outside in order to pick up the 14-yard gain.

Fixing the Problem

It’s not even as if the Rams think the drafting of Gurley will be the fix-all to an effective running game. They went on to spend a large amount of draft picks on offensive linemen following the selection of Gurley.

They chose Rob Havenstein in the second round and selected three more linemen through the remainder of the draft. They also just selected Clemson tackle Isaiah Battle in the fifth-round of the Supplemental Draft. The Rams now project to have two rookies, along with Robinson in his second year starting on the offensive line -- this after letting one of their more productive linemen, Joe Barksdale, leave as a free agent without much of a fight.

It would appear the Rams believe they can develop offensive linemen in front of a great running back while many teams in the league are making the opposite shift. The Rams may be right. Rams offensive line coach Paul Boudreau has been able to get some positive work out of some unheralded prospects.

The Rams saw a problem and addressed it, but the way they addressed it is more intriguing than the problem itself. It is fair to wonder if St. Louis could have taken a lineman with the 10th overall pick and waited until the second or third round to select a running back and allow him to develop in a committee.

Even with all the problems laid out and the draft capital used to fix it, the Rams ranked 15th in Adjusted Rushing NEP per attempt as a team last season as the 16th run-heaviest offense. St. Louis will take a chance on developing those offensive linemen to help create a stable run offense. They’ll be putting a lot of faith in their new star running back once he’s healthy, but that development up front is likely to play just as big a part.

There might not be one right way to try to rebuild a run game, but the Rams could need a lot of things to break right to avoid being exactly where they were a year ago.