Isaiah Pead's place in St. Louis Rams fans' fickle collective heart, if not on the Rams' depth chart, was usurped rapidly over the first three games of the preseason by Daryl Richardson, a seventh-round pick who showed a predisposition for running straight forward Pead, the Rams' second-rounder and Steven Jackson's presumptive heir, sorely lacked.
↵Richardson probably earned his spot on the roster with his own performances. But Thursday night, in the Rams' convincing win over the Ravens, Isaiah Pead reminded Rams fans both why he was drafted and just how foolish it is to start moving the furniture around over three preseason games. After looking like a Barry Sanders in headlights in three stilted performances to date, Pead rushed for 58 yards on 10 carries, looking exactly like he was supposed to all along.
↵That doesn't necessarily wipe out just how bad he looked the rest of August, but it does offer the kind of pre-regular-season corrective that seems inevitably necessary ever year around this time. Isaiah Pead might be a bust, but nothing he'd done before Thursday night was especially instructive on that count.
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