2018 Draft Prospects: Running Backs

The relationship between the running back position and the NFL is complicated. A few years ago the popular wisdom was that running backs weren’t worth a first round pick at all, that you could replicate the productivity of a star back with a platoon of midround picks. Yet over the past three years we have seen a reversal of this philosophy, with running backs going in the top ten in each of these drafts (including two last year, if you consider Christian McCaffrey a running back).

People are still skeptical about the value, but it’s hard not to fall in love with some of these prospects. There will almost certainly be another top ten selection this year, even though I don’t think there should be. This class is not as strong at the top as the ones that have come before, though I think there are a couple first round options worth considering on the table.

Sony Michel, Georgia

If you break this year’s running back class down into individual traits, I don’t think there is any area where I would say Michel is the best in the class. There are faster running backs, there are stronger running backs, there are more elusive running backs. There are backs with better vision, and there are backs better as receivers. But Michel stands at the top because he is the most complete back in this year’s draft, a player who can step in right away and contribute on any team in the league.

Michel is the sort of player who always seems to do the right thing on every play. He is light on his feet and can make some devastating cuts, but he never wastes time dancing. He is always working his way forward, finding seams through congested areas and slipping through. He has excellent vision and can cover a lot of ground with a single cut, allowing him to find and attack backside running lanes most backs would never even know about.

Michel is less polished in the passing game than he is as a runner, but he shows promise in that area as well. He can run some nice routes, and he is usually competent in pass protection. More work could turn him into a genuine three down back, though like most running backs he will likely be best used as part of a rotation. Only once over his final two years at Georgia did he eclipse twenty carries in a game, and I do have some concerns about how he would hold up if asked to plow into the line 250 times over the course of a season.

I don’t think Michel will ever be a true superstar as a running back. His speed is good but not game changing, and while he can fight forward for extra yards, he doesn’t really leave tacklers in his wake. He does a good job getting what’s there out of every play, but he doesn’t create yards in the way the best running backs do. In this class that’s enough to make him the top running back, but he isn’t a top twenty player like we’ve seen over the past few years.

Saquon Barkley, Penn State

Everybody knows about Barkley by this point. The combination of his highlight reels and his absurd performance at the Combine have made him the most hyped running back prospect in years, and when the actual draft rolls around he’s all but a lock for a top five selection. And when you watch him in the open field, there is no denying that he’s a one of a kind player. He’s a 233 pound back with breakaway speed and power to match his size, as well as nimble feet and elusiveness that should not be physically possible. He makes tacklers look foolish on a routine basis, and he turns ordinary seven yard gains into explosive plays.

Once he gets into open space Barkley is the best running back in the class. Unfortunately, what he does in tight areas is on the exact opposite end of the spectrum. Barkley spends more time dancing in the backfield than any other running back I can remember watching, usually at the expense of the play that was called. He didn’t have particularly great blocking in front of him in college, but there were times that it was perfectly fine and he would still stop his feet in the backfield, ignoring the hole open in front of him in search of a big play. He very rarely would lower his head and plunge into a congested area, and at times it seemed as if he was almost afraid of trying to get skinny and fall forward for four or five yards.

There are certainly ways to use a prospect like Barkley, as we saw last year with a similar player in Alvin Kamara. Barkley’s hands are occasionally questionable, but he has experience running a variety of routes, both coming out of the backfield and split out as a wide receiver. He is electric on kick returns, and he can be useful on a couple creatively designed gadget plays a game.

But the question is, how much do you value a running back who needs special plays designed to hide his glaring weakness? He’s certainly not the top ten player people talk about him as—he’s not in the same class as Ezekiel Elliott or Todd Gurley—but where is he worth the risk? I’m a big believer in the value of athleticism and betting on player development at the next level, but I’m not sure if the same applies to running backs, a position with a notoriously short career lifespan. In the end I think his upside is still worthy of a first round pick, but I wouldn’t do it until the very end of the first night.

Ronald Jones, USC

Jones is the burner of this year’s class. Don’t bother to look up his forty time from the Combine, since he pulled up with a limp and killed his time. On the field he is an explosion waiting to happen, a flash of speed that can get into the second level and run away from everybody chasing him.

Speed is certainly the most dangerous weapon in Jones’s arsenal, but it’s not the only one. He can set up his bursts with aggressive sideways cuts that allow him to elude defenders and open up a seam downhill. His vision isn’t great, and he will miss some holes that are there (as well as running into some that aren’t), but when he does spot a lane on the backside, he has the physical tools necessary to reach and exploit it. To his credit he isn’t always trying to break a big play, and he is willing to lower his head and fall forward for a short but productive gain.

The biggest drawback with Jones is physicality. He weighs only 205 pounds, and he plays probably even smaller. He makes good use of his off hand to protect himself, but if his stiffarm doesn’t work there’s not much he can do to prevent a tackler from bringing him down. One arm is often enough to stop him in his tracks, and he hasn’t mastered the subtle last second cut to avoid taking contact head on and fall forward.

Speed is always a great weapon to have on offense, and there are lots of creative ways to take advantage of Jones’s skillset. He might be worth snagging at the very end of the first round, though I think he fits better in the second. I don’t think there’s much bust potential here, but I’m not sure there’s more upside than as one piece of a rotational backfield, and it’s hard to justify spending a first round pick on a player who will likely not see the field more than half the time.

Derrius Guice, LSU

Guice has a refreshingly simple style of playing football. He gets the ball in the backfield, and he runs forward until he hits something. Sometimes that something is a defensive lineman standing in the hole, other times it’s the wall in the back of the endzone. In either case, Guice is going to run full speed into whatever is in front of him and smash forward until something brings him to the ground.

There are obviously downsides to this style of play. Guice really doesn’t change direction, and when he tries it usually goes badly. He isn’t the sort of runner you would use with a zone blocking scheme, where he would have to read the play in front of him and make a cut where a hole presents itself. He needs to be told where to go before the play, and if the hole ends up more than a few feet away from where he aimed himself, he will have no choice but to stop his feet in the backfield and hope defenders can’t close in during the distressingly long time it works to get him to full speed again.

In the perfect situation Guice can be a wrecking ball powering a running game down the field with repeated five to ten yard carries. Tacklers bounce off him on a regular basis, and he can even build up some decent speed once he reaches the second level. But he doesn’t offer much in the passing game, and he greatly limits the sort of plays you can call with him in the backfield. Even with his physical gifts, I can’t justify spending a pick on him before the middle of the second round.

Kerryon Johnson, Auburn

I normally shy away from comparing prospects to players already in the NFL, but it is impossible to watch Johnson play and not think about Le’Veon Bell. Bell has an extremely unique style in the way he approaches the line, at times almost completely stopping his feet as he waits for a hole to open up, then exploding through the moment he sees a sliver of daylight. Johnson is one of the few players I’ve seen who truly emulates that style, and at the college level he was able to pull it off to great success.

Right now Bell is the best back in the NFL, but it’s fair to wonder whether Johnson can match his success as well as he does his style. On a purely physical level Johnson is nowhere near Bell, and he is well behind all the other backs I looked at in the draft. Coming out of college Bell outweighed Johnson by 17 pounds, and he put up an incredible time in the 3-cone drill, demonstrating the footwork and burst that became even more dangerous when he reached the NFL and slimmed down to his current weight. Johnson didn’t show nearly as strong a performance in the agility drills, and on the field he doesn’t appear to have the same one step acceleration that has made Bell so dangerous.

I’m really not sure what to make of Johnson. His vision is extraordinary, and if he can learn to harness it in a way that doesn’t leave him standing dead still in the backfield nearly as often he can be a difficult back to contain. His second level speed isn’t great, but he does a very good job maneuvering through tight spaces and falling forward through contact. I think he can develop into a productive back, but it is going to take a couple years, and unlike the players listed above him I can’t really envision enough upside to push him into the first two rounds.

Nick Chubb, Georgia

Chubb’s defining trait is his strength. He is a workout warrior, and his insane performances in the weight room translate to excellent power on the field. He almost always drags tacklers for an extra yard or two, and he’s not afraid to run headfirst into a pile and carry it as far as his legs can take him.

Chubb is at his best running with people draped over him, but he’s a lot less impressive when he’s on his own in open space. It takes him several steps to make any sort of change of direction, and approaching the line he has trouble seeing and reaching the hole if it isn’t straight in front of him. He gets up to top speed pretty quickly, but top speed for him isn’t all that fast, and he is frequently caught from behind when he reaches the second level. And unlike Guice who I discussed above, he has fairly poor balance and footwork when it comes to absorbing low hits, and a lot of his carries end with him tripped up by the ankles.

You would think a player like Chubb would be able to carve out a role as a short yardage back, but he was surprisingly ineffective in those situations in college. On a first and ten he’ll happily slam into a gap and plunge forward for a short gain, but when things are congested by a short yardage defense he seems to have trouble finding a hole to hit, leading to him stopping his feet in the backfield. The tools are there, and he only needs his vision to improve a little bit to be useful in these situations. But right now the thing he is best suited for is not something he is actually good at, and it’s hard to justify making that kind of player a pick in the first two days.