NFL Stock Exchange: An NFL Draft Podcast - 179. 2024 NFL Draft Summer Scouting: Running Backs

Episode Date: June 13, 2023

Hosts Trevor Sikkema and Connor Rogers continue their Summer Scouting Series with the running back position. The two talk about the names to know for the potential 2024 class, where they stand heading into the 2023 college football season, and give you their Top 5 pre-season rankings for the position.

This episode is brought to you by our good friends at NFL Sunday Ticket on YouTube TV. I'm sure by now you've all got back into your Sunday routines, but they could be even better. With NFL Sunday Ticket and YouTube TV, you get the most live NFL games all in one place, every game, every Sunday. And you can even watch up to four different games at once with MultiView, one of my favorite inventions of this decade. It's exactly what you need to catch all the action. Make your Sundays more magical. And also, YouTube TV is great. I got it this year.

It's awesome. Sign up now at youtube.com slash BS, device and content restrictions apply. Local and national games on YouTube TV. NFL Sunday ticket for out-of-market games excludes digital-only games. Welcome to the opening bell of the NFL Stock Exchange Podcast. I'm Trevor Sycamore. That is Connor Rogers.

Joining you guys for another edition of the 2023 Summer Scouting Series, baby. Last week, we did quarterbacks. I think we ruffled some feathers on the quarterback episode a little bit, or I guess I did. You know, it's a little bit of Bo Nix stuff. If you guys are listening to this podcast for the first time and you didn't listen to that one, go listen to the whole Summer Scouting. You were in text chains, I did. You know, it's a little bit of Bo Nix stuff. If you guys are listening to this podcast for the first time, you didn't listen to that one. Go listen to the whole summer. You were in text chains. I saw people just dropping the PFF graphic tweet in their chains and be

like, what the hell is this? Welcome to PFF. Welcome to PFF. I hate pro football focus. Look what they did again. Any, anybody who's ever listened to, uh, we're talking running backs today. Just letting you guys know there's the intro. I'm capping off the it? We're talking running backs today. Just letting you guys know there's the intro.

I'm capping off the intro. We're doing running backs today. Connor and I are going to give our top fives running backs that we have watched for this summer for the upcoming potential 2024 NFL draft class. We'll go five, five to one. But also, as you guys know, we'll talk about plenty of different running backs on this on this episode beyond our top fives as well. Anybody out there who's watching or listening to this podcast,

if you guys haven't listened to the PFF NFL show at the very beginning, their intro, they have like this little intro video. And in the intro, they have a clip from Shannon Sharp on Undisputed. And Shannon Sharp says, from this moment forward forward i will not be referencing pff and it's just like it's just like that little like snippet that they play at the beginning of the show and it's awesome it kills me every time so when we go through our summer rankings on pff.com and we've got to like rank the top edge rushers in the nfl or the top wide receivers and inevitably people hate it i always think of that clip and it makes me laugh.

Connor, how are you doing today, my friend? I'm good, dude. I see you got some sun. I saw a picture of a Modelo on a boat as a Modelo man myself. That made me very, very happy. So listen, life's looking great right now. It's June. We're living good.

Bro, we accidentally were on the boat two days in a row. Do you have a boat? And I didn't know this. I do have a boat. Yeah. Can you believe this, folks? This guy has a boat. That's awesome.

The invitation has been always open for you to come down to North Carolina. And maybe you'll do it just because now you know. If you hit 10,000 subs on YouTube, they don't tell you that you get a boat. 1,000, you get to partner with YouTube. 10,000, you get a boat. 100,000, you might get a car or a house. I don't know. We're going to do a mini mailbag between the two of us right now.

And I'm asking the question. I like this. Top three boat slash beach beers. Because would be modelo yep corona okay sort of corona and then course like baby like those are my three like i'm talking like common what the average man would say is crappy beer those are my top three you crack one of those open on a boat or a beach you stick your feet in the sand or the water you're having a good ass time so those are my Those are my top three. You crack one of those open on a boat or a beach, you stick your feet in the sand or the water, you're having a good ass time. So those are my three. Do you have a three? That answer makes me really happy because it aligns with me in a sense that for me, it's number one, Modelo, number two, Modelo, and number three, Modelo. If I have to pivot, I'll have Pacifico, which is great i like pacifico is

good because if you go on the beach is good but i uh for the last like two years now if i'm drinking a light beer and this doesn't change in december january february yeah all i drink is modelo out of light beers now obviously i'm you know love a good i drink a lot of ipas and all that you do i was gonna say like i feel like you and christian are like elevated beer, you know, love a good I drink a lot of IPAs. I was gonna say, like, I feel like you and Christian are like elevated beer people, you know? Yeah, yeah, definitely. I mean, we definitely drink a lot of beer. Y'all have ascended in your really do. We're big.

We're big craft beer. Kind of. We don't really talk about this, but kind of one of our end goals is like we would if we retire or just have a lot of time. I'm talking many, many years down the road. We would love to open a brewery down the shore in new jersey like that's like a big like end goal thing for us so that's why we are we like beer a lot but we also love going places to drink beer to see like what everyone's doing it's like a it's you know it's a great travel thing to do right kind of put them all together when you eventually open your own place one day so it's yeah dude it'd be awesome well you didn't know this that uh when we hit 10 000 subs i get a boat

when we hit 20 000 subs you get a brewery actually amazing people didn't know that the things you get that's why youtube's so big people don't realize they think it's all about the clout but the reward system built into it is un is unbelievable You get a choice of a couple different things. You somehow get your own stretch limo at $30,000? I don't know. We'll just have to see. If you continue to sub to this podcast, you'll be able to reap the reward system as well. All right, let's get into it.

Let's get into the topic for today. It is running backs. And Connor, there's a lot of good names in this class. There really are. It was kind of the same thing. Yeah, same thing with quarterbacks where I went into this exercise and I was like, man, I want to watch a handful of the names

that I already know, put them under my microscope for the first time. And it's like 10, 11, 12 guys in this class beyond just the players that oh okay I haven't heard of this guy oh okay somebody actually likes this guy he's kind of under the radar so plenty of running backs that I liked in this class and um I do I do agree with you I think it's another deep class coming up it is there's and it always is like this because it's a position that it's way easier for guys to rise. Like there are players that have been waiting

to get a workload or guys that you needed the draft names to move out for them to get attention. You get surprise returns. There's always a name or two that went back to school and you're sitting there and going, I don't know why, because you have a very limited lifespan at running back as much as I hate to say that.

So you have that into the equation. Transfer portal is massive because one thing I've noticed, Trevor, there are small school guys that you'll be watching on Maction Tuesdays or whatever game it might be that you're just sitting around, you know, betting overs, being a degenerate. And you find a player and you go, God, this guy is too good in this conference right now. Now with the transfer portal, those guys transfer to the Power Five pretty quickly. So the running back position for scouting is an absolute beast. I will clarify, I think this is the most like, this show is such a let's build a foundation show.

Like a lot of the other position groups were like we're going to talk about pretty much all the names that you're going to need to know outside of the guys that come out of nowhere this group it's like all right i got through as many as i can but let's really start to build that foundation and it's going to carry on throughout the season yeah i'm going to try to be better about this during this summer when you and i went through summer scouting last year we kind of went through the process of every single position and then when it came time to fortify the big board, put the big board together,

I hadn't watched a ton outside of those players that we had watched in the episodes this year. I, I not only do I, I want to expand that. I feel like I have to, like, there's still quarterbacks that we didn't get to watch last week that I want

to watch. You know, like cam wards, one of them, but I didn't get the chance to watch Cam Ward before we recorded last episode. And we had like three or four people tweet at us immediately. And they're like, yo, watch Cam Ward. So got to watch Cam Ward.

I got to watch a lot more of those guys for quarterbacks. Same thing for running backs. I agree with you completely. You and I, when we go through these exercises, I do think that we see prospects and players similarly, just as an average across the board. But this position specifically, with how deep it is and how you can find so many great running backs anywhere, I'm very curious if our top fives are close in this one. So I will let you kick it off. I will let you go with number five. We're going to go from five all the way down to number one.

When you watched all the players that you were able to watch for this episode, who came in at number five in this potential 2024 running back class? Yeah, so four, five, six, seven, I would put almost in a similar tier. I really was kind of, you know, splitting hairs, pulling my own hair out to pick number five. No, don't do that. The people would riot if you pulled your hair out. pick number five but i don't do that the people the people the people would the people would riot if you pulled your hair out i'm just letting you know we've had

people tweet at us and be like yeah i just show people i just show my barber a picture of connor rogers i just show him the thumbnail of this show and go give me what this guy's got that's absolutely incredible so number five for me uh keep the hair intact i went with will shipley from clemson okay and this is this is definitely like pick your flavor in terms of do you want a big bruiser or do you want a pass catcher slicer slasher you know shipley is definitely in the mold of a super athlete playing the position and is going to be used in a variety of ways. He is not going to be your six foot two, 230 pound bang in between the tackles kind of guy. As he stands right now, he's listed 5'11", 205. He's a pretty young player. I think he's going to easily carry 210 or the adequate mass needed at that size. But his style of play is explosive runs,

explosive pass catching. When you watch the Clemson offense, they love to do that toss play where they get the quarterback already shifting in one direction and really get Shipley moving and get his momentum going so he can win the edge because against college defenders, this guy is going to win the corner a lot. He's a great athlete.

I mean, you're talking about a former five-star recruit, a former top 25 player in the nation as a recruit, almost top 20. Track background and long jump. He ran the 55 and the 300 in indoor. So this dude's a sprinter. I mean, he finished 2022 with almost 1,200 rushing yards, 15 rushing touchdowns, 49 missed tackles, forced 37 explosive runs, hit a lot of doubles, hit a lot of doubles in 2022

where it's like 15 yards there, 20 yards there, 22 yards there. He added in 38 catches for 242 yards. The pros, very impactful catch and run speed on swing passes. Like if you just have him you know have a run get him going in a swing pass have him working the flats and you dump the ball off on time which something that was annoying is that they didn't a lot of times they drop back and i understand they're going through reads and then they throw him the ball and he's lost all momentum or there's defenders cheating in on him if they just drop back and throw him a swing pass when

he's actually carrying his momentum this dude is gonna. They need to make it a part of their offense. That's like, okay, this is something we are going to do until they stop it. Natural hands that help him seamlessly go from receiver to runner. There is limited transition period. He catches the ball and he's a runner. There's not, I need to stop. I need to catch the ball. I need to tuck the ball in. I need to look and make my move and go. It's catch, run, catch, run, get upfield, run skinny and narrow to explode through rush lanes. Once again, this is not a bruiser, more flexibility through these rush lanes,

plus acceleration for those toss plays. Stop and start really frustrates tacklers. The hurdle touchdown versus Louisville was fucking insane. When you watch this play, I mean, it is one of my favorite plays of the year. Here are the cons. Fumbled four times in 2022. He's got to do a better job of holding onto the football. He needs to add some mass. He is still a smaller trim kind of guy. There is not much leg drive with this player, and maybe it's something that grows as he continues to get stronger. But when guys really do get a handle on him, which is a big part of the battle, he's very

elusive. When guys get a handle on him, he does not have much leg drive, in my opinion. So Will Shipley lands at number five because I look at today's game. I'm not looking at this from a college fan perspective or best running backs in college football. I don't care about that. I'm looking at what teams are doing in today's game, how they ask running backs to factor into the past game and the outside run game, how vital that is. And look at Shipley's pedigree as a recruit, what he's already done at Clemson, how his skillset profiles, this guy will be a weapon at the next level. so we see him decently similarly I wondered if if you were going to have him in your top five I don't I have him at six but I definitely agree with you four five six seven even eight honestly into my rankings are a lot

of guys they're kind of in that same bucket for me Shipley is different and when I say different I mean that in a good way. You mentioned a lot of the pros that I certainly agree with. I'll just add on to his background some things that I found just when looking up how natural of an athlete he is. You mentioned that he played lacrosse. He won two state titles when he was in high school for lacrosse. He also ran the 55 meter you mentioned there in,

in, in or track. I also found out that he is a certified black belt in. I didn't know that. Hey, yes. I didn't have time for all this stuff. Don't know,

dude. I mean, his, his, his family just must've had him like out, man. Like we ain't putting you in front of screens, man.

We, you, you are getting the blood flowing. He didn't play an instrument no no time no time no he's already a patriot clearly he's keeping the you know he he's he's basically like you know the uh the kid version of peter parker and the newest spider-mans you know he's just like he's out there saving the world with that black belt out there so look i mean will shipley his his film is a ton of fun. For as much as I am, and I'm going to try to explain this correctly. For as much as I am impressed with how natural of an athlete he is, change of direction, agility, body control, acceleration,

short area explosiveness, natural hands. For as much as I am very impressed about that, I don't think he has that NFL gear of long speed. I agree. I just don't think guys use it anymore. So we've talked about on this show, it's more advantageous to have a back who gives you a healthier yards per carry average

on truly a carry by carry basis than it is to have a back who let's say is gaining two yards three yards two yards 60 yards like he's a double sitter that's it obviously this the 60 yard plays matter and they're great but how often in the nfl do you have the opportunity to even get those not very often often at all. So where I do note in my scouting report that I don't think he has that long speed, that NFL long speed, it's okay for how good of a back he is, like you mentioned, hitting doubles on a carry-by-carry basis, what he is able to give you in that regard. So very smart. I think he understands zone blocking schemes pretty well.

He's able to follow his blockers. He's pretty patient as well. I think that he's got good yards after contact balance. I think that's a big part of his game. The receiving part of his game is super impressive. You mentioned that being where the game's going. I think at the very worst, this guy's going to be a really nice scat back in a committee, right? In a one, he'll be a good one too.

I don't know if he'll ever be somebody who you lean on as an RB1, like an extended RB1. But at the very worst, this guy's going to be a really productive pro at the next level. So I ended up having him at number six because of all those reasons. There's just a couple of players that I think have a little bit higher of a potential feature RB ceiling in them, but the guy's floor is ridiculously high. Now, I will say this. His pass protecting is not where it needs to be.

Gave up seven pressures, I believe, last year. You watch some of his reps. Shoot, I was watching. Very first rep that I watched was in the Georgia Tech game. And you can sort by path protection. So this is just, it wasn't the first rep of the game. It was just the first rep of path protection that I saw from him. He steps up as the A-gap is opening up.

And there's a free blitzer coming down the hole. And he steps up. And you can tell he's got the willingness. He's got the hands up. he's got the willingness he's got the hands up he's got the footwork where it needs to be he's got a good base and he just gets blasted the hell over by a linebacker that really was not that big so i'm like all right well he's just got to work on that make sure that he's got his leverage where it needs to be you mentioned him putting out a little bit more weight because that's really the only thing that stays in the

way from in my opinion him being able to step on the field even in year one and become a productive third down, money down player, which you don't often get to say with these young players. But he's super smart. He's a very good natural athlete. Doesn't have that long speed, but that's why he just missed out on my top five. No, I totally get it. And I'm curious who you have at five because I'm really wondering if it's my number six.

Okay, my number five is my number five. I don't know if this is going to be a shock or not. Travion Henderson from Ohio State. Okay. I mean, I have a long-winded, like, not rant, but theory on how he's going to be evaluated this summer. And to me, it's for people, he's either going to be really number one or number two or number five or number six and i'll get into that when i get there and we didn't we didn't text at all about the running back so i had a feeling that like there we could get off the rails so it's being

the same so he was number five for me um and i think that he's a lot heavier on a lot of other people or a lot higher on a lot of other people's um ranking so i think he's probably going to be higher on yours it sounds like uh with you. So I think he's probably going to be higher on yours, it sounds like, with you having both ends of the spectrum there. Noting that, five-star running back from Hopewell, Virginia. Rushed for over 4,000 yards, 50 touchdowns when he was in high school. He's a track guy. He's got the track background, which I absolutely love.

He ran a sub-11 100-meter dash, which is good. That's what you want to see. Some key PFF stats. These are good and bad. sub 11 100 meter dash which is good that's what you want to see some key pfs pff stats these are good and bad pretty low missed tackles force per attempt rate over the last two years it was 0.27 in 2021 which is two years ago and then this past year was just 0.14 that's not great i mean like you want it somewhere in the high 20s low 30s i think it is really what you're shooting for there's one back on this list who has an unreal um missed tackle score rate that we will get to later in this show 6.1 yards per attempt average though which you go okay then that's that's pretty good but then you bring a little bit more context into it

2.7 yards after contact so normally you kind of want yards after then you bring a little bit more context into it. 2.7 yards after contact. So normally you kind of want yards after contact to be a little bit more than three. So he's a little bit low in the missed tackles force category and the yards after contact, which are kind of key stats for what do you do beyond what blocking is, what the blocking guys have going on, right?

Because that's ultimately the thing is you can find a lot of running backs who are productive behind good offensive lines. What we're trying to do is find the ones that carry individual value beyond that. Henderson, over the last couple of years, specifically last year, was not that much of an individual difference maker.

Now, he suffered a broken foot last year, which he dealt with throughout the entire season. And I really felt like it affected him. So I have him at number five on this list. But I am well aware that another fully healthy year from him could mean that he's jumping a lot higher on this list. Some pros and cons that I had for him, some strengths and weaknesses. I feel like he's a true playmaker type of a back man. When he gets the ball in his hands, he really is a natural back there. It doesn't look like he's trying to think too much.

He is comfortable putting his foot in the ground, being a one cut back. He's comfortable putting a spin move on somebody. He likes to take contact. Although I didn't think that his, his contact balance was as good as it was for other guys in this class. I felt like he went down from first contact a little bit more than these other players did. So I don't know how dense of a running back he is when it comes to that kind of mentality and fight for that extra effort. Well, he's got the mentality for it. I don't, I don't mean to say that, but just getting that yards after contact, I just think he's got really good all around athleticism. But again, he's got really good all-around athleticism,

but again, he's another player who I watched and I said, I like a lot of things you do as an athlete. You're quick. You have short area explosiveness. You just don't have that long speed, and I didn't think Travion Henderson had that long speed either. Maybe I just didn't watch the right plays, but on a play-by-play

basis, I felt like there were plenty of times where he was getting caught from behind or he had an angle on a defender and he was not able to beat the angle out. So those are things that I think that held him back. I do like the RB vision, which is the number one trait that I give for when I'm evaluating the running backs. Unreliable pass protector, although I think that again, I wonder how much like the foot injury and all that stuff kind of goes into how well he was able to hone in on that he was probably just trying to be the best running back that he could be last year trying to be out there for his team trying to fight through that so overall this is a player that i liked i just question the individual

difference making ability that he has and it's with the caveat of making ability that he has. And it's with the caveat of the injury that he suffered last year. But that's ultimately where I landed with him when I was watching his tape, both stylistically and what I think he brings to the table from a physical standpoint. I'm surprised. I'm a little surprised, but also I'm not because my exact explanation when I get to him is there are going to be two Henderson breakdowns this summer and they're both fair. That's my take.

Like, they're both. OK, so you got him. You got him a lot higher than I have him a lot. Yeah, we're going to take a little break before we get. OK, when we get up there. So number four for me. Is your boy, Trevor Blake Corum. Blake Corum is the guy I was talking, one of the guys, but really the guy I was talking about.

When guys go back to school and you're like, I don't know why. It's your personal choice. I hope that NIL money is good. Hope you win a national title. All those great things that you're, you know, chasing for. Or, you know, let's be real too just because i think a player is ready for the nfl these guys get advisory grades back from the league that are not close to where i have them and i know some of them and i was like okay they are going with they're going

with the advisory grades which is a better opinion than mine because those are the people choosing when they're drafted, not me. And it's hard because he tore his meniscus, right? I wonder if he didn't tear his meniscus. Is the grade different for him? Does he get a different grade back? Does he get more encouragement to go to the pro level? Because, I don't know.

Getting drafted highly as a running back is tough enough right we already know that it's tough enough then you have to throw in the fact that well this guy's coming off a meniscus tear like nobody wants to throw that in a in a report for running back so i really do wonder how much the timing of his meniscus tear went into that too so i think my thing with quorum is though he's not a guy to me that is going to like make up all this ground during the process that's not him quorum's best aspect is this film because he's like a really really good player i don't think he's going to be this elite tester he's not he's very thick but he's not tall he's going to be one of the shorter players at the

running back position i don't think he's as listed 5'8 i think he's closer to 5'7 um 5 5'8 already the eighth percentile i looked that up for for halfbacks so i don't think he's there and what let's let's see what 5'7 and people are, who cares how tall a guy is? Well, strides do matter. Stride length does matter. Size matters. Wow. Sorry. What are you saying sorry to me for? Sorry to the people. I've failed them today.

Bad jokes all around. So Corum last year was freaking awesome, man. The contact balance. Sorry, 5'7 would be the first percentile. Yeah, he's between 5'7 and 5'8. So he was so good last year. He had 832 yards after contact. Just totally insane.

The contact balance is phenomenal. He ran for almost 100 first downs. He forced 73 missed tackles. He only fumbled the ball once. He is a very reliable i would say inside any kind of zone runs but his ability i think long term as an inside zone runner with his vision decision making his feet he's just a very very reliable runner and he's not a ferrari right like you don't look at him and go wow you don't like look at his. And he's not a Ferrari, right? Like you don't look at him and go, wow. You don't like look at his, once again, he's not going to test and you're like, oh my God,

but he's such a reliable player in between the tackles. Um, and this is somebody that we already evaled going back. I thought he was going to be in the draft. I was ready to put Blake Corm on the big board, stamp them into the top 100. He was was good he was in trevor i remember maybe we did that show with him i think we did top five running backs before the declaration period i can't remember but i know we might have i know he was sitting very comfortably in my top five running backs because i remember at some point saying to you like trevor this was a guy you nailed over the summer i didn't watch him last summer and then i had to watch him when we did another running back show and i was like dude you nailed this one because he you were going off 2021 when he didn't even have a thousand yards yet but he was still churning out so many yards

after contact yeah and then he doubled down and got even better in 2022. So I really, really like Corum. I think he's one of the safer players in this draft right now if he could stay healthy. I don't like that he's just going to be a battering ram in college once again. That does not personally excite me because this guy's running style is I am going to take on a lot of contact and bounce off of it and keep going. And now he's going to come into the league with three pretty, with three pretty significant years of tread on the tire, you know, worn off the tires. And but he's he's a rock solid player. He's such a reliable runner. He is obviously somebody that I

think in 2021, he was used more in the past game. Last year, he wasn't. He only had 10 catches last year. He had 24 catches in 2021. But I think it's something that could be a part of his game if he really wanted it to. I don't think he's going to be an explosive route runner, but as an outlet option. So, yeah, I mean, I know this is your boy, Trevor, and there's a lot to like about Corum, but he is every bit of a floor running back, not a ceiling one to me because I don't I don't see those um top end size athleticism traits that i so highly covet at this position he's higher on my list i mean

how could he not be right how could he he's my guy he's he's i've been i've been riding for blake quorum for for a while and i but i'm'm with you, man. I would have liked to see him in last year's draft class. I think he would have ended up being the third running back taken, unless I'm having a brain fart and forgetting. It would have been Bijan in the first. It would have been Bijan first. Clearly, it would have been Jameer Gibbs second, but then I think Corum's coming.

Him or Charbonnet? Yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I have to imagine that Blake Corum would have been RB3 last year. I think for us he would have been. I don't think for the league he would have been. Man, it's hard for me to believe that. I know.

We'll get to that because he's a little bit higher on my list. My number four guy. I'm going with Braylon Allen from Wisconsin. Is he in your top five or is he outside? He's three, so I could transition him. Okay, perfect. I wasn't sure where he would end up being because he's an interesting back, especially with him and his career being juxtaposed to Jonathan Taylor

because both of these guys you can speak about very similarly, especially this far into their career two years into their wisconsin careers jonathan taylor was the guy who always rushed for over a thousand yards right it was never not a thousand yards he had a fantastic yards per carry average he scored a ton of touchdowns on the ground for them and when you look at braylon allen over the last two years because he started as a true freshman he also reclassified so he's a younger junior than i think all of these other players are 19 i think he's going to be 20 years old on draft night if he is in this current draft class but you look at his stats it's very similar it's like a similar track back-to-back years he's had over 1200 yards on the ground back-to-back

years he's had double-digit touchdowns 12 rushing touchdowns 11 rushing touchdowns back-to-back seasons he's had rushing grades over 81 uh he's had double-digit touchdowns, 12 rushing touchdowns, 11 rushing touchdowns. Back-to-back seasons, he's had rushing grades over 81. He's had super high yards per carry average. Actually, let me look. See, he had 6.8 yards per carry average in 2021, a little bit less, 5.4 the following year. But still, that's a healthy career, 6.0 yards per carry average. It's fantastic for him. So the age metric, the consistency of production at such a young age the freshman

and sophomore seasons like all of that is there he's not the same athlete that jonathan taylor is and i think that when people probably put him under the microscope and they go into it with maybe this jonathan taylor feel to it same color same jersey same dominant stat production and they see that he doesn't have that same speed track bound, the track background that Jonathan Taylor did. They go, Oh, okay. He's not the same guy and he's not JT, but man, he's better than I thought he was going to be. Cause that's kind of the way that I was thinking about him going into this.

I was like, ah, you know, I've seen a couple of plays of brain, Braylon Allen, big back, strong back. Does he really have the speed for the NFL level? I was really looking at the wrong thing and I'll get to that in a second. So he's six foot two, strong back. Does he really have the speed for the NFL level? I was really looking at the wrong thing, and I'll get to that in a second. So he's 6'2", 240 pounds. That's what Wisconsin has him listed at. That's the 97th percentile and the 96th percentile for the running back position. So you talk about guys being able to check the box physically.

Braylon Allen doesn't come short in any way, shape, or form. His nickname, look this up, Manchild. Love that. Love that. So he's a four-star running back. Came from the state of Wisconsin. I saw that he played safety and running back in high school. I believe he had offers, actually, to play safety.

Also could have played linebacker as well because he gained some weight in a good way. His junior and senior years of high school. He was originally recruited as a defensive player by a lot of schools. And then when they saw how good of a running back that he was, they kind of opened that up as well for him. So when I look at his strengths and weaknesses, the very first note that I have is he passes the off the bus eye test with flying colors. This is somebody who you watch come off the bus, if you will, for the other team. You look on the other sideline, you go, ah, shit.

Like we're going to, they've got this, they've got to get this kid on the other team and we got to try to tackle him. So physically everything is there. But like I said before, something that really impressed me about him is the lateral and agile type of athlete he is. He's 6'4", 240 pounds. No, he does not have that long speed of Jonathan Taylor. That is true. If you're looking for that, you're not going to find it in him. But he is way more nimble than I thought he was going to be. I thought the feet were super light for a player who is 240. He's able to see the offensive line and where rushing lanes are going to come up very, very well. I mean, you don't have back-to-back 1,200-yard rushing seasons if you can't really see the field well. You have to be able to understand blocking concepts,

both man blocking concepts and zone blocking concepts. You got to know where green grass is going to come up. You got to be able to read the line of scrimmage. You got to be comfortable during chaos. You got to have nimble feet. You got to be quick to put your foot in the ground and change direction. And Braylon Allen is all of those things at a very impressive level for a player who also brings a ton of size, good contact balance, tackle breaking ability. So I think that all of that is there for him. The third down responsibility is because you go, okay, he's a bigger back. Could he be a third down guy? Could he be somebody who you could rely on in pass protection

and in the passing game when it comes to being a receiver? I think those skill sets are there for him. They're just not polished yet. You could tell there's a handful of reps where the technique really fails him in pass protection, but it's not a lack of willingness. Same thing with him in the receiving game. There are some plays that I watched of him as a receiver when I went, wow, really natural hands catcher, soft hands, really nice grab for him. But then other times just maybe a little bit too much trying to trap it on the body. Not great coordination when it comes to him just reeling it

in. So those things are there. They're just not quite as polished as you would want them to be yet. But I was just so impressed with how he could find open space without being just this brute bruiser type of a back. He is more than just that. So I liked him a lot. Again, he checks all the physical boxes and he's more agile. He's more fluid.

He's more flexible as a one cut kind of a back than I thought that I was going to see. So was definitely impressed by Braylon Allen. That's why he's four for me. I'm with you all the way. He landed at three for me pretty comfortably. But when I opened my rankings i said four through i thought seven you can flip them around how you want in my opinion and i think a lot of people will i'm sure some people by the end of my top i'll be screaming for a certain guy or another

guy and it's like that's probably because that guy's in that six or seven tier now we move to three where my opinion the needle the bar starts to change and that begins with Braylon Allen who like you said Trevor I mean this is really just a Sherman tank rolling over the hill when he when you see him you're like what like this guy is built entirely different and uh the crazy thing is he's been built like a pro since he stepped onto that campus as a 17 year old and he is going to play his entire rookie NFL season if he declares. And I think I could be wrong. I'm pretty sure he's one of those guys that's already kind of hinted.

Like he plans to be in the NFL after this year. Now things change really quickly, but I didn't see that, but yeah, I could, I want to make sure I'm not mixing him up with another young running back, but I mean, he's here.

He doesn't turn 20 until the end of January, the end of January. So this is a really young player. His frame is just made in the lab to take on and run through contact. Arm tackles aren't going to work with him. But what you said, I thought about his feet are the most important thing because he's six to almost 240. I know he's going to run through people if he loves football, if he cares about the game and plays to the edge, and he does. He's got really good feet for his size and explosive jump cuts. And it's so impressive. That extra dimension as a power runner really changes, unlocks everything because guys are treating you differently as a power

runner where they're either hesitating or they're trying to go low on you. And when you have that dimension, they really can't do that consistently because you're going to make the miss. So this is the last thing I'll say with Braylon Allen. And this surprised me watching as much Wisconsin as I have the last couple of months from him. And of course, Joe Tippman pre-draft and post-draft for some jet stuff he was hit behind the line of scrimmage in 2022 a ton it's overwhelming and it's not well he's stopping his feet or he doesn't have good acceleration he just gets the ball and there's contact on him right away all the time so and i thought he fought downhill through it very, very consistently. So

one last note on him. It's amazing he's already done this. Him, Ron Dane, James White and Jonathan Taylor are the only true freshmen in Wisconsin history to run for a thousand yards. So he's in very good company already. Just to piggyback on what you were saying with him getting hit behind the line of scrimmage it is incredible how one-dimensional wisconsin's offense was last year and here's a stat to back it up wisconsin faced eight or more defenders in the box 61.4 percent of their rushes last season fourth highest rate in the country behind only the three service academy teams i got it i mean that's it i got that stat from somewhere i can't i cannot remember who wrote it i'm so sorry i wish i want to attribute you but i'm so sorry i i forget where i got that stat

from the last part is so good the three service academy i thought you're also gonna be like oh yeah in 1998 georgia tech too is in front of them like salute baby run ball that is yeah this he braylon allen not dealt the best hand and handled it pretty well i very very uh it's respectable if somebody projects him as the first running back taken next year. It is. It's respectable. I think so. Well, brings us to number three. Before we get there, got to talk to all the fantasy football people in the audience, though. We know that you guys are into the game of football.

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$10 DK Asian eligibility restrictions apply void where prohibited cdraftkings.com slash promotions for details all right number three for me this is somebody who i cannot imagine is in your top five at this point oh okay that's an accurate hell of an accusation no i'm just kidding i'm just doing the best one hell of an accusation i'm doing the math here trevion henderson's higher on your list okay i have two spots left we know that trey benson's gotta be up there because i saw you tweet a clip about him so i'm mathing myself into knowing that this next guy that i'm going to talk about probably not in your top five what did you think about Donovan Edwards for Michigan?

Where was he? Was he much lower for you? Did you watch him? I watched a little bit of him. Okay. I didn't have him in that. So I really said, here's like seven guys I would rank right now. Yes.

I didn't find that criteria for him yet. And maybe that's on me to do more, honestly. Maybe that's on me to do more honestly maybe that's on me to do more like you i mean you haven't met three that's a pretty big pretty big statement right now uh from the same i mean you're gonna have them assuming guys back to back or close to back to back from the same backfield right so i just see now you're doing the math now you're now you're figuring it out where the list is probably going the people people at home are doing their Sherlock Holmes detective work as well. Look, when I look at Donovan Edwards,

I think this guy could be the Jameer Gibbs of the upcoming class. Oh, there it is. His athleticism, explosiveness, and home run hitting ability is something that teams just cannot pass up. He's bigger. That's the exciting thing. Right. Yeah yeah let me look up i actually didn't compare him to gibbs let me see he looks a lot bigger like at least six feet all james gibbs was five nine one ninety nine donovan edwards is six one two oh five

so he's if he does the combine assuming he left this year, you're probably talking at least six feet tall and probably at least 2'12", 215. That's a jarring difference, considering, like you said, Trevor, I like that play style point you just made. That's what I'm looking at here, because we went into last year knowing that Jameer Gibbs was a really great athlete. He was transferring over from Georgia Tech. He was at Georgia Tech for the first couple of years.

A lot of people were wondering, dude, how the heck did he get to Georgia Tech anyways? It felt like his game was bigger than what Georgia Tech was currently at. All due respect to the Georgia Tech program. But where Georgia Tech was currently at, it felt like Jameer Gibbs was better. So he goes over to Alabama. The spotlight is on him a lot more. And I think that it's not like Gibbs was way different during this past season than he was the years prior at Georgia Tech. I think we just got to see it more, right? It was just better players around him, bigger moments, and a lot more

eyeballs on him. I think that that could be Donovan Edwards of this year. I really do. Here's a stat that makes me believe that that could be the case four rushes of 60 plus yards last season tie for the most in the fbs four that's insane he also had i think what was it five no no it was it was like six 50 yarders or more like this dude this dude was just a home run hitting machine and i know I mentioned at the beginning of the podcast that, hey, don't overblow the long speed attribute because you just don't get to

use it very often. Donovan Edwards gets to use it a lot because the rest of his game is getting to be up to par with his athletic ability. So this is a former five-star running back from the state of Michigan. He won the Michigan Gatorade Football Player of the Year as a senior

when he was in high school. I mentioned his measurables. He's 6'1", 205, 7.0 yards per carry average in 2022. Now, obviously, the 60-plus runs, the 60-plus yard runs go into that, kind of inflates it a little bit. But guess what? He's still the guy who's running it. So you do take that into account.

7.0 yards per carry is pretty insane. I will also say this. As an X-factor receiver slash pass blocker, only one dropped pass on 51 targets that he had over the past two seasons. And that's obviously him as a freshman and a sophomore. So he's on his P's and Q's there. And I think that that matters a lot. Has that home run speed?

Here it is. Five runs of 50 yards or more last season to go along with the four runs of 60 yards or more stat that I already mentioned. Footwork, pretty dang good for a player who is six foot one. If you're over six feet and you got the footwork that he does, it's fast, it's explosive. He can put that foot in the ground and really get north to South very quickly. I think that he's a very explosive player. When he does change direction, I think

that acceleration is fantastic. And often you only see this level of acceleration in players who are a little bit smaller just because they can turn their legs a little bit faster like Jameer Gibbs. But this guy gives you Gibbs typetype ability at a bigger frame. I think the contact balance is great as well. Very natural in that regard. I also think he's quite the natural receiver. I mentioned only dropping one pass. There are, I think that his vision is good.

Certainly with him being two years into his college career, I think that his vision is good. I think that it is improving. That's why maybe I'm betting on another big jump. I think him being in the same backfield with Blake Corum, I'm telling you, man, that's got to be huge for him because Corum sees the line of scrimmage and Corum sees the field beautifully. And the fact that he is in the same running back room with that guy and gets to watch how he approaches the line of scrimmage, how he's watching blocking concepts develop, how he's picking up all these yards, just because he sees where open grass is going to be before it's even open. That's been, I think

that that's going to be huge for Donovan Edwards as he goes through what we saw last season and going into this season as well. I will admit though, he's a little impatient when it comes to letting his blocks develop. Sometimes it can seem like he's getting a little bit too ahead of his skis. He's going too much on his toes and you can see him get a little bit off balance. He just needs to be a little bit more patient. He wants to hit that home run ball. He wants to see that open grass, beat the defenders to it, erase the angle, get up the sideline, go score a touchdown. But he will have more and more and more opportunities to get those 10, 15, 20 yard runs at the NFL level. If he can learn to be a

little bit more patient and trust his athleticism, trust that he has that explosiveness, that he has that acceleration, that long speed to end up getting those runs there too. So I think that a little bit more patience is needed for his game before he really takes it to the next level. He's not a reliable pass protector right now. So even though he brings you the third down ability as a receiver, not a reliable pass blocker definitely needs to get better in that area. But I have in my notes here, one of the final kind of like spark notes, part of this for Donovan Edwards is if, if it weren't for Blake Corum in front of him, we would be talking about Edwards as one of the most productive backs in all of college football

over the last two seasons. I really do believe it. I think he brings pro-athleticism, pro-size, and pro-ability to the game already right now. And it's just a matter of him polishing how he sees the line scrimmage, getting a little bit more experience, a little bit more patient. And I think that everything is in front of him to be a potential star at the NFL level. I love it. Something I wrote down with him that I that made me want to go back and watch more was that he's got almost 60 snaps in college already as a wide receiver. So you're looking to line him up as a slot guy and is an out wide guy too yeah like legitimately it's split like he a lot of those are out wide as well like you said it's not just hey motion the running back in the slot it's no you're gonna be out wide and you're gonna get down the field so uh a projection player nonetheless i think but one that man there's the sample sizes

that you were reading off i mean it's it's exciting. I do wonder, and maybe that helps Coram. When you talk about the fear I have of Coram just being ran to the ground, maybe the split of these guys actually helps out each other. Hope so. Who you got at two? Two for me is Trey Benson. The surprise of the entire watch list not even close honestly i i see hype tweets i see and there's nothing wrong with hype tweets i think this is a good class i knew who i

had to watch i had names that i thought you know i'm gonna watch and i don't think a lot of people will this time of year because i i think they might be exciting and we'll get to those at the end of the show. This guy was one of those names of, you know, I'm going to watch him and see what we have here. And you walk away and you're like, I don't. What am I missing? And it shocked me because Florida State has such a passionate fan base that usually their players can almost become the victim of overhype in college football at times and i mean that you know in the most polite way it's just someone like me that is not a college football fan i'm a draft analyst that is a fan

of the game but i don't root for a specific team When fans are always tweeting at you like this guy, this guy, this guy, it builds up expectations to the point then you go watch him, you'll be let down a lot. Benson could not be further from the opposite of that, where I'm like, can somebody please talk about this guy more? And this is just kind of his life at this point, because with Trey Benson, this is someone that was not a big-time

recruit throughout that process like we've talked about a lot of guys right trevor like braylon allen has been this freak since he was in high school in wisconsin and got to college as a 17 year old will shipley was a five star you know henderson was a five star these are big time players when you look at benson mean he was on Oregon in 2020 and 2021 didn't do a lot there he missed 2020 due to injury yeah he was the ACL he tore his ACL yeah he was the number 21 running back in 2020s class and number six overall prospect in Mississippi like that's listen that's pretty damn impressive if that's the point of your life but I'm so used to getting to this point of scouting and it's like oh the guy that

was the super athlete at 16 in high school is now on our NFL watch list what a surprise right right and that's just not Trey Benson so here he is as a player in a Florida State offense that is going to be awesome this year. Let's not get that mixed up. Finished 2022 with 990 rushing yards, which might not impress you until I get to the later point. Nine rushing touchdowns, 79 missed tackles forced. Stupid. He had 154 carries. 154. All the other guys we're talking about get well over 200 touches, it feels like.

He averaged 6.4 yards per carry. That number of missed tackles forced is a rate. If he got normal running back workload rate, we would talk about him being near Bijan in missed tackles force. And this guy is not Bijan. Let's not get that mixed up. But his ability to make people miss is insane. He had 13 catches for 144 yards.

Talk about making the most of your catches. Here's the pros. Thick builds all around, top to bottom. Short strides, but very quick feet in tight areas. He can make you miss in a foam booth. Plus contact balance. Defenders consistently bounce off of his lower half. He lowers his shoulder and run angry at the

second level and finishes runs he grinds out yards the master of turning a dead play into two to three yards much higher pass game potential than the opportunity he's been given i i mean 13 catches for 144 yards if they get this guy involved more in the screen game, his ability to make people miss in the open field is going to be a legitimate asset. The only cons I wrote down is he doesn't have a top end gear. He's not going to consistently win the foot race to the edge and he runs upright. He's an upright runner. He's a big guy. He is. He's listed six, one, two, 15. He's the type of player that the NFL look at and go, he has the size, he has the vision, he makes people miss, he constantly runs through contact, he runs hard, he runs angry,

he catches the ball. I was very, very impressed with Trey Benson and just loved what I saw. So for the sake of conversation, I'll talk about Trey Benson now. Trey Benson is my RB1 going into the season. I was in the same spot as you man did you have any i had no expectations for him so the only reason why i really knew about trey benson was because i'd heard a little bit about him because he was getting hype at the end of the college football season last year but max chadwick who works at pff does a wonderful job covering college football

phenomenal job doing a lot of like sit down interviews with players oh by the way like he he did a braylon allen interview which i did want to shout out it's on youtube it's on pff.com if you guys want to go read more about braylon allen you could definitely do that at chad underscore maxwick yeah he's max w-i-c-k spoonerizing his name which um yeah max we might have to we have to work on that. But he is a wonderful Twitter follower. You guys should go follow him and read all of his awesome work because he's great at covering college football. He told me about Trey Benson.

You know, like going into the season and when we were putting together what the mock draft simulator was going to be like when the draft was over, he's pretty big on what Florida State can be this upcoming season. And Benson was a big reason why. So I was like, oh, okay, yeah, I got to watch it. This dude's sick this dude this dude's incredible I got a couple of extra stats to to fortify and back up what you were saying even more okay so yes the less than 1,000 yards last year all right he didn't eclipse the 1,000 yard bar listen he had an elite rushing grade of 91.3 on the season. All right? One of

the highest rushing grades that we had in the FBS. More context to it. This guy had an elite rushing grade, whether there was six, seven, or more than eight defenders in the box. He had an elite rushing grade on all three setups. six defenders, seven defenders, eight defenders. He continued to have an elite rushing grade, whether there were more guys and more blockers to worry about, more players on the line scrimmage or less. And that just tells you how natural this guy is, how well he sees the field, how well he knows where open space is going to be, how much he trusts his blockers. And then, of course, he lets his athleticism do the rest after that. You mentioned some of his missed tackles forced, which is a stat that we have over at PFF to try to quantify individual ability beyond just a running back getting a good block.

0.51 missed tackles forced per attempt. Remember at the beginning of this podcast, I said that anything in the high 20s and low 30s would be really good. This guy had 0.51. So he is in the low 50s. I wanted to quantify that because I couldn't believe that number when I saw it on the screen. That is the highest missed tackles forced per attempt average that we have recorded in college football in the last 10 years. Javante Williams, a couple years ago, had.44, and we thought that was unbelievable. Travis Etienne, I believe in his final year, had.44, and. John Robinson's best season, he had 0.41. This guy had 0.10 more than B. John did.

I just wanted to throw those stats out to make sure that I could quantify how ridiculous it is with this guy. More than adequate natural athleticism across the board. You mentioned maybe the long speed's a little bit of a drawback. I didn't see that, man. I thought he had the juice. That's why I've got him at number one because I think he's the total package. Hey, he runs pissed off, and he's got great contact balance. He sees the line of scrimmage very well.

He's not afraid to put his foot in the ground. He can obviously make guys miss in open space. And then there are times when I watched him see the angle, see the safety coming at him, and he went, all right, it's time to turn it on. And he did. He was able to erase that angle on a lot of guys a handful of times. And so is he going to be a 4-3 flat runner? No, I'm not saying he's going to be a 4-3 flat runner.

But I do think that he has that athleticism to be a home run hitter at the NFL level. I really do, especially for the other traits that this guy has. My overall kind of spark notes that I had on him is it's hard to find a flaw in Trey Benson's 2022 tape. You mentioned he runs upright, and you're right. He's a little bit more of an upright runner, but he bounces off contact so well, right? It doesn't matter. It didn't bother me at all. Right.

That's like his center of gravity. It's just his play style, and he's cool with it. His athleticism is pro level in long speed, short area elusiveness, and tackle breaking. He understands blocking concepts and thrives no matter how many players are in the box to get beyond chaos and find open space. This is a future 1,000 yard back in the NFL. That's what I believe about Trey Benson. And that's why I have him number one in this class. He is fantastic to me and this was the most pleasant watch that i had of this entire cycle

yeah i'm with you all the way on that that last part i mean made a legitimate play for number one an awesome player he just he just is not appreciated enough for maybe it also is because everything he does is so uh translatable to the pros yes right now yes like this is what this is what a pro easy to envision him in the nfl you know it was funny watching him trevor and i guess i'll toss to you of course to do number two um here i looked at him and went this is a bigger Blake Corum. And I'm like, and I was like, that matters so much. I'm like,

this guy's a bigger Blake Corum where, and I'm like, it's, it's all, I hate to do this. It's like, Oh, Blake Corum,

no ads. Like, here we go again. Like it's, and Blake Corum is a great player. Don't do that to my guy. Don't do that to him. Take it away.

Build him back up. Look, you're not wrong, but look, that's ultimately why I have a very similar preseason overall numerical grade film grade for both and for Trey Benson. But the reason why Benson gets number one is because no joke. It's what you mentioned. Blake Corham's listed at five foot eight 210 pounds that's the eighth percentile on the 40th percentile for height and weight you mentioned he might be a little bit shorter than five eight anyways that brings you down to probably somewhere

around the first percentile does that matter when a running back is small yes and no i thought that you put it in a great way it doesn't matter when you can see the production that they get in college football. It's not like you go, oh, you're short. You can't play the game. Exactly. When you're jumping from the college level to the pro level, things like stride length matter. The margin for error, and I would even say the margin of separation between being average and being great is sometimes so small because the competition around you is so good.

And I think that no place is that more true than the running back position. And so Corum, does his size change all that production that he had, which I'm about to get to in a second? No. But when you measure up 5'8", 210 pounds of Blake Corham versus 6'1", 215 pounds of Trey Benson, and Benson, it feels like he's giving you more getaway speed, more long speed, more ability to put his foot in the ground and cover more ground, then I got to give it to Benson. Enough talking down on my guy, Blake Corham, because I absolutely love watching this guy over the last couple of years. Four-star running back from Maryland, Gatorade Player of the Year in the state of Maryland

during his senior seasons. Played behind Hassan Haskins in both 2020, which was an abbreviated season, and 2021. Then he became the full-time starter last year. Rushed for 1,463 yards, 18 rushing touchdowns, and was a unanimous All-American. That's before tearing his meniscus in Week 12, so his stats could have been even better this dude

could have rushed for 1700 yards and 20 rushing touchdowns if he did not get hurt an incredible 95.9 overall grade and a 95.7 rushing grade for you to grade out above a 95 in pff system in anything basically means that you are consistently making the best of your situation every single snap and this dude played a ton of snaps before he got hurt incredibly impressive 6.3 yards per carry average over the last two seasons not just last year and he had above a 0.30 missed tackle force attempt um average in each of the last two years as well. So remember, you get low 30s, that's a really good score. He's been able to do that in each of the last two seasons. Jim Harbaugh called Blake Corham the best running back he has ever coached,

and the second, I'm sorry, the best college running back that he has ever coached, and the second running back he has ever, best running back he's ever coached behind the Hall of Famer, Frank Gore. A little bit of negative, he's going to be older because he came back to school, right? This is going to be a 23-year-old running back on draft night. Is that going to matter when you're weighing up 20-year-old Braylon Allen versus 23-year-old Blake Corum? It might. So that's just something to keep in mind there, but strengths of his game. Vision and footwork immediately stand out as major pluses to his game. Sud suddenness when

changing direction is absolutely deadly he is super slippery when he's approaching the line scrimmage you give this guy a sliver of light and he could and he can absolutely break it open for you impressive balance and agility to get yards after contact for a smaller back has really soft hands good natural receiver out of the backfield. Zero drops for Blake Corum in 2022. He is a smart and aware pass blocker as well. That is something that really impressed me. For a guy who is 5'8", 210 pounds, well, I guess he's got good leverage on you, but he understands that really well. He understands how to get the leverage in pass protection. Weakness to his game, doesn't have the best best long speed i think the short strides definitely go into it into that but i think the speed is plenty add uh adequate he's just not

going to be a home run hitter at the next level so man this this is i've been saying it now for over a year one of my favorite prospects one of my favorite players in all of college football i hope he comes back fully healthy never gets injured ever again uh because we're going to watch a very fun player next season at michigan and we're going to watch a very fun player next season at Michigan. And we're going to watch a very fun player at the pro level. If that can be the case. I love Blake Warren. Well said, man.

I mean, honestly, he probably has the highest floor. It feels like in this class right now, him or him or Trey Benson, which brings me to my number one. Who does not have the highest floor but absolutely has the highest ceiling all right let's hear it and that is trevion henderson and here's the situation with henderson right obvious background former five star number one overall running back recruit there's really only two ways to watch him and and there's risk with both one that you look at last year and go what happened to the trajectory this guy was on because after his freshman year

it looked like he was going to pretty easily be the top running back whenever he declares for the draft in his class. Then you look at the injury that you mentioned, Trevor, a broken, a significant broken bone in his foot during his sophomore year. I'm going to be honest. I started watching the sophomore year tape and I'm like, I'm just throwing this out the window. And if that, and this is the time of year where you can take that risk because it can't bite me in the ass because i get to see him in year three and if it's the same as the same for me having him at five it's same for you having that five seriously this is my point of

the spectrum it doesn't really matter where you have henderson right now as long as you acknowledge the broken bone in his foot like you did and for some and i usually am on this like air on the side of caution that you're on where if a guy's hurt i don't really change my opinion in a positive manner until i see that change but this one when i got through the freshman year tape i'm like if he really was as hurt as it sounds like last year and gets back to that freshman year tape. And I got to see him in person that freshman year. And I was like, I went down when Ohio State came to Rutgers. I wanted to watch Garrett Wilson in person and a lot of top players that year.

And and I'm like, I can't and Jeremy Rucker. And I was like, I can't take my. That's great. Yeah, that's both ended up on the Jets. Ironic. Um, inside job. It was,

was I doing, it was, I actually scouting for the recruiting. It was inside job. Yeah. And I, Henderson is just unbelievable to watch. And this is freshman year notes.

So if you have concerns about the sophomore year tape, I totally understand those of you that do. I look at the freshman season this guy had. Ideal compact build with muscle and low to the ground running. Shot out of a cannon as soon as he touches the ball. He forces safeties to be perfect with their angles coming downhill. And if they're not, he burns you. Serious shake in the open field that can leave defenders looking foolish a scheme proof

runner thought he could be good in outside zone inside zone get him downhill and man schemes a violent stiff arm and will finish his runs by lowering the shoulder to fall forward the cons for me at this moment and this is probably what got him into really big trouble sophomore year when he wasn't healthy. A little bounce happy right now. And when you're not the most explosive dude on the field, you can't live that way. You mentioned he's really comfortable in open space. Like he's comfortable making guys miss. I wonder if that's why, right?

He thinks that that's where he thrives the most. So he's got to go to try to find that open space. I wonder if that's why, right? He thinks that that's where he thrives the most. So he's got to go to try to find that open space. I wonder if that's why. I wrote foot injury is something to monitor. Understandably made him a different player in 2022 compared to 2021. But this was the biggest thing I wrote more hesitant and less creative and less explosive in 2022. He went from 50 missed tackles forced as a freshman in 2021 down to 14 the following year. He wasn't making people miss, but more importantly, Trevor, he wasn't getting himself into those advantageous situations to get the opportunity to make people miss.

Right. So who the hell knows, honestly, what we're going to get from Henderson this year on raw talent. If we get to 2021 Henderson, he's the best running back prospect in the draft, in my opinion. If it's somewhere, if it's 2022, he's not going to finish number one, number two or number three for me or probably number four if it's somewhere in the middle of those two his evaluation becomes a lot more complicated convoluted and very difficult to figure out and we need this time to get there so i loved watching his freshman year tape i thought it's the kind of stuff of top running backs that go in the top 45 picks that's how good it was but it's the old like

this will be the stingley test to me right really will the can you are you going to have majority of good tape like are two of the three years going to be really good then sign me up or is it going to be freshman year was awesome now we haven't seen that guy in a couple years what am i getting and is it because of lingering injury, which scares me even more? Certainly. So Henderson's awesome. He's an awesome player. And I know you I know you agree from the freshman tape, but the sophomore tape is a heavy part of the evaluation for a lot. And I get that of this summer scouting period. And that is that's probably what's going to hurt him on some rankings, but still ends up the number one running back in this class over summer for me

yeah i watched three games of him as a freshman um after i not only like learned that he went through the foot injury but also how much he was battling to try to get back onto the field like i think he missed like he missed the college football playoff game i believe and he missed games down the stretch and uh i remember reading an interview of him and he was like i was trying to come back. He's like, you know, he said this, this is just a product of unfortunate social media. He's like, there were a lot of people tweeting at me like,

oh, you're like, man up, like you can get out there and play. And he's like, dude, I was trying. Like, but my foot was hurt. I wasn't the same player. And that is broken. And that makes me think that he maybe just wasn't the same player for a large portion of that season but yeah i watched three games of that freshman year you watch that tulsa game of him and you're

ready to risk it all right i mean if you watch the tulsa game you go disrespectful plays and that yeah i mean you watch tulsa and you go okay this guy's gonna get drafted in the top 32 like he's gonna be a back end of the first round player then you watch a little bit more and you you love the freshman tape even more than i did but i the biggest question marks that i have with henderson is is there anything holding him back because when you were a true freshman getting out on there on the field sometimes you're not only as confident right you're playing college football for the first time you're you're reading defenses you're going up against defenders at the college level for the first time so who's to say that that freshman tape was even him playing

as wild and free as he can confident as he possibly can and then obviously in 2020 we saw that he wasn't playing with confidence because he was hurt so there's reason to believe that year three for travion henderson might even be the best version of him that we have seen. But even if it's, if it's a repeat of that freshman season, I still think we're getting a guy who is a productive pro, but I do think you see his athleticism. A little bit higher of a ceiling than I do. I think he's really good in short areas.

He obviously can make people miss very, very well. Got great body control, got good agility, good burst and acceleration. I just felt like he was getting caught from behind a little bit too much, enough for me to note. So I wonder, again, if he's really been able to play as confident as his athletic ability allows him to. We'll definitely see with this upcoming year.

We mentioned Will Shipley. I had him as as my number six guy who did you have just outside of your top five that you might want to mention because i do have a couple of guys as well raheem sanders rocket rocket i i was actually floored you didn't have him in the top five this was one where i left him out and i'm like i'm gonna get i'm gonna get crushed for this yeah absolutely crushed i i don't see any more hype i think on twitter than for anyone but this guy and for for a good reason uh he's number six for me i wrote he had over 1400 rushing yards last year he forced 65 missed tackles he had 41 explosive runs he had almost 300 yards receiving he has 73 yard receiving touchdown basketball and track and field background in high school. Yep.

Built like a war tank. Weight room numbers back it up. 365 bench, 515 squat. Guy's killing it. Can move the pile downhill when he wants to. Surprising elusiveness considering his size. Effective outlet in the pass game and not a guy DBs want to meet in the open field. Here's the number one

thing that drove me nuts with him. Drove me nuts. He dances so much. He stops his feet so much where I'm like, if somebody just convinces him, looks him in the face and goes, you are nicknamed rocket. You are six foot two. You are 235 pounds. You outlift probably a lot of the defense linebackers in the weight room right now. Just go and you will run for almost 2000 yards. He's he's an excellent player, but that will not work in the NFL. It will not work in the NFL. And until that habit breaks, it goes back, Trevor, to the thing you started the show with the home runs, but the low batting average on base percentage, it's you got to dial into the consistency.

He's a, he's a really good prospect, but I just watched that a lot. And I'm like, man, that is, that is an issue right now. Physically.

This dude checks all the boxes. You mentioned six foot two, 237 pounds. That's 97th percentile, 95th percentile. I mean, him and and um kj jefferson being in the same backfield is hilarious to see because it's just two giants jefferson makes him look like a normal running back i know like no he's not it's that's crazy

and physically it's all there for him um Big, strong, fast, explosive, pretty agile for a guy who is that big when it comes to changing direction. Like all that stuff is there. I see the exact same issues you did. You mentioned how the footwork can – you mentioned dancing. I think it's hesitancy because I also saw that there were a handful of times where I don't want to make it sound like he's picking the wrong rushing lane or that he has bad RB vision on every single snap because that's not the case. When we say these guys have questionable vision, it's not that you can't pick out some plays and go, look how well he read the offensive line there.

He does. There are plays, but there are too many of the other ones. And you guys are old enough to remember Trent Richardson coming out of Alabama. Trent Richardson was thought of to be like one of the best running back prospects ever. Goes number three overall. Trent Richardson is on two different teams

and fizzles out of the league incredibly quickly. And people go, how the hell did this happen? The dude was big. He was strong. He was fast. He was everything. Physically, he checked every single box that you wanted for the running back position. He couldn't see the line of scrimmage the way they need to. Now, Rocky

Sanders is not to the Trent Richardson level. And I think that a lot of people learned that lesson when Trent Richardson really fizzled out, but there are a handful of times where I'm watching him and it's like, he's running a mid zone play and the the lane is clearly like right in front of him like it's about to open up but the fact that it's not open at the exact time that he wanted it to be he'll abandon it and then like two seconds later you'll see him getting tackled at the line scrimmage trying to pick a hole that wasn't open versus this wide open lane you go that's where your aiming point actually was so he there are just times when he's not trusting the blocking in front of him.

Maybe he just can't see that open space before it opens up. And it's not all the time, but it's a little too inconsistent for me right now. And I think that's what causes some of the dancing feet in the backfield, him getting stuffed at the line of scrimmage when you feel like a physical back like him shouldn't be doing that. So I know a lot of people are going to, yeah, Kate for Raheem Sanders, he's got all the physical ability in the world i if he be if he can see the line scrimmage

a little bit better we're gonna talk about him as maybe like you said like a 12 1300 um yard back this upcoming season we're gonna talk about him probably in the top five of these rankings uh somebody else that i want to bring up another ohio state running back mayan williams i liked him man i really did i know what he is you know he he's he's five foot nine 225 pounds he's a bowling ball he's there to hit you but man he does it so well he is one of those he is one of those backs that gives you every ounce of fight in every single carry he brings you that kind of like damian pierce tyler algier mentality where it's like you can get i mean if you're gonna try to get me on the ground you're gonna have to bring your friends you're gonna be like mike davis remember mike davis yes that's

who he is i i liked him a ton man yeah he was funny he was a bowling ball i i liked him a ton so i have uh i have a little bit of background on him during his high school career he had over 5800 rushing yards and 68 rushing touchdowns so he's originally originally created committed to iowa state um because i think he was trying to go like the dave david montgomery route because he was watching how they use david montgomery how he similarly wasn't the fastest running back out there but they didn't. They still wanted to give it to him because of the mentality grew up playing offensive line linebacker and running back how he started playing football quote.

They just kept giving me the ball and I just kept running people over. The nickname is pork chop. And it just, it is absolutely perfect for him. I just feel like he's got really nice straight line athleticism. He's a North to South type of runner and he'll punish you every time you try to touch him. I just feel like he's got really nice straight line athleticism. He's a north to south type of runner, and he'll punish you every time you try to touch him. He's somebody whose mentality I always gravitate towards.

He's not going to be an RB1 at the NFL level, but he's going to be somebody who when you hand him the ball off, if you would have put Mayan Williams in the same situation that we've got Tyler Algerian right now, for Arthur Smith, they're committed to running the ball, the offensive line's good in front of them. You're going to get a productive player because you're going to be inspired every time he touches the ball.

Cause he's going to give you every ounce of energy he's got. So I like mine Williams a lot. I understand the limited athleticism, but he is what he is. And that still has a place in the league. I like that call out. He, he probably will be a senior bowl guy,

which will help him a lot. Yeah. So yeah. One more for me. Yeah. So, yeah. One more for me. Yep. And we, I mean, there's a lot of different guys, right? Like, I'm excited to see how Carson Steele's transfer from Ball State to UCLA goes. He looked awesome in the MAAC.

Incredible to watch him in the MAAC. But the other guy that I watched that I liked is Rasheen Ali from Marshall. Okay. that I watched that I liked is Rasheen Ali from Marshall. OK, one that'll be easy for people to miss because he missed pretty much all of last year. He didn't come back until week 12. But when you look at what he was able to do in 2021, I mean, this dude was really, really good. Almost 1400 rushing yards, almost 100 first downs, consistent runner,

35 explosive runs, missed tackles, forced 58. And this is as a really, really young player in 2021. So Rasheed Ali from Marshall, that's a name that everybody should circle and keep an eye on because his tape's very, very good. He just needed to get healthy. he didn't make it back to the end of last year and i think that he's in for a monster 2023. i uh i watched uh florida gator great montreal johnson who was at louisiana lafayette with billy napier before he went over to florida and classic billy move and i like him man he's another dude who he again will not go down on first contact he'll give you every single ounce of energy he's got in every single charity. He's got that great fighting mentality. That's going to be his calling card.

No matter what I do think the vision, you know, much like rocket Sanders, the vision is something that's. It just needs a little bit of work. I mean, he's just a little bit too hesitant attacking the line of scrimmage, even when the blocking is what it needs to be.

So that's something where he's got a lot of really great physical ability. He's just got to see the line of scrimmage, see chaos a little bit better. And I think that he can, man. Every interview that I read of him, man, he sounds like he's just such a super motivated dude. He fumbled on the first series of the season last year against Utah, never fumbled again. Like, ball never hit the ground again. He was just so pissed off at himself that he fumbled the ball on the first series of the season, never hit the ground again. He was just so pissed off at himself that he fumbled the ball in the first

series of the season, never hit the ground again. So that just tells you kind of how much of a worker he is, how determined he is to get better. And I'm excited to see what version of Montreux Johnson we get in this upcoming season. He'll be a lot of fun. All right. My, my top five running backs going into the 2023 college football season from summer scouting. I have Travion Henderson from Ohio state at number five, Braylon Allen from Wisconsin,

number four, Donovan Edwards from Michigan at number three, Blake Corum from Michigan at number two, little back to back to the top three. And then Trey Benson as my RB one, Connor, what you got? Number five for me,

it was Will Shipley from Clemson, kind of a do it all weapon. Number four, Blake Corum from Michigan. Number three, Braylon Allen from Wisconsin. Number two, Trey Benson from Florida State. And number one, Travion Henderson from Ohio State. So a nice shake-up of difference of opinion for us on this one.

I like it. That's what summer scouting is all about. We want to hear from you guys as well. We want to hear your opinions too. Let us know what you thought on our thoughts for this running back class but if you have watched some of these guys whether it's very close or just from afar we would love to hear that as well you don't have to give us your top fives if you haven't watched a lot of these guys yet but even if it's just like one running back where hey i you know i watched this guy last year he's incredible what do you think do you think he

could be a top five back in this class all that kinds of stuff um we're using you guys eyes and ears in this show as well because this is a scouting community. It's not just us talking to you. It's all of us talking together. Best way to get into the conversation, youtube.com backslash at NFL Stock Exchange. Smash that like and subscribe button.

There it is. We're trying to get a house. Once we get the 20,000 followers, Connor gets a brewery, and then you guys all get to go. And then you get to go. First round's on the brewery. If you're a subscriber, then the first round is on the brewery.

So make sure you guys subscribe to the YouTube channel. We appreciate everybody who has gotten us over 10,000 subscribers already. We love you guys so much. Thank you. If you are audio only, you can hit us up at Tampa Bay Trey, at Connor J. Rogers on both Instagram and Twitter to get your thoughts of this running back class into into what we've got here. We're going to have a big mailbag episode at some point to read a lot of you guys thoughts on a lot of these prospects.

Make sure that we get your thoughts and conversations into this as well. Connor, you got anything else before we get out of here? I think you summed it up pretty well. Did we do schedule? No. So we're not. I hinted that. We're not.

We're not having a podcast next week we're taking a week off we're doing a little pto uh connor is uh reliving the movie euro trip and uh he's gonna be taking a little trip overseas i'm going i'm going back to florida to see family sometimes i'm going to see i'm going to see family next week. So no podcast next week, but then the following week we will be back. I believe that Monday we'll do tight ends and then we wanted to give ourselves a little bit of extra time to watch as many wide receivers as

we could. So then that following week we will be doing the wide receiver episode. So you'll hear the July. I think that'll be, yes. Yeah. We'll give you right after the fourth, it'll be right after the fourth of July. It'll either be that Wednesday or Thursday. We'll give you guys the, uh, the big wide receiver episode. And that one's going to be

a doozy. Appreciate everybody listening and watching the podcast rocking with us throughout the summer. We're going to be having fun, uh, covering you with the potential 2024 NFL draft class all summer long. I'm Trevor Sikkim, but that is Connor Rogers. thank you guys so much for watching the NFL stock exchange podcast see you guys next time foreign