NFL Stock Exchange: An NFL Draft Podcast - 56. Summer Scouting: Top 5 RBs for 2023 NFL Draft

Episode Date: June 9, 2022

Hosts Trevor Sikkema and Connor Rogers continue their summer scouting journey with the running back position. The two give you their preseason Top 5 RBs for the 2023 NFL Draft with background info, PFF stats and film notes for each. Plus talk plenty of other running backs in the class who are just outside their Top 5s going into the season.

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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 NFL Stock Exchange podcast in this episode we are jumping right back into summer scouting with the running back position same format as last Thursday's episode we're going to go from five to one counting down our favorite running backs that we've seen in the, I guess, preseason rankings at this point for the 2023 NFL Draft.

Connor and I are going to go back and forth. We're going to talk about the background information, some PFF stats, and some film notes for a lot of these guys that we really liked. After we get through our top fives, we'll give you the rest of our notes on some players who just made the list and round out about 10 guys each for our list here, giving you guys a running back primer that you need to know as we head into the 2022 college football season for the 2023 NFL Draft. I'm Trevor Sycamore. With me, as always, is Connor Rogers. Let's ring the bell. Welcome to the opening bell of the NFL Stock Exchange Podcast.

I'm Trevor Sikma. That's Connor Rogers. I promise you we're not wearing the same shirt. We didn't, like, call each other and color coordinate this show. We are dangerously close here. I don't know where you got that shirt from, but this is from Target. So if you tell me Target, I'm actually going to be a little weirded out. No, it's not a Target shirt. you can tell they're slightly off color so we did and we have different hats on obviously right uh so we're safe today but man it's good thing that this doesn't we're getting this out of the way before you come to new york because that would

be a tough scene that would be a very tough scene if you and i rolled up on each other for the first time he's like what's up? We're matching. That'd be a little embarrassing. I think we might have to quit the pod there on the spot. Today, guys, we are back into summer scouting. We're going to the running back position. Last week, if you missed last week's Thursday episode, we went down for quarterbacks.

We went over an hour on that one, and we'll probably go a little over an hour on this one as well, I think, because we've got more names that we're bringing to the table. Breaking down the background information, some PFF stats, some film notes on almost 10 guys. I think actually 10 guys each between the two of us that we were able to watch. Obviously, there's a ton of running backs to get to.

We just didn't have time to get to all of them this time. But we'll do the same format we did last week. We'll rank it in our top fives. We'll leave you with some suspense going from five to number one. And then give a shout out to a lot of the guys that did not quite make the list. Before we get to that, Connor, I see that you are wearing your New York Rangers hat. Unfortunately, I don't have lightning gear here with me in Charlotte.

I'm in Charlotte for the summer. But, oh boy, how different this series looks from the last time that we recorded the podcast. And it was about as good. It was almost as gloom and doom as you could get for Tampa. And now it feels like it flips yeah it's it's so funny how hockey works because if you asked me before the series if if somebody said hey would you sign up for 2-2 and the Rangers going back home I'd be like hell yeah right like right like everybody was pretty delighting to win in five or six games so I'd be like yeah and then when they came out won the

first two were in control winning two nothing in the third game and now this series is tied I'm like I feel I felt really down and out but now I'm like all right it's best of three Rangers have home and let's see right and the home team has just destroyed the other teams no matter I mean the Lightning looked completely incompetent up in New York and then then the rangers like you said dominated the early period of game three but then it took over there they were able to win in the last second and then i think the lightning looked pretty dominant in game four but like oh yeah i think this is this is setting up obviously to be a very fun series i feel like that sounds really stupid because it's like duh we're at game five and we're tied 2-2 but like the lightning have momentum but the rangers have home ice advantage throughout the three so it's fascinating

for people that aren't like diehard hockey fans or this is the perfect example of i mean the rangers will even the lightning being back-to-back champs were not the the odds on favorites to be in the eastern conference final um because of the i guess the lightning were one of them but still it goes to show you these are two teams that just they grind out games truly true like the rangers had played in a million elimination games already in this playoffs uh so it was funny the first time they were ever in control of a series they blew it right away and yeah they played in i think five already elimination games how much did you hate the pat maroon goal in game oh the big rig just getting i know you you know what i liked him uh i liked his interview on espn when they asked him about reeves and he's like i've

had beers with reeves and i was like that is such a hockey thing where you can kill each other on the ice and you can have a beer about it off the ice that's funny man and that's hockey like you always hate the guys like i would love if cory perry was on the rangers third or fourth line but he's on the lightning so it's i hated cory perry the last two stanley cuffs when he played for the uh stars and then he played for the canadians because he was annoying as hell so that's hockey it's hockey and i know every non-rangers fan hates jacob truba like that's just hockey so when the big rig scored i was like of course he scored and of course he scored like a tap in like a classic big rig rebound goal get it out of the air yeah yeah it was just it was unbelievable but it's it's been a wild series it's been a lot of

fun obviously a lot of fun for our show they haven't uh they haven't what am i what am i looking for here remedied the justin bieber concert situation for game seven right i haven't seen any of that i could be i could have just been reading a guess but i thought i read somewhere that ultimately the bieber concert will be moved to wednesday because there's also one monday so it's not even like you can move it back and the game just has to be played. And we know the abs are in a lightning situation where they're just chilling now. Like how many days can the

abs go without playing? Yeah, East Chicago's finals is basically just who wants to get steamrolled by the Colorado Avalanche. It feels, I mean, especially like look at the bodies both teams have lost. Like Braden Point's been out for a long time. The Rangers are playing with 40% of Barclay Gaudreau no Ryan Strom probably no Phillip like we're almost out of centers that's the NHL

playoffs you just run out of players so the and the abs are sitting there and I know let's be fair to the abs they're playing with a backup goalie and no Kadri now after that major that almost feels like mercy to the rest of the league at this point it's like something had to happen finals so yeah thanks mike smith and edmonton for giving them no challenge at all me and trevor are not happy about that for which one of our teams uh advances so christ and the and we you and i have a fascinating situation coming up where you're traveling you're going to be in new york and i'm going to be in montreal before i come home like finding the right place to watch these games is one of my biggest fears as a sports fan like i it's oh yeah i'm in the city on what's because wait wait game game five

is sunday or saturday it's? Game five will be Saturday. Oh, no. Yeah. I'm in Montreal for the next two games. And if there's a game seven, we'll both be okay. Well, we'll have plenty to talk about. We'll have plenty to talk about on the next episode for sure. Nuts. Come down to the home stretch.

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It's very, very for real. All right. We got a lot to do. Quarterbacks, we kind of hinted, was going to be a lot of time spent on the top five. Yep. I think you and I made a pretty good effort to make sure we got through 10 players on this. And it was a lot trickier, I think, fitting the five we wanted to in the top five compared to the quarterbacks. I'm very, very curious to hear who your five are going

to be because i know that i've got at least one guy in the top five that you're not going to have in the top five because interesting you did not watch yes yes we did cross check we each watched one different player yes uh and we'll get to him you guys don't know who we're talking about because we'll get to him but there are as i watch this running back group it felt a lot like quarterbacks where i just went man i like a lot of these like i'm excited to talk about a lot of these guys they were i was at number six number seven in the list i'm like i'm splitting hairs here like i like i'm basically looking at skill sets of these players and i'm saying all right well i guess it kind of depends like are you going to be more of a power blocking zone or a power blocking scheme you're going to do more

zone blocking especially wide zone stuff i think that's better for a couple of these running backs but different shapes and sizes of these players but they all bring a good amount to the table like this the backs who are smaller right like the blake quorums the deuce vaughns the devon chains like those guys you go okay well if you're small i at least want to see this and they give it to you and some of those bigger backs you know sean tucker uh zach charbonnet you know like those guys you go okay well you're bigger i want to see this from you and they give it to you a lot of these guys their physical profiles are matching the strengths that they have in their game, which makes them really easy to like.

It allows you to envision what they're doing at the college level to the NFL level. So I'll give you the floor first. Who is your number five guy here as we do this preseason 2023 running back ranking? So you're right. It was, I think, something to remember about ranking the running backs here is that, at least for me, a lot of these guys have already been really productive like if like I actually feel good about if some of them were in the NFL today that's how productive some of them have been with running back every year because

it's traditionally an underclassman position drafted you get guys that are breakouts every year that find their way into the top of the class. Look at Kenneth Walker last year. Kenneth Walker had a mammoth year. Nobody was really talking about Kenneth Walker in this capacity last summer. So you got to brace yourself that these lists will look a lot different when we get to the winner. But for me, I started here with Sean Tucker from Syracuse, who has done a lot of damage in two years at that program. He had a fascinating 2020 as a freshman

where he was somebody at that program that wasn't expected to play. There's opt-outs, there are injuries, and it's like, oh, guess what? You're the guy left, so you're playing right now. High school track background, both indoor and outdoor. Indeed. So you obviously know that this dude can move.

He could sprint a little bit. And then his sophomore year, after impressing in that freshman year where he wasn't really supposed to play, he just exploded for the Orange. I mean, he was sixth in the nation with almost 1,500 rushing yards. He is the first player in program history to rush for more than 1,400 yards in a single season. Like, think about that for Syracuse. That is, it's pretty crazy, honestly, especially for a true sophomore.

Really, really good feet at the line of scrimmage that helps him avoid initial contact. He's a guy that, I was actually impressed with Syracuse's run blocking more than I thought. I guess I just didn't have big expectations, but there are obviously plenty of times where a defender breaks the line of scrimmage and he's very light on his feet, could stop on a dime or change direction

and make the miss and get back to the line of scrimmage or find yards or find a lane. True zone runner. True zone runner. He understands tempo. He doesn't, he's not, let me just hit the gas every single play and try to score a hundred yard touchdown. He understands how to let his rush lanes develop. He understands when to put his foot in the ground, get upfield, work through the alleys, work through those rush lanes. And the last thing I wrote for him as a runner, which is fascinating to me, is doesn't try to do too much in a good way.

And coaches really like that sometimes. There's guys that you love watching them go out there and try to break 10 tackles and they have the highlight reel play. A lot of these coaches, like a Shanahan, even like a LaFleur, both LaFleurs in the NFL right now, a lot of Minnesota's been like this, Cleveland's been like this. They like their runners to follow the scheme and not try to do too much and get the yards that they

know they're going to dial up for them. And I was really impressed for a guy that is a young player in Sean Tucker from Syracuse. He was born October 25th, 2001. So this is a really young back that has a lot of big time performances already under his belt. He was the real deal. And he came in as my fifth overall running back. I hope that Syracuse understands they understand because they, how much they hand him the ball, but I want to see him now develop that receiving game. I didn't really see that on film with this as a pass protector or as a true threat as a pass catcher. If he develops that Trevor, he should declare and be one of the you know top five to seven running backs drafted next year that's how that's how impressed i was with

him yeah i was even more impressed by him and he's he's higher up on my list so i i won't i won't say everything all my thoughts i'll leave it for when i get to him on the list because he's not four either so we will i can't even piggyback off of that he's even higher uh on my list here but you're right i mean fantastic season last year he had the track background and i thought that really stood out um they have him listed at what they have him listed five foot ten two or yeah five ten two ten or two fifteen are kind of the weights that i found so bigger size back right i feel like we're we're in an age where there's a lot of running backs that are right around like 200 pounds, right? I mean, like if we're looking at an average,

running backs can come in those smaller sizes. So when you find a guy who is around 215, even a little bit bigger, you go, okay, that's some decent size for a running back. And when I saw his measurables, I said, all right, well, he's probably just going to be like a bigger back. Strength's saw his measurables i said all right well he's you know he's probably just going to be like a bigger back strength's going to be a bigger part of his profile i watched five plays of this guy no i mean i watched more than that for the film eval but i watched his first five plays and i went oh okay different kind of running back here he brings a

lot of athleticism for his size but uh you mentioned the successful season he had last year he was a first team all acc guy i believe he was the first team all american as well for uh those 1500 rushing yards and you mentioned the track background i'll just have here before i move on to my guy they had him doing they had him doing all sorts of track events like they had him running i think the 400 the 800 like all that kinds of stuff mid-distance kind of stuff and then they realized okay this guy's actually a lot better of a sprinter and so as he got into his junior and senior years of high school they had him not doing anything further than a 200 so we do a 200 he did he do the 100 yeah i think he did the 4x100 as well and then he had the 60 meter in which he ran a 688 which is uh pretty insane

he did that as a freshman which is pretty crazy i mean it just goes to show you the kind of burst and acceleration this guy has at his size but i'll talk a little bit more about sean tucker but love the fact that he got into your top five because i really like him as well number five for me this is a very interesting prospect i know where you're going just by saying that number five for me, this is a very interesting prospect. I know where you're going just by saying that. Number five for me is Zach Evans. Is that who you thought I was going to say? It was one of two. Is he in your top five?

So Zach Evans was not, but he probably, man, he probably was a firm six. Okay. Like, it was brutal trying to fit the... Three to five was brutal. Let me say that. Dude, like three to seven is brutal. Yeah, and I had Sean Tucker even higher at one point. I just... It's the tier thing again.

It's the tier thing again. So no, but I'm really excited to hear what you have to say about Evans because he was a very conflicting prospect for me. Yeah, so when you look at him, he's another player. Comes in at 5'11", 215 pounds. Okay, this is a former number one overall recruit in the country. Yeah, big time.

Unbelievable talent, consensus five-star player, running back. And he's from Houston, Texas, so he played Texas football, so he's got that under his belt he's going to tcu he became the first five-star player tcu ever got but how he got there was very interesting it's it's it's it's kind of a wild ride i'll try to i'll try to recap it as best i can here with his recruiting journey and how he got the TCU, which he's at Ole Miss now. He's actually at Ole Miss. So he won a state championship as a junior back in high school. After that, he announced his top five schools. And look, he was a five-star well before this. So everybody was already on him. He had all the offers, everything. Okay.

Announced his top five schools after that national championship year, so he had one year of high school football left. It was Alabama, Georgia, LSU, Ohio State, and Oklahoma. Those were his five. Then one of Evans' teammates at North Shore, which is where he played high school, their offensive tackle, Damian George, he committed to Alabama.

And months prior, Evans said that him and Damian George were going to be a package deal. So everyone said, oh, okay, George is going to Alabama. That means Evans is probably going to go to Alabama. But he didn't declare. It wasn't like this domino effect that happened. And he said, okay, I'm going to decide in my senior year. He's playing his senior year kind of on and off because he was dealing with things.

He said, all right, I'm going to decide on December 4th. That's going to be when i decide where i go he then changes his schools that he's interested in to alabama georgia lsu and texas a&m the we just had somebody deliver a piece of mail so if i hear marvel if you can hear if you hear my dog barking he is making sure that the mail is the male is not going to harm us in any way, shape, or form. And we love him for the 125 – we love him for the 25-pound guard dog that he is. So then – all right, Zach Evans. He changed his final four to Alabama, Georgia, LSU, and Texas A&M.

So he took Ohio State and Oklahoma out, and he put Texas A&M, a Texas team in there. He then said, okay, I'm going to actually delay my decision to the Under Armour All-American game. So further from December 4th. So now we're getting even further into the recruiting process. He then silently signs a letter of intent to Georgia.

And then while he was at the Under Armour All-American game. No tweet? Not even the tweet? No, like no announcement, nothing. Like signed a letter of intent to Georgia. Then he backed out of it. Then UGA released him because he didn't want to go to Georgia for whatever reason. All of a sudden after that, the enrollment period is passed.

I think I remember this because he was such a big recruit. Right, and he didn't have a school. Yeah, I do remember this. It was like he took all this time and then he had no had no school to go to so then he visited Ole Miss he visited Tennessee he visited Florida and they were all telling him like yeah you could come in the next semester and we'd love to have you but I don't think we can get you in on this one so then all of a sudden out of kind of nowhere like he commits to TCU which he was never interested in in the recruiting cycle at all whatsoever. Strange.

Plays two years at TCU, I think just because he was able to play right away, if I remember correctly. Yep. And then now he transfers over to Ole Miss, a team that he wasn't interested in originally, but kind of was interested in after the release from Georgia's letter of intent. So crazy, right? Did his cousin play for Ole Miss from 16 to 20?

I don't remember. There's some part of the story. I want to make sure I have this right. I'm pretty sure his cousin played. So he had visited Ole Miss. And the end of his cousin's career was when Lane came in. So there was a little relationship there. But you're right.

That's the little nugget of like, okay, I kind of see how he got there. Well, the Ole Miss part, I guess, makes sense because he technically, I mean, he did visit Ole Miss once things kind of hit the fan and he was trying to find a school. So I understood that. The TCU one never really made any sense because he was never really interested in them until it felt like they became the only school where he was going to play. So that was a weird background for him. he goes to texas a&m the film notes i have on this guy are

you can clearly see why he was at one point the number one player in the country you really can he's incredibly talented running back he's got the long speed he's got the wiggle he's got the contact balance all of that stuff is there for him he's the kind of player who if you give him a good block he could take it a mile man that's that's the kind of player that we're talking about here he feels like size speed strength profile agility change of direction contact balance breaking tackles all of that stuff is within his wheelhouse it's all there for him so it just it totally makes sense why he was rated as high as he was why every school was trying gonna try to give him a chance when they could and i'm interested to see

what he does at old miss the weaknesses that i saw in his game are the pass blocking skills are just completely unreliable right now i don't know if you watched any specific pass block reps for him in pff ultimate but if he is not if he is not chop blocking you like straight at the knees bingo he's not blocking you at all he's not even trying which is weird because he's not small no he's not he just has thing to me no idea how to do it or no desire to do it i don't know which one it is it's fair i think his hands are good but he was really not used as a receiver very often so like like all of a sudden, third down back responsibilities become a little shaky and you need a lot more technique, a lot need a lot more reps.

And I agree with you. I think you need a little bit more want to to stay on the field for third down when it comes to this college football season and moving on to the NFL. As a ball carrier, he's unbelievably talented. There's a lot of guys that we're going to talk about that didn't make my top five that I like as well. But for as talented as Zach Evans is, I put him at number five,

knowing that there's still a lot of work to do when it comes to those finer details of his game. Really well said. And I agree all around. He's not in my top five. And I was actually really disappointed that he wasn't. I think he was the player that I watched and was the most underwhelmed by compared to expectations.

And I said it before, I would have had him at six. You know, when you hear the things like former five-star and top recruit and all of these things, and you look at his size, and I guess you create false expectations at times. My notes on, some of my notes on him, since I didn't have him in the top five I said he knows how to run low and skinny um but he's not overly creative not overly fast good contact balance and will get you tough yards only targeted 12 times in 2021 he they don't they, right? And it's no knock on TCU. TCU has had plenty of really good

years for a long time, but this dude was supposed to be a dude and TCU didn't even really view him as like, we got our, you know, freakish weapon that we got to, we got to use every single way possible. They didn't even look at him like that. So I think I was just a little underwhelmed and I agree with pretty much everything you said um so zach evans did not make my top five he was obviously right right in for you it was probably pretty close yep so okay moving on to number four here this is the player i originally thought you were gonna say deuce von and man this guy i love this one i love him so mad he's not in my top five i'm so mad man i had to have him in the top five he he's awesome he's freaking awesome and he's gonna test every single uh threshold that in size now he's listed right now 5'6", 176. I think he's going to carry 190 pounds.

I don't worry about the weight. He might be carrying that right now. I don't know if that's a real weight right now. I'd like to see us get a verified weight for him over the summer. Guys like Dane Brugler do a really good job of covering that, I've noticed. But you know five six he's small there's no doubt about it he him and tucker were pretty much the same grades for me i could have had tucker at four and deuce at five i just flipped them it's there they would be draft they'd be grading in the exact same way different players though so deuce has we already led you in the size is going to be the question interesting guy his dad is is an NFL area scout, the Southeastern scout for the Dallas Cowboys.

His dad is a legitimate, like when you're the Southeastern scout, like I know people are like, I got area scouts. Like that's a big, that's a big role. So his dad's a legit. You're watching good players. You're watching really good players and your reports and your investigations matter a lot.

So his dad's a legit scout for the Cowboys. He's been a coach before. So about Deuce. monster sophomore year in 2021, over 1400 rushing yards. He's had big receiving numbers over the last two years. I wrote down lightning bug type runner that you can lose behind the line of scrimmage. And what I mean by that is with the lightning bug.

And I don't know how many, did you catch lightning bugs as a kid? I didn't, but like a weird thing, but I know, I know what you're talking. But I know what you're talking about. I know what you're talking about. I didn't. I didn't.

I was more like beach town Florida than I was like a little bit more like out in the country-ish. Because that's the woods. It's a woods thing. It is. There's a lot of people listening to this show that'll have no idea what I'm talking about. But I mean, the very gist of it is the lightning bug lights up for, you know, half a second and then it's gone and you're in the pitch black. So if you don't get it in that half a second, you don't get it.

With Deuce, when he gets the ball behind the line of scrimmage, he's running behind offensive linemen that are twice the size of him. Right. And he's so sharp and quick and short area that he's a lightning bug. Like you see him and if you don't get in your run fit or find him quick, you lose him. And this is something that I notice I really like about smaller backs that are projected

as rotational guys for the future. His strike zone is very small. And with that small strike zone, defenders struggle to get a hand on him at first contact, and it's very hard to come to balance. I tweeted out a clip this morning of a play where he just catches a little dump pass, and he splits two defenders. And it's because of the small strike zone.

He gets narrow, and one goes around his waist, one goes high, and they miss him because he's too small, he's too skinny. And they almost go over the top of his helmet because most defenders are half a foot taller than him. So patient, elusive, shifty, and quick. Gives a ton of effort in pass throw, but he's just physically outmatched. And rushers know he's going to go low. Sometimes it works.

When the game went on and he kept trying to cut them, they knew how to get past him. And it's tough to have him back there. It really is. But this dude is awesome. I don't care how small he is he is he's gonna have some kind of role in the nfl i don't know if it's gonna be special teams early on i don't know if it's gonna be strictly in a unique gadget isaiah mckenzie i know people are gonna bring up darren sproles all the time for him for obvious reasons very obvious reasons connection to get k-state size but he's awesome if you haven't watched if

i implore if i can implore you to watch anyone listening if you haven't watched a single running back on this show watch deuce vaughn because that is the most fun you'll have this summer watching a running back so i got to sit down and talk with deuce vaughn actually a couple weeks ago and i'll have a feature on him coming out at some point in this summer i think over the next couple of weeks and there's no doubt about it man he's he's going to be one of my favorite prospects in the in throughout this entire process i felt the same way about deuce vaughn when that interview ended that i did about trent mcduffie where i was just like i don't care that's cool draft the dude like that's it and you know he didn't make my top five and i'm going to be honest with you i think the reason why he didn't

make the top five for me is because and and I have him at number six, actually, I've got him right there at number six is because I'm a little bit gun shy after Kyron Williams. Like I'm just a little bit gun shy because Kyron Williams is another player who did. It felt like everything, right? Just the size limitations caught up to him. And it's not even the pass blocking thing with Deuce Vaughn.

The problem is that he is of smaller size and that means the strides are shorter right i mean it works in the big 12 you got a lot of space he's creating a lot of space he can look like he's shot out of a cannon sometimes but when you get in the nfl it's bigger dudes it's faster dudes you just that margin for error matters with him and so i don't have him in my top five so i can kind of share my notes on him i love that you got him in here because he you mentioned it comes from a football family right real name is chris vaughn and his father's name is also chris vaughn that's how he got the nickname deuce not just from 22 that he wears is because they didn't want to call him junior so they called him deuce uh his his dad played college football at murray state you mentioned he's just he's an area scout for the

dallas cowboys he also was an assistant coach at ark at Ole Miss at Memphis and at Texas so he was an assistant coach all around uh college football he actually broke his high school's see this is this is Deuce did Deuce broke his high school's single season rushing record with almost 2,000 rushing yards in his final year notes I have him him, the strength, incredibly smart running back. I mean, you could tell that he comes from an NFL family. You could tell that he's been working on this for a long time. He's got the patience. He understands where he's looking on different zone blocking schemes,

where the lanes are going to open up, how do we anticipate the space. He sees that stuff so, so well. I love, look, we're going to talk about his size like it's a negative, but you mentioned how size can also be an advantage to him, not only being a disguised behind the line of scrimmage, not only is the strike zone smaller, but also when he takes that contact, he can balance, man. He can really keep himself upright.

He can bounce and he can get those yards after contact a lot better than you would think for a player who is five foot six 175 180 pounds whatever he ends up being so i think that he does a great job of bringing as much of a physical profile as he can to his game you're right i think that the pass blocking work it's it's just tough right it's out of his hand there's not much he could do what are you going to do about it and that's that's my biggest drawback of when i kept him outside of the top five for me is just there are things where i just go i love this player but he's just not going to get better at these other things he can get as good as he possibly can but there are physical limitations to him i'm glad you got him in your

top five though because truly i sat down with him i love talking with him i love getting to know him he's an awesome dude he He's a determined dude. He understands exactly what his strengths and his weaknesses are. And he attacks the football field with both of them in mind as good as he possibly can. And you know what? Smart football players like that

are always going to play, man. They're always going to play. And I agree with you. I don't know what his role in the NFL is going to be quite yet, but he's going to have one for sure. So to close the book on Deuce Vaughn here, some of the comparables, you know, players, assuming he gains weight, and I really think he already has some of the obviously we said

Sproles, Tariq Cohen, Jaquiz Rogers. You look at some other guys on there. He's never going to be. I think he's a more athletic Jaquiz Rogers. Yep. I think I like that one. The best. He's never going to be, I think he's a more athletic to quiz Rogers. Yep. I think I like that one. The best. That's not Dion Lewis.

There is ironically, and he's a lot thicker, this runner, but Clyde Edwards in layer it's wild. I mean, he's five, seven. A lot of people realize that here's one.

I actually like a lot for deuce because of the athleticism, Danny Woodhead. That's probably going to be one of the closest comps for him. Danny Woodhead was five, seven and a half, of the closest comps for him. Danny Woodhead was 5'7.5", 197. He ran a 4.38. He jumped 38 inches vertical and had a 7.033 cone. I don't know if Duke's going to run that fast. Yeah, that's fast.

That's fast. That's really fast. I'd love for him to. That'd be fantastic. Motor Singletary is one. I'll close the book on that. And Michael Carter on the Jets. Those are all the closest comparables for a guy that small.

All right, there we go. So you got Deuce Vaughn number four on your list. Before we get to my number four on my running back list, I'm going to remind you guys that the NFL Stock Exchange is brought to you by Cash App. Cash App is the easiest way to send, spend, and save your money. You can send or request money from your friends for literally anything dinner

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If you own Bitcoin, there's probably nothing to you, but hey, for the rest of us out here that don't, $15 could go a long way. It's promo code touchdown, $15 for free when you download the Cash App. All right, let's get back to the list here. Number four for your boy, I got Jameer Gibbs. Got another guy who is transferring to a new place, played at Georgia Tech for the last two years. Now he is going to play for Nick Saban at Alabama. The rich truly get richer with a prospect this good. He was a four-star guy from Georgia who chose Georgia Tech over Alabama, Florida, and Georgia,

which, hey, big win for the Yellow Jackets. Temporarily. Well, I know, but still, I mean, for that to happen, hey, more power to you. Gibbs led the state of Georgia with 255, no, wait, 2,554 rushing yards and 40 touchdowns, was named first team all state for the Georgia 6A 2020 Offensive Player of the Year, and was a first team All-American by Sports Illustrated

across all high schoolers in the country. So this dude was definitely on the map. After two decent seasons at Georgia Tech with 460 and then 746 rushing yards, decided to transfer to Alabama. At Georgia Tech, he showed his skills as a receiver. He had 24 catches as a freshman, was second on the team in receiving as a sophomore. Really, the big issue was that Yellow Jackets team was 3-9, ended up being 3-9 this past year,

and they lost their last six games in a row. And it's like, look, I don't blame Jameer Gibbs. He wanted to go try to use his talents elsewhere, try to win something, ends up going to Alabama, certainly had the connections already there from recruiting. So he knew that he could make the jump. And that's where he ends up. When we're looking at his measurables, scroll over here, 5'11", 200 pounds,

so kind of right around that average of smaller backs that I was talking about a little bit before. Some film notes on him. Very smooth athlete, man. Very smooth athlete for a player of his size. The one-cut ability, the acceleration make him a fantastic, I believe, zone-blocking scheme player. I think he'd do a lot of damage

when he'd get the line of scrimmage moving left and right a little bit. He can operate that kind of chaos and see where the running lanes are going to start keeps his momentum going he could really make guys miss in the open field and take off with that good agility the contact balance isn't i wouldn't say it's elite but it is good i mean he can certainly get yards after contact i wouldn't say that it's like crazy but i do think that he's got some good power in his core to be able to bounce off of some contact even right at 200 pounds uh enough long speed i think to be able to bounce off of some contact, even right at 200 pounds. Enough long speed, I think, to be a home run hitting player.

Certainly, if it's blocked up correctly and he hits the hole correctly, he could definitely take runs for 40, 50 yard scores. And he's got a lot of experience as a receiving back as well. I mentioned what he was able to do as a receiver in his freshman and sophomore years while he was at Georgia Tech. I think that is the big plus in his game. And for a lot of these guys, you're going to see that that third down specialized ability isn't necessarily emphasized for them especially because a lot of these players are underclassmen right a lot of these guys were just trying to get on the field as best they could a lot of that came down to ball control and being

the best ball carrier and running backs probably what they've been working on their freshman and sophomore years but we've already seen some good receiving ability from Jameer Gibbs. The big weakness for me, and I have this written down here. I'm not sure if it's the O line that he was just running behind and maybe getting a little bit impatient, but there were too many times where he'd search for the cutback in the big play when it just, when it really wasn't there. And I felt that a handful of times with him.

It's like, he was a handful of times with him it's like he was a little too over eager for it it's like he thought hey if i don't take this to the house we're not going to score and so i get that i get that those big cutbacks on zone blocking schemes are where a lot of the biggest plays come from but there were a handful of times which so when you're when you're running inside zone you're typically looking at the guards play side leg so if you're running to the right your a your first aiming point is typically the guards inside leg so that's where you're looking at first and the play side defensive tackle the guys that you're reading and there's there's other ways to read it

and this might be oversimplifying it but essentially if you're reading that guard first and his defense if that defensive tackle if his head is on the inside, you're going to want to go to the outside because that's the way that the offensive line is going to wall it off. If the defensive tackles head is to the outside, more towards the defensive end into a space, then you're going to look to your second read, which is that backside defensive tackle. And then you look, OK, where's his hat? Is it inside or outside? And that determines how far you're going to cut back just one lane or two. There were so many times where I was watching it and I was watching the all 22 angle and we're watching the end zone angle. And I'm like, the read was right there, Jameer, like, but you could tell he just, I think he, I think he believed that if he wasn't scoring a touchdown, the team wasn't going to score a touchdown. And so that was my biggest drawback from him.

And that's what I'm excited about watching with Alabama is he's going to get a lot more of those situations. And I think he's going to learn to have more trust in his offensive line. If he does that, this is a player that's really dangerous in space that can take a really well blocked up play into first downs and so much more and i think he does a lot for you as a receiver as well so i've got him at number four but how positively i am talking about him just tells you how much i like this running back class and how

good i think he is do you have jameer gibbs in your top five if so i'll kind of let you talk about him yeah this is easy i'm at three't either. You'll have a good transition. The easiest transition, and I actually won't spend as much time on Gibbs as I did on the other two because you covered it really, really well, a lot of the stuff. I mean, I haven't met three. You haven't met four in a class that we're splitting hairs with. We saw them the same exact way, essentially.

What I noticed with Gibbs, it's funny to me with Gibbs, it's going to be funny to watch him at Alabama because he does not look like the Alabama running backs we're so accustomed to seeing. He's not an overly big guy. He's not really super tall. He's not super thick. His running style is a little different.

Now, as for the player, one thing that you said that I almost had a carbon copy in my notes doesn't look physically imposing but tacklers do bounce off him at the second level frequently so it goes to show you that there is some compact strength there for him um lightning quick feet I thought with the turf tape in his build he looks like chimera sometimes the way he runs it was kind of one of those weird things I wrote down. I was like, man, he kind of looks like Alvin Kamara in pads and the style of running.

Natural hands. I've had to, I was just going to say, I've had to completely eliminate Alvin Kamara from my comp ability list because it feels like anytime there's anybody who like, and I'm not saying this is you right now, but I'm just like, anytime I feel like we watch a player bounce off one tackle, we go. Reminds me of Al Camara, but the turf tape does it too. Yes. The turf tape definitely does it with you.

No, he, my player comparison for him will definitely not be Alvin. Yeah. Right. He's not, he's not alvin camaro um some of his biggest plays were as a pass catcher on just some little outlets and dump screens they love throwing him that fade dump screen and he looked a lot better off of those than he did as a runner in open space which was kind of interesting to me you you brought it up that sometimes he always looked for the big play and it created like a hesitation or just killed the play. When he's a pass catcher, it never felt like, I don't know if he had more space or if he just did less thinking. He caught the ball and just got upfield and made a move or made a move and got upfield. So

that's an area I really liked him. I think he's going to explode for Alabama. I think that he is going to develop at Alabama. He's going explode for Alabama I think that he is gonna develop at Alabama he's gonna work on some of that feel as a runner he's gonna work on some of that responsibility as a runner and like you said he he's got a lot of juice to his game as well he's got juice to get outside as well so he could be an inside runner an outside runner a pass catcher Gibbs is a really really good player and I think transferring for him was a good move because I think he is gonna be uh maybe is it crazy to say on the heisman radar at a school like alabama i mean he's got that kind of talent in that system look if he shoot man if alabama's offensive line is like

any alabama offensive line that we thought like even if it's not like the most elite offensive line that we have seen in the past if it is just a regular ass alabama offensive line this dude's rushing for 1200 yards i think he's yeah he's going off he won't turn 21 until about a month before the draft very young guy that's good too very young guy and that's gonna that's gonna go in his favor for sure my number three guy is the player that you didn't get to it's the player that you didn't yeah i did i did not watch this player michigan's blake quorum is who i have at number three five foot eight 200 pounds so he's a shorter frame but he's still got the mass to him and i don't know how many people are going to have bl Blake quorum in their top three running backs going into the season.

But he is a player who I cannot wait to watch having even more of a carry load with Hassan Haskins moving onto the NFL, because I like this dude's game a ton, man. He is a human joystick kind of a player. That's what I have in my notes. That's the first line that I have here with this strength. I think he's got elite body control and agility. The way that he can approach the line of scrimmage

with chaos moving all around him and while still moving and accelerating, be able to put his foot in the ground, stop going one direction, completely explode the other is, there's just not many players that can do it and i think that him being of of smaller size height wise really helps him in that regard and then with him still being like 195 200 pounds he's still got beef on him i mean you're watching him take these hits and you go oh there's a smaller back he didn't act like it he act like

it it hurts them just as much as it hurts him when these guys make contact on him. So I think that the body control and the agility are absolutely elite from this player. Really good long speed too. I mean, again, if you set this guy up right, he could take that ball, take it a mile. I think he's got lightning quick feet.

He's got a really good eye for open space, especially for a player that was really contributing just as a one-year contributor. It's probably the way that I should have said it there because he really didn't do anything his freshman season. So this past year as a true sophomore, that was his first year. And for his first year, him being able to display that kind of vision, that kind of anticipation, I think was really, really important.

He's also a fantastic receiver. They use him in a lot of different ways, both out of the backfield and on the line of scrimmage. That body control makes for a mismatch when he is rotated or motioned out of the backfield on with a linebacker or a safety because he understands route running. He understands those quick changes of direction, those break-in routes, that creating separation.

I think he's got great hands as well. So he's a smaller back i get it i wonder if people are gonna end up having these bigger backs above him but i love his skill set i truly do i don't give a damn about the height i really don't especially because he's already got the frame that's right around 200 pounds he's got strength he's got speed he's got all world-world agility and, I think, body control. And you pair that with what he is as a receiver, this is a potential three-down player in the NFL and a dynamic weapon out of the backfield

that really aids, to me, where the NFL is going. Getting faster, getting more of a complement out of the backfield in the passing game. Yeah, you've got to be able to tote the rock, but you bring so much value to a team when you bring that kind of home run ability, that agility, and that receiving skills too. So huge fan of Blake Corum.

That's why I got him at number three. Yeah, I'm excited to watch him after hearing that. You got to Corum. I watched Dwayne McBride from UAB, but he will not be in my top five. So I'm definitely curious who, who you have it too. Yeah. Yeah.

Really? You're you're, you don't think the last two are obvious. No, because who, who, okay. I have a feeling.

I know who you're picking at number one. Yeah. Yeah. But one of the two is very, whoever you have it too. I don't have in my top five. That is. So we have a pretty differing top five again. And quarterbacks was that too.

I think people are probably pleasantly surprised with the beginning of summer scouting. Good. It's not chalk at all. Got bad picks in hockey teams. You got bad picks in summer scouting. Oh man, you better hold on for dear life if the rangers figure their shit out back at the garden again oh it's going out to dinner on monday is it gonna be real bad

a gorgeous italian restaurant a rangers sweater i'd respect it oh god'd respect it. Oh, God. So who's your two? Who's your two? All right. So dramatic drum roll, please. I have Devon A-Chain. Oh. Yeah. I'm pretty floored. He's not in your top five. Oh.

I'm pretty floored. Okay. I got to the point where I was like, isvor gonna like do something crazy and make him like one or i knew i knew our no i had a feeling our number one would be the same for this because he's he's special and we'll get there in a bit but um with devon a chain he's got something that it's just you either have it or if you're 99.9 of humans on planet earth you don't and that is speed and it's real incredible speed incredible speed and the first thing i wrote down after the background info what i mean this dude is on texas a&m's track teams let me just like he's not like the uh ran track in high school. Right, right, right.

This dude is track, okay? Like I want to make sure, but he's, why I'm projecting him this way is because, I'll start with some bad, or maybe it's good. He still has a track body. Correct. And he's playing football. Correct.

He's listed 5'9", 185. Like when you look at Sean Tucker on tape, or you look at a lot of the guys we went through today, Tucker's one to me that for a 20-year-old, I'm like, this dude's got a grown man running back body. Correct. Legs, arms and shoulders. When you look at A-Chain,

it's like if this dude eventually ditches track and commits to an nfl weight program he can be insane he can be really insane right now the first thing i wrote down after the background info is he is constantly running away from defenders with breakaway speed and that means something in the sec like if you you're doing it. That's true. In the FCS, you're doing it in the Big 12, you're doing it in the pack. It doesn't mean it doesn't mean anything. You just, you go, okay, he can run. When a dude is doing this in the SEC, all the time,

he's going to run away from NFL defenders all the time. So I'm betting on the sprinter. I'm betting on the home run. I'm betting on him just being able to bring an element that I'm not a lot of dudes can bring. He's not much of a tackle breaker. He, when contact connects with them, he goes down. It's he's not even really not that much of a refined running back right now. He's a sprinter that makes big plays in the SEC. And I'm just willing to bet on that. And I mean, it's funny to watch a guy like Isaiah Spiller, who clear-cut NFL future, plenty of people, smart people, respected people,

thought he was the top or second- second ranked running back in last year's draft and this dude was the other dude on the team and how different they look when they just purely have the ball in their hands in space so a chain to me man uh it's it's not there yet this is my what did i do this with last time anthony rich, in a sense. This is less of an extent, but I am betting on just him really putting it all together, him getting that NFL body eventually and just having an element that teams are going to obsess over. So I have him as RB7.

I had him as RB7 in our group. So that is definitely the biggest difference. I almost had him at RB8. I've gone back and forth between the back that I have RB88 which we'll talk about right after we do our top fives but five foot you you kind of mentioned it there you hit all the highlights of what he does well man i mean this guy has all fast i mean he just has all class speed i mean he was the gatorade 2020 texas boys track and field athletes of the year texas athlete track athlete of the year in texas not troy anderson montana no respect to troy all respect to troy great athlete you're right ran a 10 14 100 meter dash this past march for the texan mt 10 14 is stupid yes fast that is stupid speed and

that's what it is the long speed is just so obvious the second he touches the ball his jogging speed if you will like when you watch running backs they've clearly got different gears right we hear about that all the time when we reference gears we often talk about the top gear we talk about like oh can he get to a top gear a rare gear with speed with with um with a chain the way that i would describe it is like gear number two where you get the ball and you're kind of you know like just going towards the line scrimmage seeing where the space is going to go open up gear two is like faster than linebackers in a complete sprint for this guy so his his natural speed is just faster than everybody else there's no doubt about it he's a home run hit the second that he touches the football he's also an absolute ankle eraser with his speed yep and that and when

i said ankle what i actually meant to say is angle because i can't speak which is i'm on a podcast full time i should probably be able to do that you watch safeties come down to try to cut him off and they'll go, oh no, when they get like three feet from him because he's about to blow straight by him. And he does that so many times. And I think that's where certainly his biggest strength is his weaknesses to me. You mentioned it. Smaller frame goes down easy with contact. Now I want to give a chain his props.

He fights for it he does he's there there are a handful of plays where he did get through a tackle when it was an arm tackle and i went hey dude good like good for you just be he knows he's smaller but he keeps those legs churning some small backs they go i'm small i'm going down anyways and they don't give it effort he does problem is there's only so much you could do to overcome for being like 180 185 so if he doesn't pack some more pounds on he's just always going to be easy to bring down and that's kind of what that's a give and take with speed players if you will the other thing that i noticed and not that this is a massive deal but so many of his snaps came from the shotgun next to the next to the quarterback and that's just that's what texas a&m does it's their offense and not that it's a terrible thing but i

think he took like 65 of his rushing snaps from the shotgun like in a significant amount a majority from that from that uh from that alignment so that's just what he's used to being right there next to the quarterback and getting the hand off that way and i wonder if there's going to be a little bit of a learning curve when it comes to taking it from a quarterback being under center or him just being behind the quarterback maybe in a pistol formation something if there's going to be a adjustment there something i noticed with his alignment the speed's there man but i just i i couldn't get there's so many good running backs in this class that might have that kind of like total package thing that because a chain doesn't have it yet,

I'm not willing to bet on just the speed over the overall talent of the rest of this group, which I think is really high. But I think the fact that I have a chain outside of my top five speaks to how talented I believe this running back class is because there are a lot of other running back class in the past last year's probably one of them where I'd look at his speed and I'd look at that speed trump card and I'd be like you are you are the number three back in this class no worse doesn't matter and I think it's just kind of speaks to what I think is the the overall skill of this running back group that I would have a player

of that speed caliber that low. How many Javid best comps do we get on A-Chain this year? All of them. Probably all of them. Probably all of them. Yeah, I like it. I like what you said, though. I mean, he can explode.

And it's a team that knows how to run block. It's a doorway wide open for him. Do they have another good running back they're going to split him with? I'm sure they do. I'm sure they do. Texas, A&M. They always have a big recruit behind one now. A&M just had the number one recruiting class in the country.

Yeah, so I'm sure they do. Devin Achain, Amari Daniels. He's a sophomore. I don't know who this is. He's probably the next GOAT. I don't know. You know, who knows. Texas A&M just got freaks that come through the football program.

He graded out. He had a 91 Russian grade from PFF. Achain? Yeah. Yeah, which is pretty silly when you stack him next to everyone else it's an elite grade so we'll see what he could do who do you uh i i'm i'm flabbergasted right now uh who are you who are you going with here well that's the guy that i said that i was going to talk about earlier when you had him in number five wow i love it brother sean tucker's awesome he's awesome dude sean tucker

is awesome five foot ten 210 pounds and you mentioned it you look at this guy in the back field and you go okay this is a well-built young man to quote my friend benjamin solak i mean like you could just see the way that he stands in the backfield and i mentioned it when we talked about him earlier when you said number five. When I looked at him, I went, all right, where's 34? Big ass dude. He's got that like, he's got that like high standing running back stance. So he looks like Nick Chubb back there. And I'm like, all right, this dude's just going to be a bruiser.

Like I'm about to watch some punishing football. And it took me five plays to be like, he is way more than that. All right, a little background information. You mentioned a lot about him him but three-star running back was just a three-star coming out of uh owings mills maryland you talked about the track background which we went over there but he wasn't even supposed to start man and he the only reason why he got his chance really and that sounds mean to him but at the time was because of some opt-outs and some injuries and he ends up having an unbelievable year gets the the nod, then gets the 1,500 rushing yard season.

Strengths of his game. I just have very first line, really, really like this player. Feels like he could be the total package as a ball carrier. He's got the size. He's got the speed combo that you want. He's also really light on his feet for a player of his size i thought his change of direction and how much wiggle he had moving and hopping from one spot to the other i thought was really impressive which to me pairs with his best trait connor and the reason why i have him at number two vision and patience man this dude understands how to play running back. He can either gear up to hit a hole as he sees the space coming,

or he can gear down, wait for a block to get where it needs to, so that he can make one guy miss and spring it into a longer run. That's how you get the high yards per carry averages. That's how you get up to 1,500 yards. It is not just the fact that he is big and he is strong and he is fast. He sees the field incredibly well and for me i know a lot of people ask about our scouting process for me the top most weighted trait for a running back that i look for is vision and patience how well you understand what is going

on around you and how you can operate the chaos in front of you you're blocking all that kinds of stuff so i thought he was fantastic there um i i would absolutely love him in a power blocking scheme because i think that he he understands the timing of all that so well and things can open up and i think that between the tackles as a runner he could really do a lot of damage and play really well not that he couldn't be a zone blocking guy as well even a wide zone things at times he could i think certainly do that but behind a power blocking offensive line i think that sean tucker would do fantastic now the weaknesses i have about his game for as natural and as light on his feet as he is when he has the ball in his hands he looks clunky as a receiver it's just i don't know

why it's just like he he looks very robotic it's almost like he's thinking too much like okay i gotta take five steps and then i I got to sink my hips, and then I got to make sure I turn to my right. And it's just like you almost see the hamster wheel turning in his head as he's running the routes. He just looks a lot more clunky, whether it's out of the backfield or on the line of scrimmage. And so I'd like to see him look a little bit more smooth,

a little bit more confident as a wide receiver out of the backfield. And as a blocker, I think really just the technique needs work. He needs reps. That's what he needs. I think that this is another area where he just needs confidence. When he gets the ball in his hands, he is an unbelievably confident football player. And when running routes and when being asked to pass block, he does not attack those assignments with nearly as much confidence, which he could. I think that he is fluid enough to be a good receiver. I think that certainly with reps, he can have reliable hands out of the backfield. And especially for pass blocking, man, this dude's got the strength.

He's got the size. He can line up safeties and linebackers and even defensive ends, chipping with offensive tackles and tight ends. So he can do all of that. He's just not as confident with it right now. And I think that when that stuff, which is fully correctable, a a lot more reps under his belt he can look a lot better with that when you give me that kind of a player in those third down situations with what i'm already seeing as a ball carrier that's a full-time back in the nfl man i think that he i was extremely impressed

knew nothing about the player before going into summer scouting outside of the fact that he rushed for a lot of yards last year pleasantly surprised really love what i watched one yeah the cues fans were really excited for us to talk about him on this show and the hype and the excitement was warranted and justified it really was yeah it was he was top five man yeah he he was i guess the player and definitely for you that i was the most pleasantly surprised by yep like i had i had i've seen deuce play um i've heard so much about him i i loved watching him he was even better than i thought but tucker was the one where if you just asked me to write down my top five from broadcast watching last year

without actually doing a summer film review i would never think in a million years to have him on there then you actually grind the tape and figure out the kind of player he is and you're like this dude is awesome he's awesome so this is this is my favorite part about summer scouting is finding players like him um all right so number one anybody we got the same number one we got the same number one we got the same number one which is the first time on today's show that we have similar rankings which is crazy oh wow you're right yeah so nice i mean nobody should be surprised that B. John Robinson is... Wait.

No, I'm just kidding. I was like, are you sure? Not in your top five? I love Mo. I really do. I think he's got great game, but I just wanted to pull a fast one on Connor, and that was the first name that came to my mind. That actually really scared me for a second.

Man, what can you say? I mean, what, this is me and you were texting about him and it's, I'm truly excited to watch how people are going to deal with him throughout this process. If he has the kind of season that we think he's going to have where the no first round running back situation is going to be tested. He's just the kind of player this guy is let's just get right into it i mean six foot 221 he will not turn 21 years old um till the end of january so throughout the draft process so a young player the first player in arizona high school football history to twice win the ed

darty award as the state's top high school football player so he did that twice first guy to do that damn easy gas as soon as he touches the ball but also excellent stop and start ability a steak knife cutting through butter in the open field what a reference yes has has excellent speed to bounce runs outside they use them in the slot they even use them at real actual outside wide receiver for screens uh so explosive as a catch and run threat he changes gears with literally no delay i just this dude is not just a running back he is the definition of an offensive weapon yep that can be literally how you define your offense in every aspect of it. And honestly, Trev, I'll throw an early comp at you. The first thing I really thought of,

and these are all subject to change, but I always like thinking, what is the first player I think of after I watch four games of this guy? And there's a lot of healthy Todd Gurley in his game. And remember how good Todd Gurley was when Gurley was kind of healthy and McVay got there and started to use him as a receiver so much and use him as this running back. Robinson is that kind of talent. Gurley was the 10th overall pick. That's how talented he was. Robinson is that kind of talent that Gurley once possessed before he got

really banged up. And it's incredible, dude. It's, I will be floored if this guy, assuming everything goes okay this year, isn't a top 15 player for everybody. And when you have him in the top 15,

I'll say this right now. At this point, I would be surprised if an NFL team does not select him in the first round. I can sit here and- Oh, Lord. Yes. Yeah. He's going to go in the first round.

Sitting here in June 2022- He's too good. He's going to go in the first round. Sitting here in June 2022. He's too good. He's too talented. He is too good. And I would love to hear your thoughts on him. Yeah. I mean, going back to some high school stats, I mean, you're talking about him winning back-to-back years of the awards

as a junior and senior. Dude, he rushed for over 2,000 yards in three consecutive seasons. It's like Boobie Miles in real life. Sophomore, junior, and senior seasons of high school. He rushed for over 2 000 yards in all three of them in fact he averaged 14 yards per carry as a junior and then averaged 17 yards per carry as a senior 17 yards per carry it's insane man that's wild the the high school stats would just absolutely floor you.

Hey, we need a first down. Okay, let's just hand it to B. John. He'll do overkill. He'll get 17 yards. Just unbelievable, man. Can't even kill clock with him. He can't. He's too good.

He can't kill the clock. Maybe that's the weakness that I need to write under the strengths and weaknesses tab. So the strengths, it's a lot of the same things that you highlighted man unique unique and i mean that yeah start to stop yep ability for this player of his size i mean this is a guy who brings a lot of power to his profile can give you that home run speed but so much more important than that when he when he attacks the line of scrimmage and when there is so much clutter going on defensive lineman offensive lineman falling going off balance trying to move

each other off a spot and this guy's got to react immediately he can hop all the way from one gap to another in the blink of an eye put his foot in the ground is with his next step and continue moving forward that is just i saw that time and time again and that's what makes this player so special is what he can do in a small amount of space the vision is very clear and his decision making is so quick thanks to the good anticipation the uh the very nimble footwork how he's approaching the point of contact the line scrimmage acceleration also extremely impressive um i i also love dude the acceleration is i mean he's up to full speed in three or four steps. I mean, this dude can attack the line of scrimmage, fully hop from one gap to the other,

and then within three steps almost be at top speed after that. I mean, you are burning everybody at that point. Texas lined him up as a wide receiver as well at times. And, oh, Lord, I can't remember which game was it it might have been the texas tech game i know what yep where they lined him up as a receiver and you remember you remember that christian mccaffrey clip like many years ago where they had him on a linebacker and he that lineback that oh man that poor linebacker looked about as helpless as you possibly can as christian mccaffrey caught that ball put a move on him and ran for a touchdown that is what Bijan Robinson did from the slot and I saw that play and I went that was what Christian

McCaffrey did at Stanford and I'm not saying that that's a full comp for him but it goes back to the overall offensive weapon that you talked about his usage though should be like McCaffrey for I think so for sure yeah for sure it should and he that's when you get into that justifiable realm of first round picks when you have a player who can change your offense in so many different ways in which i believe bijan robinson is definitely able to do the weakness honestly the only weakness that i've got for him right now is pass protection and again it's kind of the same thing as sean tucker he just does not attack it with as much confidence as he should or could, both, honestly, because he's got the frame.

He's got the strength to be able to do it. He's just a little bit timid in how he goes into it. And it's very common to see from underclassmen running backs, unless that is how you get on the field, then it's very very common to see running backs not really have a refinement or even a passion at this point for pass blocking before they get into their eligible junior and senior season so i think that that's something that's fully correctable but bijan robinson from texas without a doubt clearly rb1 in this class

fantastic player and one that you and i agree on uh i think is a future first rounder absolutely he would be a top five player on my big board today top eight i'm trying to really go through it in my head real quick obviously will anderson comes to mind i'm doing it i'm doing a big board i told myself i told myself that i was going to do the big board a little bit different this year and i'm i am doing a big board. I told myself that I was going to do the big board a little bit different this year, and I am doing a full preseason big board, and I'm just doing it only for the players

that we do film reviews on. I'm not even allowing myself to put a guy on there who I watched a broadcast film. I'm going to try to be really strict with it this year. I like that. My big board right now is 16 or 17 players players and it's just quarterbacks and running backs which is funny to look at right now but as the summer goes on i'm going to fill it out more and shoot man i've never had a 100 player preseason big board but i might have that at the end of the uh at the end

of the cycle for us to go over before we get into the season which would be new for me this process is awesome i mean the fact that we're sitting here today and we already have 10 quarterbacks, 10-plus running backs under our belt with legitimate scouting notes, tape study, background study. It's going to be fascinating to go into the fall where I could usually get through 50 to 80 guys, and this year I'm going to blow that out of the water

coming into September. And, you know, power of ultimate you know power of ultimate the power of ultimate baby this is my first summer with pff ultimate same and we are we are we're living our best life not to not to brag on the podcast but when you're a one-man scouting department like you are a one man scouting department, like I am right. Having the best program in the world helps study and analytics kind of goes a long way. Kind of goes a long way that it does. Good times. All right.

So since we watch more than just the five running backs that we talked about here, I know we mentioned a couple that weren't in my top five, not in your top five, but is there anybody else that you watch that you got some notes on that we could hit kind of rapid fire here just to give some people some, some background info, some notes on our thoughts and some of these guys? Sure. So Tank Bigsby from Auburn. I watched him. He's going to be a name you hear about a lot of former five-star SEC freshman of the year in 2020, right? Had a big 2021 plays with a lot of

fire and heart, heart strong lower body defenders bounce off him drives his legs for extra yards consistently got a little too bounce happy going bouncing into the outside and he has pretty average speed four fumbles in 2021 would like to see him hold on to the football yeah um yeah of course go ahead i was just gonna say something on tank bakesby it's it sounds really mean to say it like this, but I was, I think, the most disappointed with Bigsby because I thought he was a player who, dude, he's and i think that you see that within a lot of his highlight runs and how he can break some of these tackles and how he can really take a crease and again like i've said for so many of these guys have that home run ability taking a mile if you will but you're right the ball security he definitely has got to get that cleaned up and then

i think he wants to get north to south so bad that it comes off as like a lack of patience i felt like there were so many times when the blocks were still kind of forming around him and He wants to get north to south so bad that it comes off as like a lack of patience. I felt like there were so many times when the blocks were still kind of forming around him. And he was just like, nah, I got to go. Like, I got to do it. Like, I got to move now. He's running into contact. That also lent itself to him bouncing things to the outside. Probably a little bit before he needed to, like you said there.

And I am really looking forward to seeing what Tank Bigsby does this next year. Because the talent level, I see it, man. It's really high. But there's just – he's got to get more patient, and he's just got to kind of hone in on the finer details. You've got to take care of the football. You've got to get more patient. If you do, this guy is – like I said, he moves very different.

I think he could be a potential top five back in this class. It's just got to – it's got to look more controlled than it did. I think that's the best way I could put it. It's got to be more controlled than what it was last season. I think that's right. And there'll be a lot of people that project him as a top five back in this class coming out of summer, but obviously neither you or I have done that. The last one I'll throw in on the show today that I wrote a lot of notes on that won't surprise anyone is Zach Charbonnet from UCLA transferred from Michigan. 6'1", 220. The only, I think, the only senior running back I watched for this exercise.

There's a couple of senior running backs that I've watched before that weren't on this show today. But he was the guy I watched where, you know, the underclassmen running back class is always really, really good. Charbonnet is probably going to be the headliner of the seniors. He's someone that, it was funny to me, he looks like a Michigan transfer playing in the Pac-12. He's huge. He looks nothing like a Pac-12 running back at all.

He really doesn't. That's funny. It looks hilarious on tape how out of place he looks because of how jacked he is, how tall he is, how big he is. That's kind of what you see is what you get with him. He runs through tacklers with pure power and stiff arms. He's just a pinball runner. He

bounces off people. He ran into a wall and then he picks his head up and then he changes direction and he just keeps going, so it works for him. Doesn't have a top-end gear, but he does have good feel. He follows his blocks really well into contact. 69 missed tackles forced in 2021. That's a really good translatable number for him.

Targeted 25 times, 23 catches with one drop for 181 yards. So obviously not doing a ton of damage in the pass game, but a name that you will hear a lot this year. Yeah, notes I had on Zach Charbonnet.net i mean the legs never stop churning man not for one second this guy's 220 pounds and he makes you feel every single pound of that when you are trying to take him down he makes you work for that every single time and you love to see that from a bigger back again when i talked at the very beginning of the podcast, you look at a lot of guys' physical profiles and you go, okay, I got to see this from you.

Zach Charbonnet was one of those players in my own where I looked at him and I said, okay, you're big. You better play like you're big. He does. He gives you that strength profile. He gives you that tackle breaking, that ability to run through contact, that trucking ability, all that kind of stuff. He's got fantastic contact balance for a player that is as big as he is so you love that as well uh sometimes those

guys who are taller or just kind of like these brute like lower the shoulder guys or stiff arm guys but when the contact actually comes into their midsection sometimes they could just go down easier than you thought zach charbonnet is not that kind of a player i think he's got a great core great contact balance too he's got nice athleticism for a big man rusher and I don't want to like take that away from him but when I watch him and even like his biggest home run hitting play some of the stuff that he did earlier in the season I'm like all right that worked in the Pac-12 he's not gonna wear like it's Like, that play is not going to happen in the NFL like that. He's not going to give you that same, at least I don't think,

not the way that I saw it there. I don't think that he's going to give you that home run threat ability in the NFL like he can threaten to do playing in the Pac-12. And he played at Michigan, and he started as a true freshman, and then all of a sudden they just stopped giving him the football. That's all I could kind of find unless somebody else knows that story past that i mean i know they started to give hassan haskins the ball same player but the same player they just they just like stopped giving him the ball and um zach charbonnet being

from california kind of took that as a chance to be like okay i guess they're not believing in me anymore went to a school ucla here i'll here. I'll go home. I recruited him. It's good for him. It's worked. It's true. That's definitely true. Those are the two guys that we didn't talk about. I talked about Blake Corum, but he was in my top three already.

Wait, what was the other guy? Dwayne McBride from UAB. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He's a bruiser. I mean, he's a power runner, kind of compact power runner. The thing that really stuck out with him was he forced 78 missed tackles in 2021. So playing against some lower level of competition, he ran over a lot of defenders. You want to see it?

Not overly elusive, but just so much power and took advantage against that smaller level of competition. He did play against Georgia. So if you want to watch him against Georgia, you'll have that opportunity as well uh fumbled four times in 2021 now that was you know a not so good thing but yeah he's a bit of a bruiser so he's a fun watch but um i just didn't see an ultra athlete in a sense where he would crack the top five a lot of other names in this running back class man it feels like that's the case every year but mo ibrahim from minnesota eric gray from oklahoma who i liked a lot coming out of tennessee when he transferred over to oklahoma he did not have the year that i thought he would we'll see if they lean on him more this year with a coaching

change and things like that but i thought he was a dynamic player so i'm looking forward to watching him this year kennel milton at georgia chris rodriguez at kentucky the big bruiser there noah kane at penn state lynnjay Dixon at Clemson uh could be a feature guy in that offense in a big way this upcoming year so there's a ton of running back Travis Dye uh transferred I didn't even realize he transferred from Oregon to USC so when you look at what you're saying that also just broke the news to me that he transferred from Oregon to USC didn't Travis Dye have like four carries for four touchdowns or something one game probably yeah now I gotta look this up he had over 3,000 yards in four years at Oregon so he played he's played a lot of football and he I think has gone on record saying he would have not

he would not have left Oregon if the coaching changes didn't happen there but when Cristobal left he took the opportunity to go to USC and and I think it's going to work out really well for him. Okay, it was the UCLA game. He ended with 14 carries and four touchdowns, but I'm pretty sure at one point he had like four carries for four touchdowns. That's incredible. No, no, but he only had 35 yards total in the game. So it was like four carries, four touchdowns for like six yards. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And like that was it, which is the funniest outline that I've seen. So yeah, Travis Dye as well. He's another player. A lot of really great running backs for you guys to choose from when you're looking at them, whether you want to look at the same guys that we watched here. We would love to hear your thoughts on all these players. Same thing as quarterback.

Same thing as the rest of these positions as we go through summer scouting. Let us know in the comment sections. Tweet at us as well. We'll be able to see that. But the comment section stuff on YouTube definitely helps us out if you want to be able to do that we're both taking a look at that all the time i try to respond as much as i can yeah so if you guys got thoughts on our takes or you got takes your own about this running back class we would love to hear from you there uh next episode it's a monday normally that would mean a mock draft Monday.

But this Monday, we're switching up, and it's going to be a mailbag Monday. So if you were like, hey, where was the question of the day this episode? We're giving you like a full episode on Monday of basically just like question of the day stuff. So everybody who complains that we don't talk enough football, maybe don't listen to the episode

or listen to the episode and give us a download. There's the episode questions there's gonna be times you are bracing them i am right you know this episode i'm look it's gonna be fun as hell man we're gonna have a blast with it we haven't done a full mailbag episode yet we've already got a ton of the questions and you guys are absolutely lighting it up with fantastic questions so it's gonna be a lot of fun that that episode's gonna be an hour hour plus as well. So we're going to get into that and have a good time with it. But yeah, so full transparency. We're recording that episode early

because you're leaving for vacation. I'm leaving to go up to New York. So when that Monday episode comes out, one of our hockey teams could be eliminated and we might not even know it. We're not going to be able to react because we're pre-taming it. So if you do watch and you go,

wow, how did you guys not respond to, or if there is a game seven, how are you not talking about it? We don't know. We can't time travel. We don't know. I am going to. Or can we time travel?

Who knows? I'm going to Montreal for a bachelor party, and Trevor is coming to New York, and then I will be back in time that we are going to be able to sync together and get some dinner and keep the good times going. Love to see you. Monday will be a little pre-taped,

but it won't feel dated because the questions... No, no. I've already read them as we sit here. They're unbelievable. It's going to be a blast, and we're going to try to take these mailbag formats are un i've already read them as we sit here they're unbelievable it's it's gonna it's gonna be a blast and we're gonna try to take these mailbag formats and kind of get consistent with the episode because we have so much fun interacting with you guys we really do and we said it from the very beginning on this podcast it's not just us talking to you guys it's a full conversation we're

all hanging out it's a big forum to talk about football and so many other things and uh y'all getting involved makes this show a lot more fun for us. So it's going to be a lot of fan involvement from you guys. We can't wait for it. We'll see you guys on Monday. Thank you.