What Actually Matters When Evaluating Running Backs

Hello, hello!

Never a dull moment in this league! I’ll touch on the biggest transactions of the week later in this email with two All-Pros on the move via trade, but I wanted this week’s focus to be on the running back position. Obviously this was a really, really weak class overall in the 2026 Draft after a very strong 2025 cycle. Early returns on the 2027 group point to it being somewhere in between; I don’t think there’s a player of Jeremiyah Love’s caliber, but there seem to be more talents that will be in the Day 2 discussion than there were a few weeks ago.I’ve already written up a couple of these players, but what are the traits I’m most focused on? What stats do I look at? What are the things that I have to consider as I’m writing up their projection to the league? I wanted to share that (and more) with you this week.

FIVE CRITICAL FACTORS

Every player I write up gets graded on a 5-point scale in 20 categories, and those scores are weight-adjusted to spit out a final grade. That grade helps to sort players out inside of their individual stacks on the horizontal draft board (check back in a previous email to see how that board comes together). Here are the five most important traits for me in my scale:

1 - VISION

Call it ‘vision'. Call it ‘instincts.’ Call it ‘processing.’ Call it ‘decision making.’ Call it whatever you want, but it’s hard to be a consistently productive running back if you don’t have it. This is obviously an umbrella term that canvases a LOT of what we see on tape, literally on every carry. So it’s important to understand what a running back’s general job is supposed to be on any given run play. What is he reading? Who is he keying off of? What he’s asked to do on ‘outside zone’ is different than ‘counter’ or ‘trap’. 

I think this is the most important quality for a good running back to have and, generally, if he’s lacking in this area I struggle giving him a starting grade. I don’t think it’s an area where players get all that much better when moving from college to the NFL. More decisive? Sure. More willing to work between the tackles? That can be drilled into a player. But the feel for navigating through traffic and leveraging his vision to get skinny in a hole and find daylight is not an area where I have seen many players get better. 

Ezekiel Elliott had one of the highest grades I’ve ever given a running back, and his vision was a big reason why. This is directly from my report back in 2016:

2 - COMPETITIVENESS

This is basically a non-negotiable for me across the board at nearly every position; it’s something I put a big priority on. Does he consistently fight for extra yardage? How does he battle through contact? Working in traffic between the tackles is as much mental as it is physical (if not more), and I believe you have to have that mentality if you’re going to be used as, at least, a primary back in the NFL - but certainly as a foundation player on offense. 

That is why I do like to see players that show the ability to carry the load in games every now and again at the college level. It was one of the few knocks I had on Love this time a year ago, where he did not have many games at all where he touched the ball at least 20 times. That changed this year, as he became the foundation of that offense, and that was one fear I was able to put to bed. 

How does a guy perform against the best defenses on the schedule? How does he run the ball in the low red zone? Third down? Fourth quarter? Those are some little things I look for as well.

Side note: I recently studied Florida RB Jadan Baugh (a rising junior who made it to multiple ‘too early Mock Drafts’ this spring, and his competitiveness really stood out. I fell short of giving him a clear starting grade based off last year’s tape, but he’s an NFL player all day. His competitiveness and play strength really stand out.

3 - BALL SECURITY

This is a tricky one, because it’s the one thing that running back coaches ALWAYS bring up when you talk to them about things they prioritize at the position. When young players get sent to the bench, ball security is almost always the prime culprit. I track the number of fumbles a player has in his career, but whenever possible I always go back and watch those fumbles, because not all of them are created equal. 

Guys are going to cough the ball up; that happens. Is there a consistent throughline with them? Do they all happen in traffic? Or were they dropped toss plays? Should they have been credited to the quarterback instead of the running back? Are they on option plays? I try to find any threads that I can and provide that context in the report, but the aspect of ball security is absolutely important.

4 - SHORT AREA-BURST

Of all athletic traits, this is the most important one for running backs; burst and acceleration. Do you have that ability to shift up to top gear when you see a crease? Does a guy have one-step quickness or does it take a few steps to get up to the top speed? If you’re just a one-speed back, you can last in the league, but it’s tough to be a high-end contributor. 

I loved Devin Singletary when he was coming out of FAU; he made people miss, he was decisive and competitive; a really well-rounded player. But he wasn’t big and he wasn’t fast. He lacked an extra gear. He’s stuck in the league for a while as a backup and serviceable contributor, but he never cleared that ‘full-time starter’ plateau.

You obviously can see that burst on tape, but you can also glean this trait from GPS data, weight-adjusted athletic testing, and production. I look at how often a back turns a run into an explosive play. I look at how much of his yardage comes on those explosives. Ideally, an explosive back is able to check off a number of these boxes.

5 - MAKE-YOU-MISS ABILITY

I actually grade this out in three separate areas, but I’m combining the three here for the purpose of this piece. The three: wiggle, contact balance and what I call ‘creativity’. Some backs check multiple boxes, others check just one, and some zero. The ultimate goal is to make, at least, the first unblocked defender miss. I don’t care how you do it, but can you get it done? 

With wiggle, does he show the natural lateral agility to jump cut, improvise and find space to work. Are you slippery enough to execute a subtle side step in the hole and elude a defender? Can you make the guy miss in a phone booth? No one was better at this in the modern NFL than LeSean McCoy, in my opinion. He’s the gold standard for me. 

For contact balance, this is related to a guy’s play strength. Do tackle attempts fall short? Can he force his way through arm tackles, or is he always going down from the first guy that touches him? There is a difference between contact balance and power; the latter of which is the ability to drive defenders and piles backwards on contact. That’s nice to have, but not as important as the former, in my opinion. 

And then there’s the creativity, and that’s just cataloging all of the other ways that a ball carrier can make a defender miss. Does he use the stiff arm to keep a defender at bay? Does he flash a stumble bum, using his arm as a third leg to keep himself from going to the ground? How is his spin move? 

There are a number of stats that I look at that chart things like this. What percentage of a guy’s yards come after contact? That can be telling, but it can also be tricky. Former second-round pick Cam Akers was really high in that number (79.3 percent!!) but a lot of that was because he ran behind a terrible offensive line, so he was getting hit in the backfield constantly. He was closer to the median in areas like ‘yards after contact per attempt’ and PFF’s ‘elusive rating’ (a proprietary formula they use to grade a running back independent of the blocking in front of him; Ashton Jeanty, Bijan Robinson and Javonte Williams had three of the top five scores in that category since they started using it).

Obviously there are other categories I grade as well, whether it’s pass protection, receiving ability, top-end speed, pad level, etc. but those are the five that I deem to be the most important.

This is always a topic of conversation at this position, and it’s something I’ve written about before, but there’s a reason why. Just two running backs right now make at least $18 million annually (Saquon Barkley and Christian McCaffrey). I do expect that to change once Jahmyr Gibbs and Bijan Robinson get their extensions, but that’s the number right now. 

There are currently 26 wide receivers above that number, with a handful still to come. Jakobi Meyers gets paid more than CMC does. The Eagles are paying more to WR Dontayvion Wicks than the Bills are James Cook (who signed last summer). The Jets just extended Breece Hall at $15 million APY, which comes in under Wan’Dale Robinson’s contract with the Titans ($17.5 million). It’s just the nature of the position at this moment. 

Could that change? Potentially. Until then, you can count on it being a topic of conversation every spring.

Traits-wise, one thing of note as far as what projects the best staying power? Size. If you look at the players that do sign second-contracts and get paid real money because of their lasting impact upon arrival in the league, most of them are north of 200 pounds. Devon Achane is an exception to this, but the NFL proves in the draft, and in free agency, that they want their backs to have some built-in body armor.

Over the last ten years, the average number of backs selected in the draft is 21.0. That number has dropped to 19.8 in the last five drafts. One potential reason for that is the change in the number of underclassmen who enter the league every year. The 10-year average at running back is 12, but the 5-year average has dropped to 9.6. It’s probably not a coincidence that those numbers appear directly correlated.

I track 48 different data points on players at every position, and have numbers from the last ten drafts to provide contextual value at each number. These data points cover things like body type (including height, weight and arm length), playing time (games started and snaps played on offense, defense and special teams), alignment (receiving snaps in the slot, defensive linemen reps in the B Gap or defensive back plays in the box), production (such as sacks, catches, or rushing yards) and efficiency metrics from various services (including pressure rate, run stops, yards per route run, etc).

On top of that, I color code them in my sheet. So the moment I plug a number in, I’m able to see how good (or bad) that number is, comparatively, to other players drafted at that position in the last ten years.

So when I pull that player up in my notes, I can see the wide variety of areas where he may be an outlier, positively or negatively. When those outliers exist, I plug them into the Draft Guide under the section ‘Numbers That Matter’, so that you’re all able to see where a player may stand out in one way, shape or form. I want to make this point clear - I don’t look at any one number as ‘predictive’ of future success, more so that it can be ‘descriptive’ of what we’ve seen from them on tape.

At running back, one number I like looking at is the percentage of runs and yards gained against ‘light boxes’. This is a number that we look at on the NFL-end of things with NextGenStats; they define a ‘light box’ as a box that contains six-or-fewer defenders. So, when I’m looking at a running back throughout his career, how many of his carries came against a light box? How much of his yardage? 

Let’s focus on the percentage of yards gained against light boxes. Here is each projected starting running back across the NFL this year, looking back at their time in college:

90th Percentile Or Above: 

80th Percentile Or Above:

50th Percentile Or Above:

50th Percentile Or Below:

20th Percentile Or Below:

10th Percentile Or Below:

Not Charted / Unavailable:

Overall, I have this number for 175 running backs drafted in the last decade; not just starters. I would say, directionally, a lot of the players that fell into the red of this category struggled with vision and decisiveness throughout their careers, with many not working out at all. It doesn’t necessarily mean that I want them to be in the green, but I want them to at least clear that 50% benchmark or so.

I love going back and self-scouting my reports to see where I did well and where I didn’t on recent evaluations. Here are four samples of recent running back reports that fit each criteria:

BIGGEST HIT IN MY TOP 30: BIJAN ROBINSON | TEXAS | 2023

Report: 2.5-year starter for the Horns in 2 different schemes. Big back with good athleticism and burst to create explosive runs, but he makes his money by creating hidden yardage for himself between the tackles. Makes defenders miss in every way possible. Strong back who is tough to get to the ground, he's capable of being the focal point on offense in specific games and taking over. He's a good receiver who can be used in a lot of ways out of the backfield, but his pass pro must improve if he's going to be counted on as an every-down back. That said, this is a scheme versatile player and a good starter in the NFL who is capable of being an All-Pro.

Takeaway: Similar to Love this year, I gave Bijan a Top 8 grade, even with positional value worked into the equation. I thought he was a slam dunk, and he was a player that I would have felt comfortable taking that high (depending on who else was on the board).  

BIGGEST MISS IN MY TOP 30: CLYDE EDWARDS-HELAIRE | LSU | 2020

Report: There aren't a lot of negatives with this kid. He's not the biggest or most explosive back, but he checks a lot of boxes. Don't overthink it. He can be a primary ball carrier in any scheme and will be very effective for a team that leverages his abilities as a pass catcher. At worst he's a role player on third down, but I think he can handle the load and be good through his first contract-plus. He's a player. 

Takeaway: I’ve only compared two players to Brian Westbrook in my time writing up players. The first was Christian McCaffrey. The second was CEH. So at least I’m batting .500 there. Really the only knock I had on him was that he was not the biggest or fastest. This was just a straight-forward miss. He was a Top 15 player for me that year.

I WAS RIGHT TO BE LOW ON THIS GUY: SONY MICHEL | GEORGIA | 2018

Report: He's not special in any one area but he's got pretty good tools and, in theory, three-down potential. To reach that I think he needs a scheme and situation where things are well defined up front. I lean more towards him being a backup and role player in the league rather than a primary ball carrier. 

Takeaway: Michel was my 98th player that year and he ended up being a first-round pick by the Patriots. I couldn’t believe he went ahead of his teammate Nick Chubb (who was in my Top 50). He was more athletic than Chubb, but one thing that stood out to me was that so many of his big plays were, in my opinion, more a result of them getting him in space as opposed to him finding his way there on his own.

I WAS TOO LOW ON THIS GUY: TRAVIS ETIENNE | CLEMSON | 2021

Report: Explosive, one-cut runner with solid vision and decisiveness downhill. I love the juice that he brings to an offense, and that will allow him to make big plays both in the run game and in the pass game. He's absolutely at his best when he's out in space. I have concerns with his make-you-miss and pass protection. He's not a true hammer, he's not a shake-and-bake guy in the hole. He's a little stiff in the lower half. He's a bit raw right now in the pass game from a route running standpoint. Still, with how dynamic he is, and with the work ethic he has, I see him being a high-floor role player with starting upside. He could be lightning in a bottle for someone, but he’s just not for me.

Takeaway: Etienne was my 55th player that year as a first-round pick, and I just wasn’t a believer. Like Michel, I acknowledged the upside. I had belief in his intangibles, but I struggle a bit with high-cut, straight-line running backs (I got burned on them earlier in my career and swore them off). To be honest, I think a lot of my issues with him do exist in the NFL, but there’s no denying that he has outperformed my grade.

I began a series of episodes exploring various archetypes of players within specific positions, kicking things off with the running back position. What specific skillsets are most prevalent in the NFL? What traits are overvalued? Which are undervalued? What does it mean for how we should be projecting players from college up to the league? I was joined by Matt Waldman of the Rookie Scouting Portfolio to explore all of that and more.

Lastly, I wanted to hit on the big trades of the week. I do think that these moves mostly made sense for all involved parties. 

Is trading away an All-Pro and future Hall of Famer ideal? No, but I do think this Myles Garrett trade makes sense for the Cleveland Browns. He is at the peak of his powers, is coming off a legendary season as the best player in football, and it still barely moved the needle for this football team. They had a Top 10 pick for a reason. Until they get the quarterback position right and get that offense rolling, they’re fighting a severely uphill battle. 

For the Los Angeles Rams, this pushes their chips in further to make another run at a title. I do think that the sentiment of them being the overwhelming Super Bowl favorite is a bit too far. We don’t have to look that far into the past to find a high-end Sean McVay offense paired with a defense that featured a dominant, All-World defensive lineman that you had to account for on every snap. It absolutely makes them one of the favorites in the NFC; I’m not down-playing the move - but let’s not crown them yet! This is a team that still has some fragility to it. Matthew Stafford stayed healthy last year after injury questions clouded the entire summer. Is that a guarantee this year? It’s hard to call it that. That’s why I actually like the Ty Simpson pick more now than I did a month ago. By trading away future first-round picks, you’ve eliminated a path to select a quarterback of the future. By getting Garrett (and Trent McDuffie), you’ve elevated the talent on your defense to a point where you’re almost certainly going to picking towards the back of the round anyway. Get Simpson to put on ice … and also keep him as an insurance policy. If Stafford (knock on wood) does miss extensive time due to injury, you have a fall-back option.

That trade caught everyone off guard. The AJ Brown trade did not. On New England’s side, Brown’s presence allows the other pieces to slide into a more comfortable slot on the depth chart. I like Romeo Doubs more as a No. 2 than as a No. 1-type of receiver for an offense. The other pieces can all fit into their complementary roles. That all adds up.

There’s been reporting that the Patriots valued Brown as a 2027 2nd-Round Pick, and so that’s how they landed on a 2028 1st-Round Pick. Personally, I view this as an antiquated way of looking at things, especially for a team like New England. Somewhere along the line, the idea that picks a year away get upgraded in value because of how far away they are became adopted as gospel in the NFL ecosystem. For some teams and franchises, that may be true. If you’re a decision maker with shaky job security and are in desperate need of a player, future picks aren’t as valuable to you. But a first-round pick is a first-round pick, whenever you make it. The Eagles traded a first-round pick for AJ Brown in 2022, got four 1,000-yard seasons, two Super Bowl appearances and one Lombardi Trophy during his tenure, and then flipped him for another first-round pick six years later after the situation became unsustainable. Clearly, Brown had reached a point of no return in regards to his wanting to be with the team. The Eagles maximized the return the best they could.

Best,

Fran Duffy

PS — I’m not sure which position I’ll cover next here. Wideout? Offensive line? I’ll take requests!