skinsinparadise wrote: Tue Apr 15, 2025 9:24 amAmong the RBs you mention. IMOThe Consigliere wrote: Mon Apr 14, 2025 2:04 pmMy big concerns with him are athleticism (not great, again) and I don't like that he did very little until his final year, and didn't really seem involved at all in the passing game. So, not sure what we have in him, but honestly, after Jeanty, and Hampton, all the backs have issues to some extent or another. It's just two of the guys you have have multiple issues in places that would freak me out (Skattebo with unplayable athletic traits/speed, Kaleb with similar but better athleticism issues, and a really odd lack of relevance until year 3).skinsinparadise wrote: Mon Apr 07, 2025 2:08 pmRB Kaleb Johnson, Iowa
Johnson didn’t quite have the athletic showing at the NFL Scouting Combine some expected, but his name still sneakily carries first-round potential simply because his tape at Iowa shows that there aren't many running backs with his combination of size and speed. Not great at beating stacked boxes.
Johnson’s height (6-foot-1), weight (224 pounds), wingspan (78 1/2 inches) and hand size (9 5/8 inches) were all above the 78th percentile for the position. His 4.57-second 40-yard dash placed him in just the 46th percentile, but weight-adjusting that score makes it just fine. Still, some were expecting more, and because of that, his stock seemed to cool.
But make no mistake, this is a big, explosive back who, behind a zone-heavy blocking scheme, could be a 1,000-yard back early in his rookie contract. Teams such as the Broncos and Steelers (teams that ran a heavy amount of zone in 2024) could at least consider him on Day 1. The Commanders, who deploy more of an even split between zone and man/gap run blocking, are also an intriguing landing spot.
https://www.pff.com/news/draft-2025-nfl ... ntent=null
But yeah, after Hampton and Jeanty are gone, everyone has an issue. Trey looks like a com back, and he's old, should have come out last year, Judkins doesn't play like a 4.4 rb, Kaleb was a nobody until last fall and is not an elite athlete, Skattebo is an unplayable athlete, for me, Sampson is a seemingly boom/bust guy, Tuten's pretty small, but a freak athlete, Giddins look interesting. but yeah, it's basically a draft with 2 RB's you can draft, set it, forget it, and then everybody is scary in a different way, from the slugs (Gordon, Neal, Skattebo), to the scary athlete types (Sampson, Tuten), to the mid looking guy in K. Johnson, to the way way way too freaking old in Harvey.
No Hampton and no Jeanty means we'll have no idea, but the '26 class for now looks so god awful, they should probably pull the trigger now. My guy would be Judkins, after that either Kaleb, or trade down for Giddins, or Sampson or Tuten, give me the athlete basically, but yeah, I'm not here convinced, the silly Breece Hall rumors I would do in a second (if cheap), he's a top 5 RB level talent when healthy, mega elite and to illustrate how old RJ Harvey is, he is older than Breece Hall right now, by 9 freaking months. So yeah, if we could pry Breece Hall off of them I'd do it without a second thought.
Henderson is 22, not that old. Strength -- explosive runner, fast, good pass catcher, good pass protector. Weakness: rotational back not a featured one, injuries.
Kaleb Johnson: His speed is fine for a back that size. Strength: Great vision in open field, good stiff arm and can break some long runs more so than most in the class. Weakness: so so as a pass catcher, not hot as a pass protector, more of a zone than gap runner in spite of his size so might need to be a scheme fit.
Skattebo: Similar speed to Bucky Irving, Kryen Williams. Speed isn't everything with the RB position especially if you major in physicality and contact balance and big time so like he does. Great hands -- major weapon in the passing game. Weakness: doesn't have breakaway speed, meh as a pass protector.
Tuten: Strengths: great speed, homerun threat, is feisty as to breaking tackles. Weaknesses: unproven as a pass catcher, bad pass protector, fumbles, most of his runs are to the outside, can he do it in between the tackles?
Giddens: Strengths: breakaway speed, has plenty of big runs, has some wiggle-east-west ability. Weaknesses: so so as a pass catcher, meh as a pass protector
Sampson: Strengths: breakaway speed, some wicked moves including a nice spin move, tough runner for a dude his size who is good in the red zone. Weakness: for a fast dude he doesn't have many breakaway runs, so so hands, so so pass protector.
RJ Harvey. Now he's indeed old.Strengths: All around back, can break tackles and can take it to the house, and good pass catcher. Weaknesses: pass protection. He takes a lot of his runs, arguably too much, to the outside will that work in the NFL?
Judkins: Strengths: physical runner who can grind yards against stacked boxes, very athletic for his dude his size, decent pass catcher, good pass protector. Weaknesses: he's not like for example Kaleb Johnson (raw speed isn't everything) as for breaking long runs -- once he gets to the 2nd level, he seems to get caught. Vision is questionable at times.
I wrote a nice big response to it yesterday and for whatever reason this site sometimes logs me out in the middle of trying to post stuff so it all went out into the ether. In lieu of that, I'm just gonna post short summaries of my thoughts.skinsinparadise wrote: Tue Apr 15, 2025 9:24 amAmong the RBs you mention. IMOThe Consigliere wrote: Mon Apr 14, 2025 2:04 pmMy big concerns with him are athleticism (not great, again) and I don't like that he did very little until his final year, and didn't really seem involved at all in the passing game. So, not sure what we have in him, but honestly, after Jeanty, and Hampton, all the backs have issues to some extent or another. It's just two of the guys you have have multiple issues in places that would freak me out (Skattebo with unplayable athletic traits/speed, Kaleb with similar but better athleticism issues, and a really odd lack of relevance until year 3).skinsinparadise wrote: Mon Apr 07, 2025 2:08 pmRB Kaleb Johnson, Iowa
Johnson didn’t quite have the athletic showing at the NFL Scouting Combine some expected, but his name still sneakily carries first-round potential simply because his tape at Iowa shows that there aren't many running backs with his combination of size and speed. Not great at beating stacked boxes.
Johnson’s height (6-foot-1), weight (224 pounds), wingspan (78 1/2 inches) and hand size (9 5/8 inches) were all above the 78th percentile for the position. His 4.57-second 40-yard dash placed him in just the 46th percentile, but weight-adjusting that score makes it just fine. Still, some were expecting more, and because of that, his stock seemed to cool.
But make no mistake, this is a big, explosive back who, behind a zone-heavy blocking scheme, could be a 1,000-yard back early in his rookie contract. Teams such as the Broncos and Steelers (teams that ran a heavy amount of zone in 2024) could at least consider him on Day 1. The Commanders, who deploy more of an even split between zone and man/gap run blocking, are also an intriguing landing spot.
https://www.pff.com/news/draft-2025-nfl ... ntent=null
But yeah, after Hampton and Jeanty are gone, everyone has an issue. Trey looks like a com back, and he's old, should have come out last year, Judkins doesn't play like a 4.4 rb, Kaleb was a nobody until last fall and is not an elite athlete, Skattebo is an unplayable athlete, for me, Sampson is a seemingly boom/bust guy, Tuten's pretty small, but a freak athlete, Giddins look interesting. but yeah, it's basically a draft with 2 RB's you can draft, set it, forget it, and then everybody is scary in a different way, from the slugs (Gordon, Neal, Skattebo), to the scary athlete types (Sampson, Tuten), to the mid looking guy in K. Johnson, to the way way way too freaking old in Harvey.
No Hampton and no Jeanty means we'll have no idea, but the '26 class for now looks so god awful, they should probably pull the trigger now. My guy would be Judkins, after that either Kaleb, or trade down for Giddins, or Sampson or Tuten, give me the athlete basically, but yeah, I'm not here convinced, the silly Breece Hall rumors I would do in a second (if cheap), he's a top 5 RB level talent when healthy, mega elite and to illustrate how old RJ Harvey is, he is older than Breece Hall right now, by 9 freaking months. So yeah, if we could pry Breece Hall off of them I'd do it without a second thought.
Henderson is 22, not that old. Strength -- explosive runner, fast, good pass catcher, good pass protector. Weakness: rotational back not a featured one, injuries.
Kaleb Johnson: His speed is fine for a back that size. Strength: Great vision in open field, good stiff arm and can break some long runs more so than most in the class. Weakness: so so as a pass catcher, not hot as a pass protector, more of a zone than gap runner in spite of his size so might need to be a scheme fit.
Skattebo: Similar speed to Bucky Irving, Kryen Williams. Speed isn't everything with the RB position especially if you major in physicality and contact balance and big time so like he does. Great hands -- major weapon in the passing game. Weakness: doesn't have breakaway speed, meh as a pass protector.
Tuten: Strengths: great speed, homerun threat, is feisty as to breaking tackles. Weaknesses: unproven as a pass catcher, bad pass protector, fumbles, most of his runs are to the outside, can he do it in between the tackles?
Giddens: Strengths: breakaway speed, has plenty of big runs, has some wiggle-east-west ability. Weaknesses: so so as a pass catcher, meh as a pass protector
Sampson: Strengths: breakaway speed, some wicked moves including a nice spin move, tough runner for a dude his size who is good in the red zone. Weakness: for a fast dude he doesn't have many breakaway runs, so so hands, so so pass protector.
RJ Harvey. Now he's indeed old.
Judkins: Strengths: physical runner who can grind yards against stacked boxes, very athletic for his dude his size, decent pass catcher, good pass protector. Weaknesses: he's not like for example Kaleb Johnson (raw speed isn't everything) as for breaking long runs -- once he gets to the 2nd level, he seems to get caught. Vision is questionable at times.
On the particular players:
Henderson: Agreed, he's too old for me and my interests in dynasty, but he's young enough to be viable as a day 2 pick. Use that pick and the rookie contract captures his age 23, 24, 25 and 26 seasons. I can live with that. I'd also add that he was a legit stud bell cow as an 18/19 year old at OSU in '21, and then they made him a committee back after that. I can only imagine he got dinged up repeatedly, but never suffered a serious injury, otherwise I do not understand why they cut down his touches because his best production and probably efficiency especially for age, was that '21 season. He's plenty athletic, and to me in a lot of ways is the one back after the first two, that fits what we want (bell cow ability, and game breaking athleticism you can see on the field).
Kaleb Johnson: He's basically a floor pick for me. I can't see him ever being elite, or a genuine difference maker, but his ceiling play is probably a rb that produces similar along the lines of maybe David Montgomery? My big concern is that I just don't see anything all that great. He's basically drafting Brian Robinson again, but probably a less athletic version. I'd be inclined to wait on RB for more high risk, low floor, higher ceiling guys like Sampson, and Brashard Smith etc. I just think we're getting more of the same. So I'd pass.
Skattebo: This is the part that really bugged me about my write up disappearing because I explained in detail about how I was well aware that Skattebo was a monster in '24. He's from Sac State, just down the road from me (more than that, but out west 110 miles away is nothing, and I live in the Lake Tahoe area (about 35 minutes from Squaw Valley/Palisades)) and he absolutely killed it in competition against previously non-Pac-10 squads like Mississippi State, Texas Tech through the air, murdering a 9-1 BYU, through the duel in the Desert with Arizona, crushing it versus Iowa State in the Conference Championship and then being the key element of Arizona state's comeback in a double OT heartbreaker in the semi-finals. It's why there's a tiny part of me that wonders if he's just turning it up a level on the field, but in the end, I tend to think he's just a AAAA superstar talent who is jumping so far in level that his athletic limitations will make his abilities untransferable. But am I leaving the door slightly ajar? Yes, but I also wouldn't land him because my concerns with the 4.65 threshold are that big (again, i don't care so much your specific time as I do whether you cut inside or outside athletic threshold requirements because historically nearly all RB's, and TE's that hit, are at those specific athletic profiles, WR is less correlated, although it also has thresholds). But the door is a teeny bit ajar, but yeah, it would be in a trade down for like a 5th or later, so likely he'd be gone by then.
Judkins: I'm resting my head a bit on that 1700 yard, 15 catch, 17 TD freshman season in the SEC. The fact that he could put up 2700 yards, 300 through the air, 30+ TD's as an 18/19 year old in the SEC at Ole Miss is pretty freaking nuts. He's my guy, though I worry the explosive angle may just not be there, just on a track.
Tuten/Giddens/Sampson/Harvey/Brashard:
These are the dart throw/hail mary/grand slam style swings, with Tuten being almost certainly no more than a sattelite, Giddens and Sampson having enough ceiling for me to prefer them at a much lower cost to spending 2nd round capital on Trey, or probably Kaleb (I imagine Kaleb goes 35-75 zone). If you can trade down and get Giddens or Sampson in mid round 3, I definitely prefer that, if you can trade even further down for Brashard, I think about that.
Harvey's age makes him a non-starter for me period, he's going to basically turn 26 around the Super Bowl after his second season, that is just super concerning to me. I'd rather go after the other guys.
I will also note: the other great classes of the past decade after the '09-'14 drought were just so much easier and smarter to play.
In '15 you got your guy early, or forget it.
In '16 it was basically a barren wasteland beyond Zeke and Henry.
In '17 it was super top heavy, and also filled with intriguing round 4 and 5 dart throws (Aaron jones and Marlon Mack, and I think McNichols).
In '18 it was loaded through two rounds (though most ended up busting)
In '19 it just sucked: Josh Jacobs was a pure projection play, Monty was the floor bet grinder, Miles Sanders had the analytical world aflame, with the "he was just stuck behind Saquon," much like Brooks and Bijan in the '24 and '23 classes.
In '20 it was loaded again if a bit top heavy.
'21 and '22 and '23 were classes where you had two guys in each and then a big big drop off.
'24 just flat out sucked with just Brooks with his ACL and Benson with attractive grades.
But '25? Its just freaking weird, you've got 2 guys with first round grades, then you've got a secondary pile that are clearly and emphatically a step down and then speculative guys that almost uniformly lower floors and higher ceilings than the 35-85 guys (Judkins, Kaleb, Trey). So it kinda feels like Jeanty and Hampton are set it and forget its, the 2nd round guys are probably committee guys, or guys with high floors but no stardom in the future, and then it's blind folded prayers.