5 Rookie Running Backs You SHOULD Be Drafting in Fantasy Football

If you play fantasy football, you are in the right place because today we are breaking down the five rookie running backs you should be drafting this year. Rookies are one of the biggest edges in all of fantasy football. You don't know how they're going to perform 'cause you've never seen it before. And that's exactly why the five guys in this video are going to be so important this year. And let's start with a running back who's in an ambiguous backfield. Now, what does that big word mean? Oh my god, I'm taking a risk saying that at the beginning of the video. I hope you don't turn out. It just means backfields that are up in the air. There's not a clear RB1 in that backfield.

Kron Allen is out of Penn State. He landed on the Washington Commanders in the sixth round. Now, I know what you're saying. If you're a Jaori Kroski Merritt, a Bill fan, you're saying he's the obvious lead back. And I would say, okay, maybe on paper, there's a chance that JCM Jakori Krosky Merritt is going to be the early down back at least to start the year. But I do think that Kron Allen brings a skill set. This is a 5'11", 216-lb running back. The all-time leading rusher, by the way, not Saquon Barkley, not my Sanders, not Larry Johnson. It's Kron Allen from Penn State as the all-time leading rusher where last year he put up over 1300 yards alone. This is also a player who was a standout at the Senior Bowl for what's that for what that's worth. He did not test at the combine, but we do have him clocked at over 18 mph in terms of his speed. If you're talking about at 220 lbs, that's more than fine. I'm not worried about that at all. My guess as to why he didn't run at the combine is because if you're going to be running in the fours or potentially even like a a low 46, it's not going to look great next to all the guys running four threes and four fours. It's now the day and age at the combine where you just don't run if you don't run a fast time. It's as simple as that.

This was a guy who produced for four straight seasons at Penn State while competing with Nick Singleton, another running back who was drafted in this year's draft class. I'm talking about every single year of his career, having at least 850 rushing yards in the Big 10 at Penn State. In all four seasons, the production increased all the way up to 2024 where he had over 1100 yards, 10 touchdowns, five yards per carry, and then a career year this past year. Despite everything at Penn State, and I mean everything, going to they were the number one ranked team at one point uh to start the before the season in a lot of the AP polls. They were looking good to start the year, and then their coach gets fired. Drew Allar, the quarterback, tears his ACL. Everything goes to Despite all that, Kron Allen was still playing, was still had his head in the game. 6.2 yards per carry, a career-high, over 1300 rushing yards, 15 touchdowns. Now, is he going to be the best pass-catching running back? I mean, every single year in his college career, he was catching like 15 to 20 balls. So, he's solid in that department. He just happened to be in the backfield with a much better pass-catching running back and Nick Singleton. Allen also finished his college career on a tear. I mean, he had a good year at last year in general if you're going to have 1300 yards, but he really finished it strong when everybody else in Penn State was probably packing it in. The year was over. We definitely saw that out of Nick Singleton and some other players over there. Not Kron Allen. 25, 25, and 22 carries. turned that into 181 yards, 160 yards, and 226 yards to end his college career, scoring a touchdown in all these games, having a 40-plus yard touchdown. So, for a player that a lot of people are saying, "Oh, he's a big running back. He doesn't have speed." No, we have his mile per hour time, there's a reason why he was breaking off 30-plus yard touchdown runs last year like it was relatively nothing. Not one, but two, three, four, five different touchdown runs. Actually, six. If you look at the second game of the year where he had where he had a 67-yard touchdown, six different touchdown runs of at least 25-plus yards, that's explosiveness and there is some juice here with Kron Allen.

Now that's why the Commanders drafted him. But when you do look at it, Kron Allen going in the sixth round to me was kind of surprising. I thought he was a fourth or a fifth round running back. Again, this is a weaker running back draft class outside of the two Notre Dame running backs that went in round one. There was no round two running backs. There was only one round three running back. So, this was a weaker draft class. I thought Kron Allen would go a little bit higher because of that, because of the film that I saw because of the production, kind of surprising that he didn't. But when you see a lot of teams signing free agents in free agency this year because they hear that the running back draft class is a little bit weaker, including the team he landed on in the commander, signing two of them with Jerome Ford and Rashad White. It's not that shocking because a lot of teams just didn't need running backs. They handled that in free agency this year. And Kron Allen lands on a debt chart where again, like I said, there's not a true RB1 here. Do I think that Jakori Krosky Meritt will start the season as the early down runner? As of today, yes. We'll see what the camp battle looks like with Kron Allen and Jerome Ford. I definitely think that Rashad White, former teammate of his now quarterback Jaden Daniels in college at Arizona State. I do think that Rashad White is going to be the locked-in passing down back. If we look at all the running backs currently on this step chart, Jerome Ford, we can look at it right here. Jaori Krosky Merritt and now Kron Allen. Definitely definitely the best pass-catching running back is Rashad White and it's not even close. But this is the exact backfield that you want to target in fantasy. You want to target the cheapest, meaning they go the latest in fantasy drafts running back in an ambiguous or an uncertain backfield.

Now, for what it's worth, I will mention that the Commander offensive line probably gets a little bit worse. They lost their center this off-season. They really didn't bring in anybody of note in free agency in the NFL draft. They didn't bring in anything of note to the offensive line, just the center in Matt Goldman in the sixth round. So, overall, like this isn't going to be an improved offensive line, which of course isn't going to help a rookie. But Kron Allen last year, he ran behind a solid offensive line. Multiple of those players were drafted in this year's NFL draft, including a first-round guard, but it wasn't anything fantastic. And this was a player who was able to produce yards after contact and remain efficient with over six yards per carry and a bad Penn State offense last year or became bad once the coach and quarterback were fired and injured. It's also worth factoring in that last year, Jaden Daniels, well, he was banged up. He didn't play all that much. Heading into his third year, we're hoping for a healthier season, right? The awesome rookie year from Jayen Daniels. Last year, he only plays in seven games, of which he left multiple those early, or he was still kind of banged up in some of those games. We only saw like a month of a healthy Jaden Daniels all of last year. Hopefully that helps this Commander offense. That in my opinion when Jaden Daniels is healthy, the entire offense is going to elevate. They're going to get to the red zone. They're going to score more and the starting running back or at least a lead back on early downs, which could be Kron Allen, is going to benefit. So, at the end of the day, when I say you should be drafting a a Kron Allen, that's not me expecting or even projecting him to be the starter day one. I think it's going to be a backfield of Jakoroy Kimer, Rashad White, and Kron if he looks like the real deal or a solid player in camp could rise. This is the exact same team that allowed a seventh-round pick last year in Jakori Koskarit to become their lead back at times last year. So, it's not like they're against that just because you were a sixth-round pick.

Now, in terms of where I'm drafting Kron Allen, well, you just kind of have to look at where he's being drafted right now. Let's just pull him up on my top 250 baseball rankings. The were just updated in the blueprint. You can check it out at joinbloopprint.com. just one of the tools that you get in there. So if we look up Kron, if you look at Kron Allen right here, he's my 173rd overall player. He currently goes on average the average draft position ADP 185th overall. So I'm about a round higher on Kron Allen. So again, this is not draft Kron Allen as like your RB3 in fantasy this year. But in terms of the later round options, he's definitely a value right now.

Next up, let's talk about Jeremiah Love. This one seems rather obvious, but I'm pretty surprised to see where he's going in early drafts, best baseball drafts, reddrafts right now. Uh Jeremiah Love, top three overall pick to the Arizona Cardinals out of Notre Dame, 6 foot, 212 pounds. You probably know the name because he was a top five pick because he was the best running back in college football definitely last year and over the last two seasons overall in his college production, his athletic testing, everything just checks the box. 4.36 40 time. Didn't even have to run the 40. Got down to 212 lbs. Probably plays closer to like 216, 218, 220, but he ended up getting a little bit smaller. Ran the faster 40 time. 98th percentile for his time. Uh he was top three in terms of his 10-yard split. So, just his first step overall, athleticism, check. Size check. Production also great. Let's check it out. Over the last two seasons, despite not being a full-on workhorse back, because Jadarian Price, another first-round pick in this year's NFL draft, out of Notre Dame, was also in the backfield, only 163 carries in 2024, but averaged nearly 7 yards per attempt. Had over 1,000 rushing yards. Also ended up catching 28 balls that year. This past season, another 6.9 yards per attempt, almost 1,400 rushing yards, 21 touchdowns. So, that's 40 total touchdowns over the past two seasons. and just uh or another 27 catches had another 280 yards. So, this is a very productive player, almost 1,700 total yards. And the biggest thing, like outside of the obvious draft capital, the skills that are present there, he's going to be a smash top three overall pick in the draft. Only 199 carries last year, 163 the year before that, 71 the year before that. Like, this guy is relatively untouched. Like, when you're talking about not even 400 career college carries, what Derrick Henry, Jonathan Taylor specifically, was doing that in like almost one season at Wisconsin. So, he's going to be fresh coming into college as just or coming into the NFL as just a 20-year-old still as of this recording.

All these reasons are exactly why the Arizona Cardinals, who did not need a running back after signing Tyler Algier, restructuring uh James Connor just taking a third-round running back in Trey Benson a couple years ago, well, they took Jeremiah Love and now that's all that really matters. They have this investment in him. He's going to be one of the highest paid, well, the highest paid running back of all time in terms of fully guaranteed. $50.5 million fully guaranteed is by far the most in the league. It's like $15 more than Saquon Barkley's most recent contract where he got like 36 to $38 million guaranteed. Look, this is a stud player in terms of the game logs. Tough matchup to start here against Miami. But then against Texas A&M, over 100 total yards in a touchdown against a ranked USC team, 228 yards and a touchdown, a ranked Pitt team, 147 yards and a touchdown. He was basically dominant all season long. And now he lands on a depth chart that's very interesting. You have James Connor, the veteran here, who restructured his deal or he's actively trying to this off-season. You have Tyler Algier, who they just signed to a two-year deal, and he was hoping to be a lead back. Once again, he's not going to do that because he's sat behind Bijan Robinson, a stud young young running back. He's going to have to do the same. And then Trey Benson, who at this point looks like he's definitely going to be most likely, in my opinion, to cut candidate. If not him, it's going to be James Connor. Now, James Connor's contract specifically. There's really not much here. It's just a one-year deal. Like, I I believe they restructured this contract. A one-year deal, $3 million on average, but the guarantees on this contract, I think, are two million. So, like, if they really wanted to cut James Connor, they easily could. They're just going to eat about $2 million. Um, not much here. I think Connor probably is the one that makes sense unless it's just like a locker room thing. He's kind of like a captain here if they want to keep him around. And they value that more than having Trey Benson for another one or two years on his rookie deal. I'm not sure if they keep all four running backs. I'm not sure if that really makes sense for their roster when it comes to cutdowns. We'll know closer to the season. But what we do know is that Jeremiah Love is the obvious RB1 here and his biggest competition is probably going to be Tyler Algier.

Now, if you're not familiar, Tyler Algier only averaged 3.66 yards per carry last year. Um like had 14 total catches. He was competing with Bijan Robinson. So that's going to be part of it. He did get the short yardage stuff and a lot of red zone usage. Eight touchdowns last year for Algier despite playing next to Bijan Robinson. So maybe we see some more of that role this year. But from college, 40 touchdowns the last two years. Jeremiah Love had no problem finding the end zone, working in the short yards, working at the goal line. So it's yet to be seen. Like worst case, Tyler Algier is taking six to eight carries a game in some red zone usage. Still fine for Jeremiah Love. Best case, Tyler Algier is just a straight-up backup. Yeah, usually when running backs are taken this high and they're talented and exciting and he's actually going into, in my opinion, a decent offense with playmakers, Jacobe Brassette, quarterback, right? You got some of these other playmakers, Trey McBride, Marvin Harrison, Mike Wilson. Usually these running backs start to go very early in drafts, but as of right now, Jeremiah Love is a late second-round pick, 21st overall. I mean, this is where you were getting Chase Brown in drafts last year. Um, or he's actually going 24th overall, late second, early third. I have him 21st overall, so I'm a little bit ahead of the market there. I think he he has to be going sooner than this. You're talking about a guy going at the two-three turn. Ashton Genty in a worse situation last year just in terms of like what the offense looked like a year before, what the coaching staff was, the offensive line with the Raiders. That guy was going as like a top 10 pick in fantasy draft. So, as a late second, potentially even early third-round pick, I'm totally in on Jeremiah Love. I only expect as the summer goes on though for him to move up into that middle of the second round most likely.

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Next up, let's talk about Mike Washington Jr. This was a player out of Arkansas that we talked a lot about in the pre-draft process. He lands with the Raiders in the fourth round. He's 6'1", 223 pounds. So, like the perfect size for an NFL running back, but he also had unbelievable athleticism. 4.33 40 time. This probably took him from being like a fifth or a sixth-round pick like a Kron Allen type build, bigger body back, but his elite athleticism ends up making him a fourth-round pick in this year's draft. 4.33, top 1% speed of all time, top 10% burst of all time, that's his jumps, his vertical and broad jump at the combine. And if you just want to look at relative athletic score, uh it's just like one athletic measuring system. But since 1987 at the NFL combine, Mike Washington's score for his size ends up ranking number one out of 2,115 running backs over these last 40 years or so. So obviously a freak athlete. That's why he goes a little bit earlier in the draft. Ends up being um a fourth-round pick. Oh, sorry. I think this is Yeah, the Arizona Cardinals. Let's pull up Vegas right here on the fly. You can see ends up being a fourth-round pick on a Raiders team that needed a lot of guys. They had a lot of draft picks. They get their quarterback number one overall. They go back, they get Mike Washington Jr. on day three to start it off in the fourth round.

Now, earlier on in the pre-draft process, he reminded me just when I watched his film and we didn't have the combine numbers of an Amariyon Hampton, a bigger body back, similar size in terms of 6'2", 221. Amariyon Hampton, also an athlete, 4.44 or a 4.46 40 time for that size is fantastic, but Mike Washington just blew it out of the water a little bit. When watching his film, Mike Washington reminded me of an Amariyon Hampton. Washington last year got some nice production, over a thousand rushing yards, a career-high 6.4 yards per attempt. So look, you get a solid producer here. Played in the SEC at Arkansas. So like a lot of things line up for a player who does look like a solid RB2 in the NFL. That's exactly what he's going to be to start this season as the Raiders have no other competition really for him. Ashton Genty is the obvious number one still there. And I should also point out like Mike Washington against tough competition last year was solid. A ranked Mississippi team, 65 yards and two touchdowns. A ranked Notre Dame team, 63 yards. You factor in his receiving almost 100-yard game. But here's where it really starts to get interesting for Mike Washington in terms of these game logs. Number 12 Tennessee on October 11th, 19 carries, 131 yards. Top five Texas A&M team, 147 carries or 147 yards, 9.2 yards per attempt. And then against a good Texas team that came on late in the season, 17 carries, 105 yards, and a touchdown. So against the toughest competition last year, he was either having solid to great performances. So battle-tested running back as well. Like I said, he lands with the Raiders. So like Dylan Lob was like the number two option on this team until they drafted Mike Washington with Raheem Mostert gone. So, it's Ashton Genty is the clear and obvious one. Mike Washington is going to be a handcuff. So, you're not drafting Mike Washington to like be some sort of stud running back out of the box for you. It's going to be Ashton Genty. This is his team. They drafted him top five overall last year for a reason. Ashton Genty with like one of the quietest like nearly 13 or over 1300-yard seasons you'll ever see last year in his rookie year because since he was a first or early second-round pick in fantasy drafts, a lot of people were disappointed that he didn't have 1500 yards or had a slow start to the season and a historically bad offense. Still almost a thousand rushing yards, 346 receiving yards. I point this out to say that if anything ever happened to Ashton Genty, this was already a productive running back last year in a terrible offense. Now you change out the coach. You bring in Super Bowl winning Clint Kubiak. You bring in the first overall pick quarterback Mendoza with Kirk Cousins who maybe starts some games and you start to get a little bit better. The offensive line's Tyler Linderbaum, right? You start to get a little bit better of an offense, at least on paper. Clint Kubiak, by the way, who comes over from the Seahawks, different personnel, of course, different head coach, different team in general, but he did use a two-running back system there. 1,000-yard running back, 1,000 yards for Kenneth Walker, 730 for Zach Charbonnet. Charbonnet was the goal-line back. Charbonnet was seeing some passing down usage as well. Both guys were seeing at least 180 carries. Now, do I think that this year Mike Washington's going to see 184 carries to Kenneth Walker seeing 221? No, because I don't think Mike Washington is as good as Zach Charbonnet. And I think Ashton Genty is much better in my opinion than Kenneth Walker. So I think there's a much wider gap in this backfield. But I wouldn't be shocked to see Mike Washington average six to eight carries a game. Mike Washington ends the year with 100 or 100-plus carries at worst and at best he gets a little bit more usage. Ashton Genty misses time, whatever it might be.

So if we pull up the team changes page over in the fantasy blueprint, you can check it out now at jointhebloopprint.com for the lowest price of the season. And you can see the Raiders, I mean, they're trying everything they possibly can to have a much better offense for their new offensive coordinator, Clint Kubiak, and for their new first-round pick, Fernando Mendoza, whenever he starts to take over some snaps here. They bring in Tyler Linderbaum. They probably overpay him at the center position, but they get the center there. They bring in Jaylen Naylor to be this team's probably wide receiver too, or so next to a Trey Tucker. Um, and then they also still have, you know, a healthy Brock Bowers heading into this year. They get Mike Washington in the draft. So, uh, we still don't have like a stud wide receiver here at all. Maybe this is the perfect team for a Stefon Diggs later in the process to go to with a vet with a younger quarterback like he did last year with Drake May and had a lot of success. So, we'll see what ends up happening there. Like who they bring at the bring in at the wide receiver position. I would very much hope it's a Stefon Diggs and not like a Deebo Samuel in terms of making this offense as efficient and effective as possible at scoring points and getting to the red zone. But for Mike Washington's purposes, RB2 is one of the stronger handcuffs in fantasy football because if anything happened to Genty, there's like nobody else out there. It shouldn't be a split backfield. It should be all Mike Washington's.

Next up, let's talk about another Penn State running back in Nicholas Singleton who I'm pretty interested in, not only for this year, but for multiple years if you're like watching from a dynasty lens. This is a 6' 219lb running back. Was not able to run at the NFL combine due to a broken foot, but highly rumored to be running in the 4.3s. I mean, he was running in the low fours as a high school prospect at some uh like high school showcases. So, who knows what he would have ran now that he actually can work on that technique more. He's stronger, he's faster, he's lifting lower body, right? He's rumored based on his GPS time to run in those 4.3s. Like this is going to be a stud athlete uh once he gets to step on the field in the NFL. The question is, is he actually good at the running back position? Well, he ends up landing on the Titans in the fifth round of the NFL draft late in the fifth round. So goes in a similar range or so as his backfield running mate Kron Allen on day three. And if you're not familiar, Nicholas Singleton was the number one running back recruit in his draft class. He got rated in terms of 247 sports at least as a 98 out of 100. He was like a McDonald's All-American. he goes to Penn State um and he's looking like a stud, like the next guy to replace the Saquon Barkley, Miles Sanders type players that ended up going to Penn State before him and both were first and second-round picks. If you're really into college football, then there was also Journey Brown who unfortunately probably would have been a second-round pick but couldn't due to I believe a heart issue. He had to end his career at the college level. But Nicholas Singleton like right out of the gate proved that he was the best running back in that draft class. If you see right here, he ended up having a thousand rushing yards, 6.8 yards per attempt, 13 touchdowns. He looked great out there and then he had a bad 2023. 2024 though was the season that if he would have came out, he would have been a second-round pick. 1100 rushing yards career-high and 6.4 yards per attempt. He ends up adding 41 catches as well in his age 20 season as you can see right here on Player Profiler. 375 yards. I mean almost 1500 yards uh 40-plus catches. Everything's looking good. He has a 12% target share. Penn State's going to like the final four in the college football playoff. If he comes out that year, he's a second-round pick. Instead, like many others on his team, like Kron Allen, like Drew, they all go back to college. They try and run it back and win a national championship. Everything goes wrong for Penn State, including for Nick Singleton, in his final year, career lows across the board, 550 rushing yards. This is the biggest reason why he fell.

Now, if he could have tested at the NFL combine and would have put up numbers like a Mike Washington, just a big running back with elite athleticism, he probably goes from a fifth-round pick to a fourth, maybe a third-round pick, maybe he lands in San Francisco with their third-round pick instead of Kon or Kalen Ballage, right? So maybe that's where Nick Singleton goes instead. And obviously that would have been a great landing spot. Christian McCaffrey is towards the twilight parts of his career. He potentially commits time this year after finally staying healthy last year. But instead he does land on the Tennessee Titans. And it's not worst-case scenario for Singleton because this is still a highly talented player. He's still the guy who put up that production in 2024, right? He started all 53 games over four seasons. He rushed for almost 3,500 rushing yards in college. Had 102 catches for almost a thousand receiving yards in college. So he's a pass-catching running back. He's Penn State's all-time leader in terms of touchdowns with 54, all-time all-purpose yards leader as well because he had some return usage as well earlier on in his career. So, this is still a talented running back. Lands on a team in the fifth round that does have not the most solid depth chart. The current backfield heading into the draft was number one RB1 Tony Pollard. Had a great end of the year last year, but he's 29 years old entering this season. Has dealt with his own injuries in the past as well. And then Taj Spears, who look, both of these guys are in contract years. There's no guarantee either of them are on the team next year. I would probably say Tony Pollard won't be on the team next year. Maybe even Taj Spears won't either because he's missed nine games the past two years. He was drafted, if you remember, with his own knee problems like arthritis in the knee or something along those lines or maybe it was no ACL he was born with. So in general, they're saying there's probably not a long shelf life on Taj Spears if most running backs start to sputter out around 28 years old on average in the NFL. Maybe he's only a first contract type guy after this year. So like this isn't the most difficult backfield competition. There's no doubt about it. Tony Pollard is the RB1 right now. He's the RB1 to start the season in my opinion unless some crazy camp battle comes out and Nick Singleton looks great. But I do think Nick Singleton can beat out Taj Spears in training camp. Mostly because Taj Spears is just never available. If you're not available, how can a team ever trust you? They draft a fifth-round running back to basically be your number one competition. If Nick Singleton starts to get on the field over Taj Spears to start the season and now you're getting Nick Singleton out there a lot more on these passing down situations and he starts seeing some games where he's catching two or three balls and the coaching staff likes him and he starts to push Tony Pollard who maybe isn't on the team next year later in the season similar to his uh same school uh alumni if you will in Miles Sanders did in his rookie year with the Eagles later in the season. He started to break out.

Now before we get into the next running back I just want to let you know about the fantasy blueprint. I'm only letting these people on YouTube watching this video right now know that it's out ahead of time, a couple of weeks before the general public will get it. You can check it out at jointhebloopprint.com. There'll be a link in the description. This video gives you a little bit more about it. If you just scroll on here, you'll learn a lot about what you get, exactly what the purpose of it is. You can check it out at joinbloopprint.com if you want to win your fantasy league. If you want to stop finishing in fourth or fifth place, or maybe you don't make the playoffs, or maybe you do, and you can never take home a championship consistently, the fantasy blueprint, it is indeed for you. It's helped over 10,000 people win their fantasy leagues the last few seasons alone. It helped me win 75% of my leagues last year, including the Flock League, the most watched fantasy league in the world, where I won a $10,000 first prize against other fantasy experts. So, if you would like to see exactly what the blueprint has in store, you can check it out right now at jointhebloopprint.com. It is currently at the lowest prices it will be all season, and then when it releases to the public on June 1st, the prices jack up, so get it right now while you still can.

Now, the next running back we have to talk about is Jonah Coleman, who lands on the Denver Broncos in the fourth round with some good draft capital. One of the first offensive players taken in the fourth round, eighth overall in round four. This is a 5'8", 220-pound bowling ball. He deems himself a four-down back. He said that on a podcast with Yahoo and Matt Harmon. Not a three-down back like you know the traditional saying goes. A four-down back which makes sense. More teams are going for it on four down in the NFL. Thought that was a very unique branding standpoint from him. Now this is a player who didn't test at the NFL combine before besides doing the bench press. Like we already knew the guy was strong. We could see him break tackles. We know he's 220 lbs. We knew he could probably bench and he did. But he didn't run at the NFL combine because he's not fast. That's not his style. That's not where he wins if you watch his tape. Now, if you do watch over the last three seasons, 2023, his final year at Arizona, before transferring to Washington, he had 1,000 total yards, 871 rushing yards with a career-high 6.8 yards per attempt, 290 receiving yards. Then he said, "You know what? Let me go up. Let me go to Washington and see what I could do there." Well, he went to Washington and he had some of the best years of his college career, including the best year of his career in 2024 from a production standpoint, over 1,000 rushing yards. The only time he did that, 23 catches, 5.5 yards per attempt. The production continued last year where he had 758 rushing yards. When you factor in his uh receiving yards, he topped a thousand yards each of the last three seasons. Career-high 31 catches last year. That was the biggest improvement that I saw from watching the film, especially from when he went to Arizona in 2023 to his final two seasons in college at Washington. Became a better pass catcher. Not like an elite pass catcher, but a better pass-catching running back. Coleman ranks first in this class with 71% of his rushing yards coming after contact. He was also first in yards per carry when hit at or behind the line of scrimmage and first in first-down run rate when hit at the line of scrimmage. NFL coaches will also love him because checks notes. He had 639 career touches with only one fumble. Very impressive. And he was starting his final season off very strong. Like he would have probably topped 1,000 yards again last year against weak competition. Sure. But he had 177 rushing yards and 111 rushing yards in two games to start the season with seven total touchdowns. But then unfortunately he banged up his knee towards the end of that second game I believe. And although he only missed a week, it was obvious that he wasn't just himself after that. He did have a decent game against a good Ohio State defense where he averaged over five yards per carry as you can see right here and 70 yards. But for the most part, he was on the injury report. He was banged up for like that next month of the season. Um I believe battling a knee injury during that time. So maybe he would have gone a little bit earlier. Maybe he would have been a third-round running back, but he does land in the fourth round in a solid spot in my opinion with the Denver Broncos because if you look at the backfield, you know what they have here? Whoops. They have a second-round running back they took last year and RJ Harvey who many probably deemed the reach. He was probably a third or a fourth-round running back, but but regardless, goes in the second round. Um, and then you get JK Dobbins, who they've resigned this off-season. They resigned JK Dobbins to a two-year, $16 million contract. Um, although I believe there's not, yeah, half of it's guaranteed. So, $8 million guaranteed total guarantees. So, solid contract for JK Dobbins, but $8 million guaranteed over two years and there's an out after this year. It's nothing crazy. Like, it's nothing like if Jonah Coleman started to pop off that they really feel the need to keep JK Dobbins on the roster next year. And then there's RJ Harvey, who look, I was very high on RJ Harvey last year because why wouldn't you be? He was a second-round pick in a backfield with JK Dobbins, who has not played more than 13 games in a season, I believe, since 2020. He tested at the combine really well last year with 4.4 speed at over 200 lb, which in my opinion was surprising. He was a dual-threat running back, although at a somewhat smaller school at UCF. RJ Harvey checked a lot of boxes and Sean Payton was co-talking up RJ Harvey non-stop. However, despite being behind one of the best offensive lines in football and a quality offense, RJ Harvey was not a good runner. He only averaged 3.7 yards per carry.

Now, for fantasy purposes, if we pull up RJ Harvey's game logs, you can see them right here. These are the fantasy points in the right column. So, this would be like week one all the way up top according to Player Profiler. But, if we were to scroll down like fantasy-wise to end the season, like this middle part of the season where JK Dobbins was banged up and Harvey had to take over. Solid production just because of the fact that he was able to catch passes and find the end zone. 21 fantasy points, 22, 10 and a half, 22, 18. You're talking about a touchdown scored in all of these games and at least 60 total yards. Now, a lot of that was just the fact that he was getting maybe garbage time in some of those games, just getting a lot of volume. Biggest one was his passing down as well, just piling on PPR points. So, the question becomes, was that enough? I don't think it was. I think that's exactly the reason why they took Jonah Coleman in the fourth round. If JK Dobbins gets banged up again, I think Jonah Coleman becomes the early-down runner here. And according to some reports early on, there is a belief that Jonah Coleman's going to have immediate role uh in the Broncos short-yardage situations. Now, to Sean Payton's backfield, who knows what happens now if there's three running backs involved. If there's RJ Harvey on like passing downs and two-minute offense, JK Dobbins on early downs and short yardage is Jonah Coleman. It gets gross. But again, the reason why Jonah Coleman I like him here is because landing spot-wise, there's a chance JK Dobbins is not on this team next year. And there's a chance that JK Dobbins misses time like he has each of the last six years this season. So to me, Jonah Coleman is worthwhile in terms of where you should be drafting him in the later rounds as like a handcuff option, at least early on right now, uh in dynasty league formats as like a third, fourth-round pick or also uh redraft baseball early on.

So, I appreciate you all tuning in. Thank you so much. If you want to see the wide receiver version of this video, the five rookie wide receivers you should be drafting, you can check it out right here.