We held the Mock Auction on Tuesday night. It’s always an exciting event for me because after months of researching players and teams, it’s the first time we actually put in live rounds and construct a league.
I was surprised by how much the rookie running backs went for. I can understand when people are excited about franchise rookies (think Saquon Barkley and Ezekiel Elliott) but a lot of teams invested heavily in running backs I consider to be more the speculative long-shot variety.
In the NFL draft, there were five running backs chosen in the third round. I saw all of them as being worth $1-2. That may seem dismissive, but every dollar spent on this kind of a player is one that you can’t spend on the well-known commodities.
But the bids were flying. David Montgomery (pictured) went for $12. Is he even going to be one of the top 2 running backs on his own team? We’ll see. Tarik Cohen is definitely a big part of that backfield, and I think Mike Davis is legit – similar in quality to Montgomery, and with more NFL experience.
Alexander Mattison should be just a handcuff back in Minnesota. He went for $5.
Darrell Henderson was pretty awesome at Memphis, averaging 8.9 yards per carry in each of his last two season. (I was poking around on a college stats website, and I think only two other 1,000-yard rushers at the college level have averaged 8.9 yards per attempt, then been selected in the first three rounds of the draft: Greg Pruitt (who was a very good pro) and Dri Archer (who was not). But Henderson went for $7, which is a lot for a player who’s not even certain to be a second-string player (the Rams might prefer Malcolm Brown, at least initially).
The price on Devin Singletary was also $5. Some chance he winds up starting some games in Buffalo. They don’t have much else – Frank Gore, T.J. Yeldon and LeSean McCoy (if he’s on the team). Singletary is small (5-7, 203) and ran only 4.66 at the combine.
The best buy of the third-rounders, I thought, was Damien Harris, purchased for $2. New England could (probably will) go to more of a committee approach this year, and I don’t think Sony Michel is super durable. At that price tag, Harris is worth a roster spot.
With these prices, I assume the owners are hoping to land another Kareem Hunt or Alvin Kamara. They were both selected in the third round, and they both ripped it up in their first year. David Johnson was also a third-round pick, and he was great in Arizona. But of the last 22 other running backs selected in the third round, only one (Duke Johnson) ranked higher than 30th.
That’s using PPR scoring.
| THIRD-ROUND RUNNING BACKS (last 10 years) | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Year | Player | No | Rec | Run | Total | TD | PPR | Rk |
| 2009 | Shonn Greene, NYJ | 0 | 0 | 540 | 540 | 2 | 66.0 | 66 |
| 2009 | Glen Coffee, S.F. | 11 | 76 | 226 | 302 | 1 | 47.2 | 78 |
| 2011 | DeMarco Murray, Dall. | 26 | 183 | 897 | 1,080 | 2 | 146.0 | 30 |
| 2011 | Stevan Ridley, N.E. | 3 | 13 | 441 | 454 | 1 | 54.4 | 74 |
| 2012 | Alex Green, G.B. | 18 | 125 | 464 | 589 | 0 | 76.9 | 53 |
| 2012 | Bernard Pierce, Balt. | 7 | 47 | 532 | 579 | 1 | 70.9 | 59 |
| 2012 | Ronnie Hillman, Den. | 10 | 62 | 330 | 392 | 1 | 55.2 | 67 |
| 2013 | Knile Davis, K.C. | 11 | 75 | 242 | 317 | 5 | 72.7 | 56 |
| 2014 | Tre Mason, St.L. | 16 | 148 | 765 | 913 | 5 | 137.3 | 30 |
| 2014 | Terrance West, Clev. | 11 | 64 | 673 | 737 | 5 | 114.7 | 41 |
| 2014 | Jerick McKinnon, Minn. | 27 | 135 | 538 | 673 | 0 | 94.3 | 48 |
| 2014 | Charles Sims, T.B. | 19 | 190 | 185 | 375 | 1 | 62.5 | 73 |
| 2014 | Dri Archer, Pitt. | 7 | 23 | 40 | 63 | 0 | 13.3 | -- |
| 2015 | David Johnson, Ariz. | 36 | 457 | 581 | 1,038 | 13 | 217.8 | 7 |
| 2015 | Duke Johnson, Clev. | 61 | 534 | 379 | 913 | 2 | 164.3 | 24 |
| 2015 | Matt Jones, Wash. | 19 | 304 | 490 | 794 | 4 | 122.4 | 41 |
| 2015 | Tevin Coleman, Atl. | 2 | 14 | 392 | 406 | 1 | 48.6 | 79 |
| 2016 | Ty Montgomery, G.B. | 44 | 348 | 457 | 805 | 3 | 142.5 | 33 |
| 2016 | C.J. Prosise, Sea. | 17 | 208 | 172 | 380 | 1 | 61.0 | 67 |
| 2016 | Kenyan Drake, Mia. | 9 | 46 | 179 | 225 | 3 | 49.5 | 73 |
| 2017 | Alvin Kamara, N.O. | 81 | 826 | 728 | 1,554 | 14 | 322.4 | 3 |
| 2017 | Kareem Hunt, K.C. | 53 | 455 | 1,327 | 1,782 | 11 | 297.2 | 4 |
| 2017 | D'Onta Foreman, Hou. | 6 | 83 | 327 | 410 | 2 | 59.0 | 74 |
| 2017 | James Conner, Pitt. | 0 | 0 | 144 | 144 | 0 | 14.4 | -- |
| 2018 | Royce Freeman, Den. | 14 | 72 | 521 | 593 | 5 | 103.3 | 46 |
| 2019 | • Devin Singletary, Buff. | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? |
| 2019 | • David Montgomery, Chi. | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? |
| 2019 | • Darrell Henderson, LAR | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? |
| 2019 | • Alexander Mattison, Min. | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? |
| 2019 | • Damien Harris, N.E. | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? |
—Ian Allan