I’m not a Miles Sanders fan. There’s some chance, I suppose, that he’ll add a little sizzle to Philadelphia’s backfield, but for what it will take to obtain him, I’m confident he won’t be on any of my teams.
In the Mock Auction earlier in the week, Sanders went for $13. That’s almost as much as James White and Tarik Cohen, and with this being a PPR league, that’s simply ridiculous. With the way those veterans catch passes, I think they’re going to be top-15 backs this year.
Philadelphia has been rotating backs since Doug Pederson showed up, and I expect that framework will stay in place. They picked up Jordan Howard, and he can bang between the tackles. They have holdovers Wendell Smallwood and Corey Clement, and both of those backs are a lot better than Sanders and Howard as pass catchers.
None of those backs, of course, are as dynamic as Sanders, who ran for 1,274 yards last year at Penn State (3 more than Saquon Barkley did the previous year). But perhaps because he played behind Barkley, Sanders has a tendency to too often try to turn plays into big gains, resulting in too many negative runs. They’ll have to coach him up to be more decisive, and that could affect how much he gets on the field in his first year.
Look for a non-descript committee of mush.
On occasion, of course, rookie running backs come in and play well. If you pick through the old posts, you can probably find one where I suggested Nick Chubb shouldn’t do much in Cleveland. Chubb had some really good games, scoring some long touchdowns (including a pair at Oakland).
Far more likely with these kind of prospects, however, when you take the big swings, you end up walking back to the dugout.
I ran the third-round numbers yesterday. Below are the stats for running backs selected in the second round. There have been 27 picked in the last 10 years, and six of them have posted top-30 numbers in their first year. Five in the top 20. (Using PPR scoring.)
| SECOND-ROUND RUNNING BACKS (last 10 years) | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Year | Player | No | Rec | Run | Total | TD | PPR | Rk |
| 2009 | LeSean McCoy, Phil. | 40 | 308 | 637 | 945 | 4 | 160.5 | 32 |
| 2010 | Toby Gerhart, Minn. | 21 | 167 | 322 | 489 | 1 | 75.9 | 58 |
| 2010 | Ben Tate, Hou. | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | .0 | -- |
| 2010 | Montario Hardesty, Clev. | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | .0 | -- |
| 2011 | Daniel Thomas, Mia. | 12 | 72 | 581 | 653 | 1 | 83.3 | 51 |
| 2011 | Shane Vereen, N.E. | 0 | 0 | 57 | 57 | 6 | 11.7 | -- |
| 2011 | Mikel Leshoure, Det. | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | .0 | -- |
| 2011 | Ryan Williams, Ariz. | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | .0 | -- |
| 2012 | LaMichael James, S.F. | 3 | 29 | 125 | 154 | 0 | 18.4 | 108 |
| 2012 | Isaiah Pead, St.L. | 3 | 16 | 54 | 70 | 0 | 10.0 | -- |
| 2013 | • Eddie Lacy, G.B. | 35 | 257 | 1,178 | 1,435 | 11 | 244.5 | 8 |
| 2013 | • Giovani Bernard, Cin. | 56 | 514 | 695 | 1,209 | 8 | 224.9 | 13 |
| 2013 | • LeVeon Bell, Pitt. | 45 | 399 | 860 | 1,259 | 8 | 218.9 | 15 |
| 2013 | Montee Ball, Den. | 20 | 145 | 559 | 704 | 4 | 114.4 | 43 |
| 2013 | Christine Michael, Ind. | 0 | 0 | 79 | 79 | 0 | 7.9 | -- |
| 2014 | • Jeremy Hill, Cin. | 27 | 215 | 1,124 | 1,339 | 9 | 214.9 | 10 |
| 2014 | Bishop Sankey, Tenn. | 18 | 133 | 569 | 702 | 2 | 100.2 | 45 |
| 2014 | Carlos Hyde, S.F. | 12 | 68 | 333 | 401 | 4 | 76.1 | 61 |
| 2015 | • T.J. Yeldon, Jac. | 36 | 279 | 740 | 1,019 | 3 | 155.9 | 28 |
| 2015 | Ameer Abdullah, Det. | 25 | 183 | 597 | 780 | 3 | 121.0 | 44 |
| 2016 | Derrick Henry, Tenn. | 13 | 137 | 490 | 627 | 5 | 105.7 | 45 |
| 2017 | Joe Mixon, Cin. | 30 | 287 | 626 | 913 | 4 | 145.3 | 33 |
| 2017 | Dalvin Cook, Minn. | 11 | 90 | 354 | 444 | 2 | 67.4 | 72 |
| 2018 | • Nick Chubb, Cle. | 20 | 149 | 996 | 1,145 | 10 | 194.5 | 17 |
| 2018 | Kerryon Johnson, Det. | 32 | 213 | 641 | 854 | 4 | 141.4 | 33 |
| 2018 | Ronald Jones, T.B. | 7 | 33 | 44 | 77 | 1 | 20.7 | 94 |
| 2018 | Derrius Guice, Wash. | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | .0 | -- |
| 2019 | Miles Sanders, Phil. | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? |
If I’m walking into a draft today, there’s no way I’m selecting Sanders. He’ll be gone before I would be thinking about him at all. Let’s see what he looks like in the preseason games. If he’s tearing it up, then at that point he becomes more of a possibility.
Looking at the second-round numbers, by the way, I see five backs who suffered season-ending injuries before the season even started. Of the 27, as many of the backs (9) finished with under 100 total yards as finished with over 800.
Looking at the combined second- and third-round picks, I see more running backs with under 200 yards in the first year (13) than who finished with over 1,000 (10). Of the 51 total backs, almost half (25) finished with under 500 total yards as rookies.
I’m all for selecting some second- and third-round running backs. But with the cost of obtaining them, you’re far more likely to undermine your roster.
—Ian Allan