It’s perhaps early to be drawing definitive conclusions, but rookie running backs are looking strong. Breece Hall and Kenneth Walker look like they’re going to have good careers.
Dameon Pierce also, by I’m leaving him to the side here because he’s was selected in the fourth round. Here I want to instead focus on another pair of picks early in the second round turning out nicely.
It seems like most teams don’t want to take running backs in the first round anymore. So guys who should have been chosen in that round are now going early in the second. And most of them are thoroughly outplaying where they were chosen.
Below are the 14 running backs chosen in the first half of the second round in the last 10 years (guys selected between 33rd and 48th in the draft). Only two of these players in my opinion have been what you would call missed picks: T.J. Yeldon and Kerryon Johnson. Some would put Ronald Jones in that group, but he was at least successful at times for the Bucs.
Four others haven’t yet delivered great numbers, but I think they will. D’Andre Swift and Javonte Williams just need to get healthy; they’ve shown they can do it. And Hall and Walker are looking like those kind of backs.
In the chart below, you’re seeing not rookie-year numbers but the numbers from the best season of the player’s career. For this year’s rookies, I have projected out what they have done so far over the course of the season.
The final column shows where the player ranked among running backs in his big year (using PPR scoring).
| RUNNING BACKS CHOSEN EARLY IN SECOND ROUND | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Year | Player | Pk | Yr | Rushing | Receiving | Yards | TD | Rk |
| 2013 | Giovani Bernard, Cin. | 37 | 1 | 170-695-5 | 56-514-3 | 1209 | 8 | 13 |
| 2014 | Matt Forte, Chi. | 44 | 7 | 266-1038-6 | 102-808-4 | 1846 | 10 | 3 |
| 2014 | LeVeon Bell, Pitt. | 48 | 2 | 290-1361-8 | 83-854-3 | 2215 | 11 | 1 |
| 2018 | • T.J. Yeldon, Jac. | 36 | 4 | 104-414-1 | 55-487-4 | 901 | 5 | 22 |
| 2018 | • Kerryon Johnson, Det. | 43 | 1 | 118-641-3 | 32-213-1 | 854 | 4 | 33 |
| 2019 | Nick Chubb, Cle. | 35 | 2 | 298-1494-8 | 36-278-0 | 1772 | 8 | 8 |
| 2020 | Ronald Jones, T.B. | 38 | 3 | 192-978-7 | 28-165-1 | 1143 | 8 | 19 |
| 2020 | Dalvin Cook, Min. | 41 | 4 | 312-1557-16 | 44-361-1 | 1918 | 17 | 2 |
| 2020 | Derrick Henry, Ten. | 45 | 5 | 378-2027-17 | 19-114-0 | 2141 | 17 | 3 |
| 2021 | D'Andre Swift, Det. | 35 | 2 | 151-617-5 | 62-452-2 | 1069 | 7 | 15 |
| 2021 | Javonte Williams, Den. | 35 | 1 | 203-903-4 | 43-316-3 | 1219 | 7 | 17 |
| 2021 | Jonathan Taylor, Ind. | 41 | 2 | 332-1811-18 | 40-360-2 | 2171 | 20 | 1 |
| 2021 | Joe Mixon, Cin. | 48 | 5 | 292-1205-13 | 42-314-3 | 1519 | 16 | 4 |
| 2022 | Breece Hall (proj.) | 36 | 1 | 215-1108-9 | 54-618-3 | 1726 | 11 | -- |
| 2022 | Kenneth Walker (proj.) | 41 | 1 | 141-778-6 | 26-86-0 | 864 | 6 | -- |
—Ian Allan