Rookie evaluation season ends when the draft starts tonight, so this article will serve as a time-stamped receipt for where my thoughts on the 2024 running back class ended up before we’re forced to consider draft slot, landing spot, and the resulting fantasy football-related implications of those factors. As that framing implies, these rankings are not fantasy football rankings, at least not strictly speaking. The ordering of the players in them is not informed by how high I think so-and-so is going to be selected, it’s not informed by how the market views so-and-so as a pre-rookie draft dynasty asset, and it’s not informed by how many fantasy points I think so-and-so will score in their rookie season or over the course of their rookie contract. It’s simply informed by how good I think the included players are in relation to each other and oriented around some ideal of in-a-vacuum, all-(circumstantial)-things-being-equal capacity for contributing to an NFL team and, by extension, scoring fantasy points. Because of all that, these rankings will necessarily change (perhaps significantly) after the draft, as I’ll then be obligated to account for fantasy-relevant factors affecting these guys’ production potential.

Also included in this article are links to any articles from earlier this offseason that are especially relevant for each individual player referred to, so this piece can serve as a kind of informational hub for my thoughts on the entire class. I’ll also throw some quick, encapsulatory analysis on each player (or at least most of them) into the body of this article.

The above tweet conveys my thoughts on the quality and shape of this running back class as a whole fairly well, and it also provides a nice framework for tiering these pre-draft rankings. We’ll start at the back of the players I have ranked, with those who I don’t think are good enough to bother (or prioritize) adding to a taxi squad (or, in real football terms, with those who strike me as having skill-sets that make statistical contribution to an NFL team unlikely), and progressively tier up until we reach those who have a legitimate claim to being the best player in the class. Let’s get into it.

Despite not being big or athletic, Bailey has one of the best on-field resumés – at least from an analytical perspective – of anyone in this class. The pillars of data-based running back analysis – Target Share, Speed Score, and (probably) draft capital – are stacked against him, but if any of these guys are what Matt Kelley used to refer to as a “savant runner”, it’s Bailey.

There’s a chance that I’m severely undervaluing what Schrader did during his two seasons at Missouri, but he seems like a quintessential JAG to me. Even though his advanced efficiency numbers from that time are nice, it’s tough to put too much stock into outdoing the rushing contributions of Nathaniel Peat and absorbing volume on a fringy SEC team as a 24-year old mega-senior.

Holani is here because he has decent size, decent athleticism, an underrated receiving profile, a history of early production, and a two-season sample of virtually matching the per-carry rushing output of Ashton Jeanty, who is one of the better running backs in all of college football and a legitimate contender for RB1 in next year’s draft class. I don’t think Holani is special in any way, but he’s the kind of do-everything depth piece that often seems to just stick around and fall into opportunities.

Gore shares some generalities with Bailey inasmuch as he’s an undersized runner who was both productive and very efficient throughout his college career. The path to success is narrow for guys in that archetype (especially since Gore isn’t an elite receiver), so – like Matt Breida or Jeff Wilson – Gore will likely just have to be undeniably good at his one thing in order to latch on in the league.

Wiley is interesting because he has near-workhorse size, an excellent pass-catching resumé, and solid tackle-breaking metrics. I’d be surprised if he makes much impact as a rusher, so peak-Charles Sims is what we’re hoping for here.

I understand why people like Davis, but I don’t understand why people are enthusiastic about Davis. He’s big and was effective as a large part of good offenses on dominant squads at the FCS level, but nothing about his game jumped out to me as exciting. Nonetheless, he is a solid prospect who I wouldn’t be surprised to see running the ball in regular season NFL games.

Williams is a total wildcard who could either be terrible (like he was last season) or dominant (like his team-relative efficiency and tackle-breaking numbers suggest he is). “Dominant” in this case would mean something more like “a tiered-down version of the kind of runner Javonte Williams is or rookie-season Dameon Pierce was”, but that’s enough upside to be worth exploring in my mind.

Similarly, Ali presents interesting upside as a Raheem Mostert-type outside zone runner. His appeal is narrow in much the same way that Gore’s is.

Guerendo is the complete opposite: he has the explosive athletic traits that should at least get him in a building somewhere, as well as a niche-filling suite of ancillary skills that could enable him to stick around and grow into a larger role on offense.

Johnson is one of the JAGiest JAGs that ever JAGed, but guys who simply do everything competently often find themselves in roles that appear to exceed the scope of their constituent parts. Damien Harris is my working comp.

All of these guys profile as non-three-down players at the next level, and Laube and Irving will likely make most of their contributions on passing downs. Laube is the greater downfield threat of the two, while Irving is more of a traditional satellite back and is better with the ball in his hands. I expect both of them to carve out NFL roles.

Allen and Milton are (unless Allen’s speculative skill as a pass-blocker manifests in the league) pure two-down thumpers. Allen is still the hardest guy for me to get a good grasp on in this class, and I halfway think that I have him way too low here. Milton, on the other hand, is a pretty straightforward evaluation as a cerebrally sound and physically violent inside runner. Allen’s hypothetical ceiling is higher than Milton’s, but I’m more confident that Milton is good than I am that Allen is good.

This is a tier of guys who can definitely do one thing well and who might be able to do even more. None of them profile as obvious starting material, but certainly as quality role players who could grow into greater roles and perhaps even flirt with Pro Bowl-level production in the right circumstances.

Vidal is an interesting prospect in that his film is both better and worse than the various elements of his statistical profile: he doesn’t look nearly as athletic on tape as his Combine performance would suggest, though he’s a much better pure runner than his underwhelming efficiency numbers would indicate. I’m confident he can bang on the interior and provide consistent rushing output, and his history of receiving production (as well as his apparently untapped athletic potential) hints at a complete skill-set.

Even I’m surprised that Watson ended up this high for me, but I think he’s one of these guys who can just ball. If I had to point to the “one thing” that he does well (as I alluded to at the introduction of this tier), I’m honestly not sure whether I’d pick out his obvious utility as a traditional third-down back or his quality efficiency profile and surprisingly good film as a rusher. While he is undersized, the multi-faceted strengths in Watson’s game are made even more exciting by his excellent athletic testing numbers.

Wright doesn’t fit completely cleanly into this tier given that it’s hard to definitively consider him an NFL-ready runner, but he might be the best out-in-space, ball-in-hands playmaker in this entire class.

Davis is in some ways a Watson-style jack-of-all-trades, but he has more size and – given his multiple seasons of SEC production – is less of a projection.

Tracy is the swing-for-the-fences pick here as a converted wide receiver with good athleticism and flashes of natural feel for playing running back, particularly as a zone runner.

Shipley would be in the next tier if he ran with a bit more power and didn’t have a perplexingly bad final season at Clemson, but he is a technically sound ball-carrier with slippery elusiveness and dynamic ability as a route-runner and downfield pass-catcher.

In three years’ time, I wouldn’t be surprised to find that any one of these five players had produced as this class’ RB1 in a fantasy football context. All of them have three-down ability (to varying extents) and all of them have meal-ticket strengths as ball-carriers.

Corum’s placement atop this list presumes that he will regain the physical form that allowed him to be an explosive player in 2021 and 2022 (a presumption that, given the research laid out in his second linked article, I don’t view as overly speculative). Outside of health-based considerations and their athletic implications, however, Corum is still the best decision-maker and most technically sound runner in the class.

Brooks is the most well-rounded of these players. I have play strength-related reservations about his ability as an inside rusher, but considering his skill on outside zone, in pass-protection, as a multi-faceted receiver, and out in the open field, he offers more than enough combined value to offset that weakness.

Estime doesn’t check the big analytical boxes of size-adjusted speed or high receiving volume, but he rivals Corum as the best pure runner in the class and – at least in my opinion – does not need to be taken off the field on third downs.

Lloyd and Benson have the athletic traits and through-contact ability to reach smash ceilings in ideal circumstances, but both of them carry some risk. Lloyd is a freestyling runner with ball-security issues and Benson is a freestyling runner with a worryingly pedestrian rushing efficiency profile. Both of them have a rare combination of workhorse size and downfield pass-catching skills.

I’ll have a post-draft update to these rankings and some landing spot-based analysis for you sometime in the week following the festivities in Detroit.