We’ve sort of danced around the MarShawn Lloyd evaluation so far this spring – I wrote about his film back in November, laid out his analytical receiving profile in February, and gave my thoughts on his athletic testing performance in March – but I wanted to publish a piece incorporating all of those elements into a complete pre-Draft take on his talent and NFL potential. I’ve watched two more games of his film – the late 2023 matchups versus Cal and Oregon, meaning I’ve now charted 91.5% of Lloyd’s touches from last season – in preparation for this article, and I’ve also dedicated a good amount of thought in recent weeks to how best to balance the pros and cons of his overall profile. Perhaps more than for any other back in this class, that balancing act is fundamental to Lloyd’s (e)valuation. In order to think our way through it, let’s start by dwelling on the good that can be found in his skill-set and resumé.

The most obvious “good” with Lloyd is his explosive athleticism and the things it allows him to do on the field. As a 220-pounder who runs 4.46, puts up 25 reps on the bench, and has above-average leaping ability, Lloyd’s ten closest physical comps in my database of historical draftees includes players like DeAngelo Williams, Lamar Miller, Jonathan Taylor, Antonio Gibson, Isiah Pacheco, Julius Jones, and Rashaad Penny, and that athleticism certainly shows up for him in live-game situations. Outside of the 2021 season that followed a 2020 torn ACL, Pro Football Focus says Lloyd forced an average of 0.38 missed tackles and gained an average of 4.01 yards after contact per attempt, and his yearly ranking in those metrics among Power Five backs with triple-digit carries (a group of 85 and then 83 players) were as follows:

Both of those things – making defenders miss and powering through contact – also showed up my film-charting. Among backs I’ve studied who attempt evasive maneuvers at above-average rates (so more frequently than the population average of once every 3.6 physical encounters with defenders), Lloyd is damn close to being the guy who succeeds on those attempted maneuvers most often:

If we want to throw Sanders out based on the one-game sample we’re working with for him (and I would), then Lloyd is the single most elusive runner I’ve studied in the last two years, at least out of the guys who deploy elusiveness as a large part of their arsenal. Those skills (and the explosiveness that enables them) pop out of the screen in Lloyd’s tape:

You’ll also notice in that compilation that – despite largely being a finesse runner – Lloyd is still capable of running with power. Again in my charting process, his success through contact versus linebackers ranks third out of the 15 guys I’ve studied in this year’s class, while his success through contact versus defensive backs is also above-average among qualifying runners. His testing in Indianapolis revealed him to be a thickly-built athlete (only Miyan Williams and Braelon Allen in this class pack more pounds per inch onto their frames) with good speed and impressive upper- and lower-body strength, and as both my and PFF’s charting shows, Lloyd is able to convert those qualities into functional on-field power.

Lloyd’s athletic traits also assist in his creation of big plays, another strength in his game. Among our earlier groups of Power Five runners with 100+ carries, he finished sixth in ten-yard run rate in 2023 and tenth in the same metric in 2022 (while running behind offensive lines that ranked 61st and 113th, respectively, in PFF’s run-blocking rating, and – specifically at South Carolina – while facing a 75th-percentile amount of men in the box on his average attempt). Lloyd’s high-end output continued once he reached the open field, as he converted 18 of his 44 chunk gains into breakaway runs of 20+ yards over the last two seasons, producing a Breakaway Conversion Rate from this healthy stretch of play that lands in the 91st-percentile and right around the career marks of explosive prospects (past, present, and future) like Travis Etienne, Trey Benson, Kenneth Walker, Joe Mixon, TreVeyon Henderson, and Keaton Mitchell.

Lloyd is also a good receiver. I have the impression from Twitter that many data-centric folks are down on this particular element of his profile, but I think he’s a clear case of a guy whose volume numbers belie his actual ability in the passing game. For one, he checks pretty much all the boxes that indicate to me that a guy has legitimate downfield ability as a receiver: he lined up out wide or in the slot on a high percentage of his passing snaps, he was targeted a full yard downfield on average, his Route Diversity ranked in the 75th percentile across his whole career, and even his small sample of 34 career receptions provides examples of impressive route-running skill and body control at the catch point (like this one). He also has a good feel for uncovering himself and being an active target for his quarterback in scramble drill scenarios:

That varied set of skills has resulted in sky-high receiving efficiency, as Lloyd sits atop of the class in yards per reception and very near the top of it in both yards per target and – speaking to his dynamic ability out in space – yards after the catch per reception. Among backs who played primarily against Power Five competition and who were drafted in the last ten years, only Kenyan Drake and Joe Mixon entered the league with YAC numbers as good as Lloyd’s on receiving volume at least as high as his.

The last of the “good” that I’ll point out in Lloyd’s profile is the control with which he navigates the backfield on gap plays, particularly those that find him following leads and pullers to the outside on power, counter, pin & pull, or trap concepts. On those types of runs, my charting process saw him produce some of the highest grades in patience, decisiveness, and manipulation of all qualifying backs, traits also noticed by Dane Brugler (“above-average patience and processing, and he uses blockers to his advantage”).

The combination of all these skills and traits (at least the ones relevant to his rushing performance) – size, strength, speed, lateral agility, stop-start explosiveness, a natural feel for navigating gap runs – was enough for Lloyd to outproduce the per-carry output of the other backs on both his South Carolina and USC teams, as he finished his college career with a 62nd-percentile Box-Adjusted Efficiency Rating of 120.3%.