After recent conversations with noted Roschon Johnson stans Cody Carpentier and Danny Kelly (that you can find here and here), I’ve become increasingly open to the idea that Johnson might be one of the few best players in this running back class rather than simply one of several quality backs in the middle of it. I came away tentatively intrigued by Johnson’s potential for fantasy relevance after an exploration of his rushing efficiency data last month, and supplementing that data with film study was -- given the hypothetical and metaphorical wrench that sharing a backfield with Bijan Robinson throws into Johnson’s team-relative efficiency metrics -- particularly important in this case.

Informed solely by his analytical profile as a runner, I wrote last month that “instead of open-field prowess, [Roschon] Johnson possesses elite tackle-breaking skills and the ability to produce positive outcomes on a consistent, down-to-down basis even while facing relatively heavy defensive fronts,” and after completing my film study on the Texas back on Sunday, I think the numbers were pretty spot on:

While Johnson’s grades on zone runs don’t look impressive (those ranks are out of 16 rookie backs for whom I’ve charted a significant amount of carries), his very high rate of neutral grades indicates that his low overall grades are not the result of making active mistakes or creating problems that don’t already exist. He does score poorly on zone concepts in the area of decisiveness, as his -0.06 grade is the lowest in the class, and most of Johnson’s instances of indecisiveness looked to me like the result of either overreacting to penetration (or perceived penetration) in the backfield or of, less frequently, classic analysis paralysis. Other than those mistakes, Johnson’s decision-making on zone runs was relatively non-impactful, as evidenced by his class-leading 64.5% rate of neutral vision grades. The only negative vision grade I gave Johnson (on gap or zone concepts) was an outside zone play against Kansas State on which I thought he missed an early upfield crease. Generally, Johnson was content to ride out whatever wave his offensive line produced for him on a given carry, an approach that was probably appropriate given the circumstances -- the Texas line was above the 75th percentile in Football Outsiders’ Line Yards metric (sort of an offensive line-centric version of yards per carry) and ranked eighth in the country in their Opportunity Rate metric (which measures how often an offensive line creates at least four yards for their running back on a per-attempt basis) last season.

Johnson also took that approach on gap concepts, where it’s even more conducive to high-floor play given the presence of a quality offensive line. His high neutral rate on these runs is further evidence of his passive approach to behind-the-line-of-scrimmage decision-making, but Johnson did make his presence felt in two key areas: discipline and tracking.

In the former, Johnson grades out as the best 2023 back on gap concepts and among the top-four on zone concepts:

Such scores speak to a consistent and positively impactful ability to resist fool’s gold bounce and cutback opportunities in favor of adhering to structure, another key component of reliable, high-floor running.

Johnson was even better in the latter area:

Because tracking involves positioning oneself well and navigating around blocks effectively, most of the players who score highly there in my charting are small backs: five of the eight guys with above-average tracking scores on zone runs are less than 210 pounds, as are four of the six with above-average marks on gap runs. Johnson would be a bit of an outlier in that regard if he were simply good at tracking, but he’s awesome -- his grade on zone runs is bested by Deuce Vaughn’s ridiculous 0.28 mark, but only four backs in the class score above even 0.10, with Johnson and Vaughn the only two above 0.11.

Johnson’s tracking grade on gap runs is just as ridiculous as Vaughn’s zone grade, as his 0.28 is more than double Sean Tucker’s 0.13 that would otherwise be the class’ top mark. He does a fantastic job of scraping the backs of his blockers and making efficient use (in terms of both time and space) of his movements while navigating the backfield, and he’s remarkably good at fitting into tight creases for a guy who weighs over 220 pounds.

Johnson’s other decision-making skills are relatively nondescript, but his physical ability as a tackle-breaker is the best in the class by a comfortable margin:

His overall mark beats Zach Charbonnet’s second-place number by 0.14 points, and his score against defensive linemen laps those of all but DeWayne McBride in this class, who narrowly avoids getting doubled up himself with a 0.48. There isn’t another runner in this year’s crop who comes close to possessing the quality of through-contact ability that Johnson has, and his tackle-breaking skills are also unique among other power backs in the way in which they manifest stylistically:

The above table includes the top-six runners in the 2023 class in overall through-contact success. As you see, while Johnson attempts to evade defenders at a similarly low rate to the other backs on this list (excluding Charbonnet, who runs with finesse as well as power), the sort of contact that he absorbed was far lighter and less direct than what those other runners were experiencing. The other backs in this class who absorbed similarly glancing contact as what Johnson did were all much smaller players:

Johnson’s uniqueness is in his ability to use subtle movements to throw defenders off-balance and create indirect contact as a means of producing yards after contact and without needing to perform grandiose evasive maneuvers that would sacrifice power. Nobody in this class can compete with his through-contact ability, but among those in the neighboring ballpark, none of them minimize contact as much as he does, and among those who minimize contact to a similar degree, none of them do so without making frequent use of evasive maneuvers or while running with a high degree of power, let alone both.

Overall, I was very impressed with Johnson’s film, and despite some seemingly poor scores in some of the decision-making categories, I think reading between the lines reveals a stylistic bent toward passivity behind a quality offensive line rather than cerebral or technical shortcomings that are in any way deficient. Johnson took a point-and-shoot approach to running back play, allowing his blockers to point and then shoot him in the direction he should go, and his impressive physicality paired with determination and a good spatial sense took over once he was out of the barrel and engaging with defenders. It’s true that Johnson’s long speed holds him back a bit in the open field, as do some curious, Zach Evans-like decisions in the secondary, but his ability to fit through lanes that most backs his size cannot while also fighting through would-be tacklers more successfully than most backs of any size can makes him an excellent candidate for starting-level (and even high volume) work on first and second down in the NFL. You might have to crouch to avoid hitting his play-level ceiling, but that’s partially because the floor is so high and doesn’t mean that he can’t be an all-purpose runner that produces startable fantasy numbers. I’ve had a clear and solid top-five in this running back class since fairly early on, and Roschon is now flirting with that group.