Happy Draft Week! Today and Thursday morning we’ll wrap the running backs up before we get to see the landing spot for the prospects we’ve spent all offseason scouting. Today, we look at the consensus 1.01 in rookie drafts this summer, Jeremiyah MFin Love. How good is he lookin’, and what about Mike Washington Jr. and Emmet Johnson?
Jeremiyah Love - RB Notre Dame
All the hype around Love and his standing as the consensus first rookie off the board in all formats is certainly warranted. At this point the discussion becomes just how valuable that pick is. Here what I saw:
The Great Stuff:
Immediate power and burst, can accelerate like crazy, and has a home run top gear
A beautiful combination of vision, decisiveness, patience, and wiggle behind the line of scrimmage
A complete bag of physicality, joystick juke moves, stiff arms, spins, and just about everything else.
Super high motor in all reps. He makes every tackle a battle for defenders.
Natural receiver that is a weapon in the screen game
Experience without too much wear on his tires
Age
The Good Stuff:
Hands aren’t perfect but still pretty good
Didn’t do a ton of pass protection and it was fine but not incredible when he did
Concerns:
None
There’s really not much I can comment on. He doesn’t have the unrivaled burst of Jahmyr Gibbs, but he’s close. He doesn’t have the Saquon Barkley elusiveness that can get him free in a phone booth, but he’s close. He doesn’t have the physics-defying contact balance we saw on Ashton Jeanty’s college tape, but he’s close. The only real thing to critique is pass protection and even that’s not horrible. His comp from me goes back a ways, but I see a ton of my first love in fantasy football: Arian Foster. Durability kept Foster from a decade of dominance, but in those healthy years he was contributing just about as much as you can as a rusher and a receiver. What the value of Love/the 1.01 will depend on his landing spot and your league, but I would say that I trust that Love in a bad situation is higher floor than what we saw of Ashton Jeanty last year. I have no issue for the right fantasy team to pay an absolute premium to go get him this summer, and I am confident that in doing so they are landing a starting running back with top 5 upside for the next 5 years at least.
Mike Washington Jr. - RB Arkansas
Washington has been moving up boards ever since his spectacular combine showing back in April, and is often listed now as media members’ RB2 off the board this Thursday. I can conclusively say that there is a lot to like, let’s get into it:
The Great Stuff:
Play speed not as blazing as 40 time suggests but absolutely still an asset. Washington is a big play magnet.
Lethal in the open field. Combines speed, shiftiness, juke moves, and size to pick up huge yardage. Also uses open-field blockers exceptionally well.
Immediate burst, reads blocks well, and is decently decisive between the tackles
Uses size well. Decent balance for high center of gravity due to low pad level.
The Good Stuff:
Not quite joystick elusive but he does have some elusiveness
Not a ton of receiving work but I liked what I saw and see potential for more
Decent arsenal of spins, stiff arms, etc.
Concerns:
Pass protection had some okay reps but some really rough ones as well
Some ball security concerns but I think they’re overblown
Washington is going to keep rising up rookie draft boards barring a bad landing spot or a slide in the draft, but I do think there’s ultimately a ceiling to how high I would take him, even though I do think he’s valid. He incorporates speed and size well and I think is shiftier than I’ve seen some give him credit for. The more valid concerns out there about pass protection and ball security do hold some weight. His ten fumbles in college are certainly a worry, but having watched the games now I can see how disastrous Taylen Green can be, and knowing that some of those fumbles are botched hand offs, I’m going to fault him. The pass protection tape is kinda rough. They rarely used him in that way despite certainly needing the help in protection and him being the receiving down back frequently. It is a worry that, if not fixed, it does keep him less involved in an offense than owners would like. I understand the magnitude of this, and it is not a perfect match at all, but my ultimate comp for him is DeMarco Murray. Another tall back that was more one-cut and burst than hyper-elusive, I could not stop thinking about Murray watching the film. David Johnson too, which I know is another really high bar. We should remember though that these guys were both Day 2 talents that were able to use their athleticism in the right opportunities to have massive peaks. When that athleticism even slightly started to fade, or those situations got less than perfect, they regressed rather quickly. Washington is lighter and faster than the two of them, and I think has the potential to be slightly more useful later in his career, but it is worth factoring in for sure. We’ll see where Washington goes, but I think he has the second highest ceiling of the RB prospects, but not a ton of floor.
Emmett Johnson - RB Nebraska
Johnson certainly produced when given bellcow status for Nebraska last year, and there was a good deal to like about how he did it. There are certainly some limitations to what he can bring to the next level, though. Here’s what I saw:
The Great Stuff:
Very shifty. Doesn’t have the burst for crazy change of direction but was super effective in making guys miss in the open field.
Can be used as a receiver out of the backfield just about any way you’d like, and lined up at WR frequently, though I didn’t find those reps to be super impressive
Reliable hands, good instincts as a route runner, and decent fluidity in catching the ball and turning upfield
Bounces off hits a good amount and makes tacklers work for it
Durability
The Good Stuff:
Demonstrated some vision, decisiveness, patience, and IQ between the tackles, though some reps lack one or all
Most reps in pass protection were good, though some are bad and none are elite
Decent play speed but nothing special
Concerns:
Runs with a super high pad level and lacks physicality when taking tacklers on
Could use more consistency in most areas, some reps of all different kinds are weak
Lacking in burst, agility, and long speed
My feelings on Johnson are pretty murky. I think in the right situation he could look solid, but I’m not sure he’s consistent enough to be given RB1 status without injuries to others in the backfield and I worry that his lack of athleticism will prove a bigger deal in the NFL than in college. He can run the ball. The numbers show that he certainly has the tools and uses them frequently enough to be effective at the college level. I’m confident he will be in the rotation somewhere for a good while, I’m just not certain his workload ever amounts to enough to offset his lack of big play potential and goal line ability. He’ll live and die by receiving work, which is definitely a strong part of his game. My comp for Johnson is Zach Moss. The two have similar size and reliance on savviness over athleticism, and I think that without Moss’ durability issues, Johnson will be able to remain more relevant than Moss currently finds himself.
We’re getting real close. The last film review drops this Thursday morning and will round out the running back class, and once we see where all these guys go, the real talk begins. Thanks for taking the Detour.
-- Dynasty Detour Ryan
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