JACKSONVILLE – The position is strong and deep. Very deep.
That’s a positive for teams seeking young running backs, with the 2025 NFL Draft unusually strong at what in recent seasons sometimes has been an overlooked – and undervalued – position.
This is a quality class of running backs. Strikingly so.
“It’s really effective, really good,” Jaguars and NFL Media draft analyst Bucky Brooks said of the ’25 running back class.
ESPN NFL draft analyst Jordan Reid recently said he considered 32 running backs draftable. ESPN NFL draft analyst Mel Kiper Jr. said he projected 31 players draftable backs and called it perhaps the draft’s deepest position.
“The running back position is really deep,” Kiper said, with Reid comparing the group to the position’s strongest class in recent memory – 2017, a year when the Jaguars choosing Leonard Fournette No. 4 overall led a class in which 30 backs were selected.
“There are a lot of running backs who can play – and play for a long time,” Brooks said.
The questions – as is often the case with running backs – is just how early the top players at the position will be selected and how many will be selected in Round 1. No back was selected in Round 1 of the ’24 draft, and only two Bijon Robinson (Atlanta Falcons, No. 8 overall, 2023) of Texas and Jahmyr Gibbs (Detroit Lions, No. 12, 2023) of Alabama – have been selected before No. 24 overall in the last six drafts.
“My philosophy is ‘Don’t take a running back,”’ Kiper said, echoing a sentiment shared by many NFL general managers, “but they have gone.”
Ashton Jeanty of Boise State is widely considered the draft’s top running back, and is projected as a Top 10 selection, with North Carolina running back Omarion Hampton also projected as a late first-round selection.
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