Fournette likely to buck trend
Teams generally aren’t using high picks on RBs, but he might be worth it
Ezekiel Elliott was exceptional as a rookie. Now the question is whether he was the exception.
When the Cowboys drafted Elliott fourth last year, it was a snub of modern football rationale — running backs, the theory goes, are fungible and fragile.
Another team will make a similar move in the draft next week. LSU’s Leonard Fournette, the best rusher in one of the strongest running- back classes in a decade, could go in the top five.
That alone won’t stem a leaguewide trend. Elliott, after all, was the only starting running back on a 2016 playoff team drafted in the first round.
There were twice as many undrafted free agents — the Lions’ Zach Zenner and the Seahawks’ Thomas Rawls — than first- round picks starting at running back in the playoffs. And yet, six starting running backs from the 12 playoff teams ranked in the top 10 in regularseason rushing.
“There’s going to be a lot of conversation about running backs benefitting from the Ezekiel Elliott effect and his impact on the Dallas Cowboys,” NFL Network analyst Bucky Brooks said. “I believe this runningback class would have been regarded as one of the best classes in some time just based on their talent alone, regardless of what Ezekiel Elliott was able to do for the Cowboys.”
The Bears, luckily, don’t have to enter that debate.
With rookie Jordan Howard coming off his own Pro Bowl season — and having drafted running backs in each of the last three years— the Bears don’t figure to be in the market for another. If they do add one, be it late in the draft or, more likely, in free agency, it will be someone to complement what they have.
In that context, I’Tavius Mathers — or someone like him — makes sense.
After transferring from Ole Miss to play his senior season in his hometown of Murfreesboro, Tenn., the Middle Tennessee running back ran for 1,561 yards and had 633 receiving yards. At 5- 11, 203 pounds, he became only the seventh player in FBS history to eclipse 1,500 rushing yards and 500 receiving yards in the same year.
Yet, he didn’t receive an invitation to the NFL Scouting Combine.
“It’s really crazy to me because I’m putting up the same numbers that some of the top guys in the combine for running backs are, for the season,” he said Monday. “And I still didn’t get an invite.”
He used that as motivation to train for his pro day last month, in which he ran an impressive 4.41- second 40- yard dash.
“I feel like every running back in this draft class has something different, and you have to find something to separate us,” said Mathers, who could be drafted late or made a priority free agent. “That said, I felt I separatedmyself, being able to catch the ball out of the backfield. Catching 50 balls, you really don’t hear about that from a running back.”
It’s one thingHoward, a fifth- round pick, hasn’t accomplished. Last year, he did almost everything else.