Top running backs eye 1st round again

There’s an unquestionably rich draft pool for running backs this year. Guess which position is widely expected to go with the first two picks?

There’s hardly an argument quarterbacks hold the most important, and glamorous, on-field role in organized team sports. That’s why Jameis Winston and Marcus Mariota will likely be long off the board by the time the running back seal is broken.

The experience, potential and skills of Georgia’s Todd Gurley and Wisconsin’s Melvin Gordon ought to entice a couple of teams to end the unprecedented two-year absence of running backs from the first round. The guys carrying the ball on the ground still matter in this increasingly aerial game.

Elite running backs haven’t stopped being developed by college programs, as evidenced by the depth of this class that could produce about a dozen picks by the end of the third round. A productive running attack is often a trait of the playoff teams each January. Last season’s league rushing leader was Super Bowl runner-up Seattle, and five of the top eight running teams reached the postseason.

Yet Bishop Sankey, first running back off the board in 2014, fell to No. 54 overall with Tennessee. In 2013, Giovani Bernard was picked by Cincinnati at No. 37, also a secondday selection.

Not since the AFL-NFL merger in 1970 had a running back been missing from the first round of the draft. Suddenly, that happened in consecutive years.

“It’s a passing game. It’s hard to say if we’re a devalued position,” Gordon said. “Teams are just going with the picks they actually need. I don’t know the thoughts going through their head. Maybe they didn’t feel the running backs the last couple of years were first-round talent. I don’t know.”