Photo Credit: Mark J. Rebilas-Imagn Images
Remember what it was like to watch football as a kid? Who was your favorite player when you first fell in love with the game?
Maybe it was the star quarterback or a stud receiver. For many of us, the running backs kept us glued to the television every Sunday. That was especially true among the Minnesota Vikings fanbase, with heroes like Dalvin Cook, Robert Smith, and Chuck Foreman. Did I forget to mention Adrian Peterson?
Running backs define the very nature of football with toughness, athleticism, and play-making. You have the ball in your hands and your physical abilities and savvy to gain ground.
Then a bunch of nerds came along and told us that running backs don’t matter. You should never draft a running back high because their “positional value” is near the bottom of the barrel. I’m as willing as anyone to look at the models and projections and try to be smart about football, but sometimes I’m tired of “logic” and “math” dictating my decisions. I want an electrifying player at running back!
So I celebrated this week when I saw that Kwesi Adofo-Mensah, one of the nerdiest nerds among NFL GMs, had scheduled a combine meeting with Boise State’s Ashton Jeanty, the best running back in the draft. Finally, the Ivy League Wall Street guy is starting to think like a meathead!
All joking aside, why would Adofo-Mensah do this? Why would this team make such a high-value running back enough of a priority to dig in deeper? Is there a logical reason to invest in a player like Jeanty despite the conventional wisdom around his alleged positional value?
It’s worth mentioning that just because the Vikings met with Jeanty doesn’t mean he’ll be available anywhere near pick No. 24, or that they’re in love with him and would take him there. Adofo-Mensah hasn’t been GM long enough for us to discern if these meetings are some sort of tell about where he sits on their board. All it tells us is that they wanted to learn more about him.
Jeanty was a Heisman finalist, a consensus top-10 player according to NFLMockDraftDatabase’s Consensus Big Board, and most mock drafts have him going somewhere in the Top 15. Therefore, Minnesota’s decision to interview Jeanty says something about its resource management.
Whether it’s with Jeanty, another back in this draft class, or a high-value free agent, the interview tells me they’re open to investing a high-value asset in the running back position. That gets me excited.
It gets me excited about Jeanty specifically because he’s really freaking good. Is the rep below against the ‘85 Bears? No. But those are still scholarship athletes, and Jeanty makes them look like a high school team.
Jeanty’s contact balance thing stands out to me the most. Daniel Jeremiah compared him to Dalvin Cook, and I see some of that in Jeanty’s game. Cook was never a bruiser as a running back, but he had elite balance that caused guys to bounce off him rather than bring him down. Jeanty brings that element to his game.
We’re also talking about elite burst and quickness. I’m not sure Jeanty would be Jahmyr Gibbs-fast in his 40-yard dash and long speed. Still, I’d wager his 10-yard split will be among the best in the class. He has that knack some of the great ones have to be able to accelerate as he’s making his cut. It’s so deceptively quick, and it’s a reason that some defenders freeze when he’s shaking them in space.
How do you pin a guy like that down?
The other thing I love about Jeanty is his ability to be the focal point of an offense. The Mountain West Conference is not the NFC North, and the level of competition is a concern for Jeanty. Still, it also tells you something about his surrounding talent. While it’s near the upper echelon of the G5, it’s not what you’d find at the highest levels of college football.
Every team went into their game against Boise with a singular goal: stop Asthon Jeanty. However, no team with comparable talent to Boise managed to come close. Even high-level defenses like Oregon and Penn State couldn’t stifle him.
An investment in a running back of Jeanty’s caliber would tell me two things about this new era of Vikings football. First, all the offseason smoke about needing to invest and juice up their running game wasn’t just hot air. Second, they are invested in giving J.J. McCarthy the best possible on-ramp to success.
The Vikings lived (and sometimes died) by seven-step drops and low-percentage passes. Sacks and big plays defined the Sam Darnold era, and that was the best way to use Darnold’s big arm and skillset. However, it may not be the best way to maximize McCarthy’s.
McCarthy operated at Michigan with a lot of in-rhythm, timing-based passing concepts. His ability to get the ball out quickly will starkly contrast with what we saw from Darnold in 2024. McCarthy was also elite on bootlegs and plays, which got him throwing on the run, which Michigan could do thanks to an elite running game.
He was among the best in the country in college at throwing off of play-action despite lacking elite targets. Investing in the running game and getting a young, dynamic player to come up alongside McCarthy is an excellent way to invest in your most important asset.
I’d also add that positional values and trends only make sense when considering the context of how the market is responding to them. NFL.com draft guru Daniel Jeremiah has Jeanty as the third-best player in the draft. If the Vikings’ front office has that type of grade on Jeanty, but if the rest of the NFL is so hard-headed about a running back’s positional value, he falls into striking range for Kwesi? Then that’s a positive value. That’s taking advantage of an overcorrection.
Too often, the draft gets overcompensated. Draft good players! And it’s hard to watch Jeanty and not come away convinced that he’s very, very good.
