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The next Saquon Barkley? Ashton Jeanty forces NFL to reimagine the running back position.
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- The next Saquon Barkley? Ashton Jeanty forces NFL to reimagine the running back position.
Let's not go overboard, there's nothing philosophical about this.
Above everything else, the NFL is a copycat league . See successful, copy successful.
See Pat Mahomes and Andy Reid reinvent the passing game, be the passing game. Right down to declaring, without hesitation, that football is now a vertical pass game ― and anyone who doesn't abide by the unwritten rule falls behind.
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Then the Philadelphia Eagles won it all behind a running back of all things, one that previously was denied a second contract from his first team because – get this – that team spent the cash on a quarterback who eventually busted.
Saquon Barkley started this philosophical change in the NFL. Don't be shocked when Boise State running back Ashton Jeanty benefits from it in Thursday's NFL Draft.
"This isn't just any running back," Boise State coach Spencer Danielson said of the Heisman Trophy finalist who came within mere yards of breaking the unbreakable — Barry Sanders' single season NCAA rushing record. "This is a rare dude."
And before you declare Danielson wouldn't say anything less of his All-American running back, four different NFL scouts confirmed to USA TODAY Sports what everyone else saw week after week in the 2024 college football season.
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The scouts spoke on the condition of anonymity to protect their draft preparation.
They used words like unique home run hitter. Power and balance. Explosive punisher.
All four scouts said Jeanty was among the top five players overall on their respective draft boards. All four said someone in the league could choose Jeanty as high as No.5 overall, but that he won't fall out of the top 10.
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Barkley was selected with the second overall pick in the 2018 draft, despite the Giants knowing future Hall of Fame quarterback Eli Manning was at the end of his career. They passed on Josh Allen and Lamar Jackson and Sam Darnold, and selected Barkley.
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Now fast forward to 2025. The Titans are a lock to take Miami quarterback Cam Ward at No.1 overall — not because he's the best player in the draft, but because they need a quarterback in the quarterback-driven league.
They'll do this knowing full well that the most successful times in franchise history were built around the running of Eddie George and Derrick Henry , and to a lesser extent, the running and passing of quarterback Steve McNair.
But when Ryan Tannehill threw three interceptions in a 2022 division round loss to the Bengals – when the Titans were the No.1 seed in the AFC – Henry just wasn't as important anymore. The guy on the other sideline, Bengals quarterback Joe Burrow (and what he stood for) was.
So now the Titans will reach again to find a quarterback, this time on a player those same NFL scouts admitted wasn't among the top 20 rated players in the draft. He's just the best quarterback.
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This brings us all the way back to Jeanty, and the reemergence of the running back. The same Jeanty who gained more yards after contact in the 2024 college football season than any other running back's total rushing yards .
That's 1,970 yards after contact, for those keeping score at home. The next closest in total yards was Cam Skattebo of Arizona State , who had 1,711 yards — 259 yards behind Jeanty's after contact yards.
"I'm the best player in the draft," Jeanty said. "As a competitor, I don't know how you think anything else."
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Before you say what else would Jeanty say, let's circle back to Danielson to bring it all home. To explain how Jeanty walked on campus as a 17-year-old – who had only been playing running back for nearly three seasons (he was a wide receiver prior) – and changed everything.
How Danielson, then the Boise State defensive coordinator, had to reevaluate the defense because of the freshman who arrived as an early spring enrollee and made them look so bad, Danielson wasn't sure if it was the talent and/or the scheme — or if Jeanty was going to make everyone look bad.
It was the latter, and they found out quickly.
"The entire defense," Danielson said, and he stops for a moment to repeat it just in case you didn't absorb the enormity of it. "The entire defense is in conflict when you're playing Ashton. You don't know what to do."
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He's trying to explain this phenomenon, and the old defensive coordinator in him still can't believe it.
"He has such great balance between top-end speed and explosiveness and power," Danielson continues. "So when you're tackling him, you're in conflict by, do I set my feet wide and brace for the bullet that's coming at me? But if I do that, he's making a move and going right by me. But if you don't set your feet, you're a bug on a windshield. All 11 defenders at all times are in conflict."
That sounds eerily like a guy named Barkley. The balance, the yards after contact, the explosive home-run hitter. All 11 defenders in conflict.
Could a team (we're looking at you, Chicago Bears) trade up to draft Boise State RB Ashton Jeanty?
The problem: the draft of late hasn't exactly been a feeding ground for elite running backs taken in the first round. For every Derrick Henry and Christian McCaffrey , there are so many more first-round busts like Trent Richardson and Knowshon Moreno .
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Teams aren't spending valuable draft capital on a position that has been devalued by the emergence of late round finds. Prior to the Eagles winning the Super Bowl in February, the Chiefs won it in back-to-back seasons with Isiah Pacheco as their feature running back.
Pacheco was a seventh-round pick (No. 251 overall) in 2022.
The Rams won it all in 2021 with a washed out former first round pick no longer in the league ( Sony Michel ), and a third-round pick (Darrell Henderson Jr.). The Bucs won the Super Bowl in 2020 with second-rounder Ronald Jones , and another washed out former first round selection no longer in the league ( Leonard Fournette ), who got hot in the playoffs.
See the trend? Barkley, and his rare 2,000-yard season, changed all of that.
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There's no chance Jeanty, a 5-feet-9, 205-pound fireplug, is selected in the first-round last year, especially after the Giants had just given up on Barkley after choosing to pay quarterback Daniel Jones . No chance the player who flirted with Sanders' insurmountable record (a measly 28 yards shy), who squats 600 pounds, bench presses 400 and was clocked at 22 mph in multiple games at Boise State, is a Day 1 pick.
It's a quarterback league, everyone. Nothing underscored that more than the Giants choosing to pay a quarterback they would eventually release on November 22, 2024. Two days later, Barkley ran for a season-high 255 yards and two touchdowns in the Eagles' 17-point rout of the Rams during the Super Bowl run.
If the NFL truly is a copycat league, someone will take Jeanty early in Thursday's first round. Maybe even Top 5 overall.
See success, copy success.
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"Every play isn't perfect," Jeanty said. "Sometimes you have to go above and beyond."
Sounds like a winning philosophy for building with running backs in the NFL.
Matt Hayes is the senior national college football writer for USA TODAY Sports Network. Follow him on X at @MattHayesCFB .
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Ashton Jeanty could be next Saquon Barkley and redefine running back
