2025 Dynasty Rookie Draft Coverage: First Look at the 2025 RB Class By the Numbers
Here, I will fire off some quick first-glance observations by the numbers for the 2025 rookie running backs. I evaluate prospects from each draft class over various advanced predictive metrics. I then stack these metrics up against historical player comparisons. All stats are from the regular season only and are sourced from PFF Premium.
- Ashton Jeanty is clearly the best rusher in this class. He leads all prospects in missed tackles forced per attempt (36.3%) by a wide margin. He ranks second in breakaway run % (9.45%). His 4.75 career yards after contact is also a few tiers above Omarion Hampton in second.
- Jeanty had a hilariously good 97.5 PFF rush grade this season. That is higher than Bijan Robinson‘s 96.1 (drafted eighth) for a reference point. Last year’s top running back prospect, Jonathon Brooks, posted a 91.9…
- My only concern about Jeanty is whether he will be involved enough in the passing game to be a perennially high-end fantasy asset. He only had 20 receptions this year for Boise St., but they were in quite a few lopsided games.
- The class as a whole lacks elite receiving backs in the Jahmyr Gibbs mold. This is key to sustained high-end fantasy production year after year. Think Alvin Kamara, Christian McCaffrey, and prime Austin Ekeler. Of the prospects expected to be drafted, Omarion Hampton shone the most in this category, with 38 receptions.
- This class was seemingly grown in a lab. Physically, the top prospects are incredibly uniform in size. No little guys like DeVon Achane in this group. With the exception of Damien Martinez, the whole class is within 10 of 215 pounds.
| Ashton Jeanty | Boise St | 5’9 | 215 |
| Omarion Hampton | UNC | 6’1 | 220 |
| Kaleb Johnson | Iowa | 6’0 | 225 |
| Trevor Etienne | Georgia | 5’9 | 205 |
| Quinshon Judkins | Ohio St | 6’0 | 219 |
| Bhayshul Tuten | Virginia Tech | 5’11 | 209 |
| Cameron Skattebo | Arizona St | 5/11 | 215 |
| TreVeyon Henderson | Ohio St | 5’10 | 208 |
| Damien Martinez | Miami | 6’0 | 232 |
| Devin Neal | Kansas | 5’11 | 215 |
| Ollie Gordon | Illinois | 6’2 | 225 |
| Nicholas Singleton | Penn St | 6’1 | 226 |
| Kyle Monangai | Rutgers | 5’9 | 209 |
| Jaydn Ott | Cal | 6’0 | 210 |
6. Dynasty league draft average draft position for running backs tends to correlate highly to draft position. To gain a competitive advantage over your league mates, you need to be able to identify the running backs who project for the most fantasy points and are values later in drafts. This is how I was able to identify running backs like Tyrone Tracy and Bucky Irving this past year. Based on their current mock draft values on the NFL mock draft database, a few of the running backs who shine analytically vs. their draft position are:
Trevor Etienne – Projected draft round 7 – Draft rank 17 – Preliminary analytical rank 5
Cam Skattebo – Projected draft round 6 – Draft rank 14 – Preliminary analytical rank 8
Damien Martinez – Projected draft round 7 – Draft rank 20 -Preliminary analytical rank 11
7. Eleven running backs scored a preliminary grade of 20 or higher in my analytical model this year. This is actually the same as last year. Draft capital affects this tremendously, so that will change, but last year’s class ended up being pretty solid despite not being as heralded as this year’s.
As we saw this year with Saquon Barkley, team situation matters a lot for the running back position, more so than any other fantasy-relevant position. This is just a first-glance macro look at the running back class as a whole. I will continue to do deeper dives throughout the Dynasty rookie draft prep season.
I hope you enjoyed reading my article. My goal is to provide actionable advice you can utilize to improve your Dynasty team. You can follow me on Twitter @force_fantasy. #DFFArmy #FantasyFootball #AlwaysBeBuilding #NFL #NFLDraft #NFLTransactions #NFLTrades #AlwaysBeScouting
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