About a year ago, I wrote about the then-rookie class of NFL running backs and how excited I was to see them thriving. During Week 4 of the 2025 season, first-year rookie backs combined to run for 737 yards, the most by any set of rookie rushers during a week of September football since the 1970 AFL-NFL merger. It looked like a class that was regarded by prospect mavens as one of the deepest and most compelling groups in recent memory was quickly taking over.
One year later, things aren't looking quite as rosy. In Week 6 of the 2026 season, the class of 2025 combined for just 246 yards on the ground, its collective worst total in any given week so far. With benchings and injuries plaguing so many standouts, the leading rusher from the 2025 class that week was Corey Kiner, an undrafted free agent who was the third-string option on the Patriots. Things were better in Week 7, but the class has collectively topped 600 yards in a single week just once since that big breakout in Week 4 one year ago.
What has gone wrong? Injuries have plagued many of the class' most promising backs. Ashton Jeanty, Ollie Gordon II and LeQuint Allen Jr. are the only three 2025 draft picks at running back to be active in every one of their team's games since entering the league, and Gordon and Allen have been backups for most (or all) of that time. Jeanty has played through several ailments, including an ankle issue that he dealt with this preseason.
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Jeanty himself might be a microcosm of the class' struggles as a whole. He entered the league as a highly touted running back out of Boise State, drafted by the Raiders ahead of other offensive options such as tackles Armand Membou, receiver Tetairoa McMillan, tackle Kelvin Banks Jr. and tight end Colston Loveland, who were the next four picks off the board. Jeanty has certainly flashed at times over his first year-plus in the league, and there are excuses that can help justify his lack of consistency, but he wouldn't be taken ahead of any of those players if the league took a second shot at the 2025 draft.
I will run through many of the most notable contributors from the 2025 rookie running back class -- Jeanty, Omarion Hampton, Quinshon Judkins, TreVeyon Henderson, Bhayshul Tuten, Cam Skattebo and others -- and deliver a sort of progress update on where they stand. There are certainly success stories, but they're coming from surprising places. And while their final NFL story is far from written, it's fair to start wondering whether we'll see some of the most promising and highly touted backs from 2025 live up to what we saw from them as rookies, let alone as prospects.
Jump to:
Jeanty | Hampton | Judkins
Henderson | Tuten | Skattebo
Best of the rest | Disappointments
Will this class be all-time great?
Ashton Jeanty, Las Vegas Raiders
Let's start with the first running back selected (No. 6) in the class. Jeanty has been available every week for a Raiders team that hasn't had great playmakers beyond tight end Brock Bowers, which is valuable in its own right. But it would be difficult to argue that the production has been what the Raiders hoped to get. Since entering the league, Jeanty has turned 372 carries into just 1,303 yards, an average of 3.5 yards per attempt. He has averaged minus-0.27 EPA per rush attempt over that timeframe, the worst mark among backs with 150 carries or more since the start of 2025. And Jeanty is second to last in success rate (32.8%) and last in first downs over expectation, per NFL Next Gen Stats (minus-16).
There has understandably been an effort to contextualize Jeanty's struggles within the broader Raiders offense, which was particularly awful in 2025. Jeanty averaged just 1.3 yards before contact during his rookie season, the worst mark in the NFL by a considerable margin. He was hit at or behind the line of scrimmage nearly 52% of the time, per Next Gen Stats, a figure topped by only fellow 2025 draftee Quinshon Judkins. A league-high 93% of Jeanty's rushing yardage came after he was initially contacted.
It was certainly reasonable to see what Jeanty could do with an improved line and a much better coaching staff in 2026. The Shanahan zone scheme that Klint Kubiak was going to install as his primary mode of attack on the ground has made stars out of dozens of backs over the years. It promised to make life easier for Jeanty, too.
Instead, Jeanty has been worse this season. He is still getting hit behind the line more often than league average (47.2%) and still gaining a significant portion of his rushing yardage after first contact (91.3%), but the offense is functioning far more effectively around him than it did a year ago. Sure, there are still too many plays in which Jeanty ends up in a hopeless situation because a lineman busts, and he has run for no gain or a loss on a league-high 26.4% of his carries. But he isn't doing enough in the situations in which he does have an opportunity to break something big. Jeanty doesn't have a single run of more than 20 yards and has just five runs of 10 yards or more on 105 attempts. That 4.8% clip is less than half the league average (10.3%) for backs with at least 60 carries. Plus, he's forcing missed tackles on just under 18% of attempts, below the league average of 25%.
We've also seen another back look more explosive as a runner in this same offense. Rookie Mike Washington Jr., a fourth-round pick, has averaged 4.9 yards per carry playing behind the same offensive line. And while he also doesn't have a great success rate, Washington has been able to create explosive plays on the ground. He has picked up 10 or more yards on 15% of his carries and already has 21- and 35-yard rushes this season.
Explosive plays can be subject to significant amounts of variance, so I wouldn't go as far as suggesting that what we've seen from him in 2026 means Jeanty can't create big plays. He does have five catches of 20 or more yards. But the fact that Jeanty has struggled to create those big plays on his own undercuts the idea that he was the sort of transcendent back that justified a top-10 pick, especially in a draft with so many other exciting prospects lurking in later rounds.
One way to generate value while those explosive plays come and go is to succeed in short-yardage situations. However, Jeanty has been frustrating there throughout his career. Running backs have converted about 66% of their rush attempts over the past two years on plays with 1 or 2 yards to go for a first down or a touchdown. Jeanty has converted 45% of the time. That's the worst mark among backs with at least 20 attempts in short yardage since the start of 2025, and it weighs heavily in Jeanty's league-worst first down over expectation of minus-16.
Are there plays in which Jeanty has no chance of succeeding because someone shoots a gap past a befuddled lineman? Yes. There are also plenty of snaps in which Jeanty simply doesn't exhibit the combination of decisiveness and power needed to pick up first downs. Those short-yardage plays don't need to turn into explosives, but Jeanty needs to be able to make a defender miss, follow his blocks or run through contact to pick up the 1 or 2 yards he needs. Trucking a defender is great if you can do it, and it's always nice to have huge holes, but good short-yardage backs either find narrow windows or run through contact and fall forward on the way down to move the chains. Jeanty does not do that on a consistent basis, an issue that popped up in 2025 before continuing to afflict the young back in 2026.
Ashton Jeanty struggling in short-yardage pic.twitter.com/2LC1iqt4cF
— Bill Barnwell (@billbarnwell) October 26, 2026
The bright spot in Jeanty's game has been his work as a receiver, where he has 34 catches for 312 yards and three touchdowns this season. Jeanty is averaging just over 2 yards per route run, which is excellent for a running back. And while most of those catches are checkdowns and screens, we're seeing Kubiak expand Jeanty's route tree to get him vertical more often. He scored a touchdown on a fade off play-action against the Rams last week, then took an option route vertical and caught a back-shoulder throw from Kirk Cousins for 22 yards.
If Jeanty is going to make his name as a receiving back, he needs to stop dropping the football. He already has five drops this season, including three in one game against the Chargers. Last season, a Jeanty drop on what should have been an easy catch turned into an interception for the Broncos in Week 10. In Week 16 against the Texans, he was on a different page than quarterback Geno Smith and drifted on a route to the flat that turned into a pick-six for Derek Stingley Jr. The details have to be better, but that should come with time.
Is there a great running back here? I'd like to wait until the end of the season to find out. The zone-running game Kubiak installs typically gets better as the season goes along and the offensive line develops some cohesion. And of course, Jeanty might look like a completely different back in a much better offense. For the Raiders to draft him when and where they did, knowing how little they had to support a running back, was foolish at the time and would be a disaster if Jeanty doesn't turn out to be even a league-average runner. Frankly, even if he ends up as a useful receiving back, the Raiders would still have been better off with an actual wide receiver such as McMillan.
There are backs who took a few years to figure things out before they eventually emerged as useful contributors. Marshawn Lynch didn't really become a high-end running back until his sixth pro campaign. Mark Ingram II was a major disappointment for three years before growing into a more substantial role in his fourth pro season. It's reasonable to hold out hope that Jeanty heads down that path. But if we don't see signs of that growth before the end of the season, it would be time to get seriously worried.
Omarion Hampton, Los Angeles Chargers
When we last left off with this class, Hampton had just put together his best pro game against the Giants before suffering an ankle injury while tripping on a route. That injury would cost Hampton two months, and when he returned, the first-round pick averaged 4 yards per attempt while splitting time with Kimani Vidal (who emerged as a useful player when Hampton was out of the lineup). Hampton then injured his other ankle before the playoffs and barely played in the wild-card loss to the Patriots.
As with so many other members of this Chargers offense, hopes were high for Hampton heading into the 2026 season under new coordinator Mike McDaniel. The results haven't been there. In a rotational role alongside Vidal and Keaton Mitchell, Hampton has averaged 3.6 yards per carry. He has lost two fumbles, tanking his value added as a runner. He has been below average by success rate, keeping the offense on schedule 37.5% of the time when the league average for running backs is 39.4%.
The biggest concern for Hampton so far, though, is that he hasn't been able to create much explosion. The most exciting part of McDaniel's arrival in Los Angeles was the idea that he would be able to create huge running lanes and explosive-play opportunities for his backs. Hampton's size and physicality has never been in question, but the element that really helped propel him into Round 1 was his 4.46 speed and the idea that he could accelerate into some huge gains if given the opportunity.
Last season, we saw that speed reveal itself quickly. In 2025, Hampton topped 18 mph 12 times across 156 touches as a ball carrier, or once every 8.7 plays. He topped 19 mph five times and made it all the way up to 21.2 mph on a 54-yard touchdown against the Giants.
This season, Hampton has topped 18 mph three times on 89 touches, or once every 29.7 opportunities as a ball carrier. He hasn't made it over 19 mph once, let alone come near the 21 mph marker he topped on that long touchdown run last season. There's a chicken or egg element to this -- is Hampton struggling to hit top speed because he hasn't had long runs, or does he not have many explosive runs because he's missing a gear he had before the ankle injuries?
The explosive runs Hampton has had don't really fit his ideal style of play. He has five runs of 10 or more yards, and three of them are on toss-and-pitch concepts, where Hampton is running far outside the tackles and running laterally for a fair amount of the play. Only two of those five runs are on concepts between the tackles, and one is on a draw with four seconds left in the first half, when the defense wasn't concerned about a running play. Hampton's 15-yard run against the Seahawks on a same-side counter concept is the sort of run the Chargers were hoping to get when they combined McDaniel with their backs.
At the same time, with Hampton in a heavy rotation, you would hope to see more explosiveness and ability in the open field from a back with his traits, even if he's not getting there as often as Chargers fans might hope. While Jeanty has one of the lowest expected yards per carry figures given his blocking, Next Gen Stats projects Hampton to average 4.1 yards per carry given what he has been facing so far this season. Hampton is a half-yard below that expectation, the eighth-worst rate among backs with 50 or more attempts.
Nearly 19% of Hampton's runs have produced no gain or a loss, a figure that is way too high for a player producing explosive plays as infrequently as Hampton does. Watching back the tape, it is much easier to blame the blocking scheme for Hampton's issues than it is for Jeanty's struggles in Vegas. On his 15 stuffs, I counted significant blocking mistakes or blocking angles that were doomed to fail at the snap on 14. Injuries have sunk the Chargers up front, but the two biggest culprits in terms of blocking woes have been right guard Cole Strange and wide receiver Tre' Harris, both of whom were always expected to be in the lineup this season. Strange was specifically brought in by McDaniel to be a part of the offense in Los Angeles.
As with Jeanty a season ago, it's tempting to look at the complete and utter disaster the Chargers have pieced together on offense and just write this off as a wasted season for Hampton. I'd like to at least see a few more splash plays from him -- as a runner or receiver -- to keep up hopes that the guy we saw against the Giants a year ago is still someone we can hope to see again in the future.
It's difficult to make a case that the Chargers would or should draft Hampton at No. 22 again if they had the chance. Leaving aside concerns about positional scarcity and Hampton's performance, any team's goal in the first round of the draft has to be landing a player who plays the majority of the team's snaps as a starter. The Chargers have been curiously disinterested in using Hampton that way, as he split time with Najee Harris in 2025 before both got injured, with Vidal after he returned and then with a combination of Vidal and Mitchell so far in 2026. There are questions about drafting a running back in the first round to begin with, but drafting a part-time back can't be the right idea.
Quinshon Judkins, Cleveland Browns
After a brutal start to the season, Judkins is coming off his best game of the year. Heading into the Week 7 matchup against the Titans, Judkins had carried the ball 73 times for just 221 yards, an even 3.0 yards per carry. The Browns have eight new starters on offense, so it's reasonable to expect some growing pains, but Cleveland's other backs had turned their 29 carries into 134 yards for an average of 4.6 yards per attempt. Returning from a broken leg he suffered late in his rookie season, Judkins seemed like he was operating at something less than 100%.
And then the Titans showed up. Despite playing from behind for most of the contest, the Browns leaned on their run game and Judkins, who had 17 carries for 96 yards and two touchdowns. Playing a defense that wanted to live in two-high looks for most of the day, the Browns were able to create holes for Judkins, whose average carry was expected to gain 4.5 yards by the Next Gen Stats model, the highest expectation Judkins has been afforded in a game as a pro. He more than took advantage, including a 30-yard run on a play in which the Titans were outnumbered with blockers and a 10-yard run on a counter-bash read scheme in which Deshaun Watson read an unblocked defensive end and handed the ball to Judkins with plenty of room.
The Browns have leaned in to quarterback run concepts under Todd Monken after the new head coach's work with Lamar Jackson, a move that should create more space for Judkins as a runner if teams respect Watson's potential to hang on to the ball. In reality, defenses have typically been going after Judkins and daring Watson to run instead. The Browns have also had a surprising amount of success throwing to start the season and have a legitimate deep threat in Denzel Boston, which should help create space for Judkins to operate underneath.
Judkins is always going to thrive on his ability to hit home runs. Since the start of 2025, his 32.5% success rate is the worst among backs with 150 or more carries. And unlike Jeanty, who has the second-worst rate over that same timeframe, Judkins isn't a particularly slippery back; he has forced missed tackles on 18.1% of attempts, which is the third-lowest rate among backs behind Aaron Jones Sr. and Rico Dowdle.
There's nothing wrong with that profile if you can hit those big plays, but before last week, Judkins looked like he wasn't back to his old self. He had three gains of 10 or more yards against the Titans, matching his season total up to that point. The explosive plays we saw from Judkins last season helped him generate positive rush yards over expectation (plus-45) despite the below-average success rate. A few more big runs will get him back there again in 2026.
With Dylan Sampson sidelined for five weeks before returning against the Titans, Judkins has also been needed more often in the passing game, and that has been a positive. Judkins has been more productive and efficient as a receiver, breaking tackles while running at defenders with some speed and open space. Sampson's return should limit how often the Browns need Judkins to catch the football, but he has averaged 1.6 yards per route run this season, an above-average figure for a running back. After not doing much as a receiver during his rookie season, becoming a bit of a threat on checkdowns and screens would give Judkins more chances to hit those big plays.
TreVeyon Henderson, New England Patriots
Henderson is another back who has driven almost all his value by generating big plays. Since entering the league, Henderson has produced four runs of 50 or more yards, tying Bijan Robinson for most in the league. He added a 39-yarder against the Steelers on a dart concept earlier this season, following pulling tackle Morgan Moses and running away from third-level defenders for his first and (so far) only touchdown of 2026. When Henderson has the end zone in sight, there just aren't many defenders who seem capable of stopping him.
When Henderson is hitting those big runs, his ascension to the role as the lead back in the Patriots' offense seems inevitable. When you throw in his ability to catch the football -- which included five- and six-catch games last season -- you can understand why the Patriots prioritized targeting him as part of their backfield in the second round last year. A 20-play highlight reel from Henderson looks like one of the best backs in the NFL doing his thing.
The issue for Henderson has been trust. The Patriots' coaching staff doesn't have any in him, particularly when it comes to pass protection. Despite coming into the league with a solid reputation as a blocker, Henderson looked awful there early in his rookie season, allowing sacks and taking penalties as a pass protector. Eventually, the Patriots just stopped using him in that role. He took just nine pass-blocking snaps in four games after the Pats' bye in 2025. And playing a fierce Broncos pass rush in the AFC Championship Game, coach Mike Vrabel put Henderson on the field for a total of four snaps.
Through six games, Henderson has been used as a pass blocker only 19 times. It's a bad time to be a running back who isn't a great pass blocker, given that teams are leaning more heavily into the blitz. Defenses have blitzed on more than 31% of dropbacks this season, up from 26% five years ago and 27% a decade ago. So many of those blitzes are designed to stress the running back, either by creating an overload and forcing the RB to scan from side to side, or by sending two rushers at the RB and daring him to pick the right one while the quarterback throws hot off the other. Getting swatted aside by linebackers, as Henderson was against the Bears last week, isn't going to win you any fans on the sideline.
Struggling in pass protection also limits Henderson's ability to show off what he can do as a receiver. The Patriots are hesitant to put Henderson on the field on obvious passing downs. On early downs, the gap between Rhamondre Stevenson and Henderson isn't too significant, as Stevenson has played 190 snaps to Henderson's 110. (Henderson has missed one game because of an ankle injury.)
On third and fourth down, though, Stevenson has played more than seven times as often as his counterpart, with 84 snaps to Henderson's 11. Henderson has been in the backfield on only eight of those snaps, giving him as many snaps in the backfield on third and fourth down this season as third-stringer Corey Kiner. In the Patriots' offense of years past, that third-down role went to backs such as James White and Kevin Faulk, who would amass significant reception totals in the process. Drake Maye isn't Tom Brady, but Henderson is missing out on pass-catching opportunities because the Patriots don't believe Maye is safe on the field with Henderson protecting him.
Suffering a high-ankle sprain earlier this month won't help Henderson, who did show off his toughness by returning from the injury on a short week against the Bears and playing last week without missing any time. If given the opportunity to be the lead back on early downs by a Stevenson injury, I think Henderson could hold his own and prove to be a more explosive and productive player than his teammate while being less of a risk to fumble. As long as the Patriots don't trust Henderson on passing downs, though, it's going to cap his impact.
Bhayshul Tuten, Jacksonville Jaguars
Tuten has taken a step forward in 2026. He took over as the lead back in a three-person rotation alongside Chris Rodriguez Jr. and fellow 2025 draftee LeQuint Allen Jr., and the 2025 fourth-round pick has been up to the task. While Tuten's averaging a modest 4.1 yards per carry, he has posted slightly above-average rushing yards over expectation and first downs over expectation figures, suggesting the Virginia Tech product is doing more than his fair share given the blocking he has had so far this year.
Few backs have more raw speed than Tuten, who came into the league ranking among the fastest backs in recent memory with his 4.32 40-yard dash time. That speed came out naturally as Tuten returned kicks for the Jaguars in 2025, but he's also able to access that relatively quickly as a runner, too. Tuten is able to top 19 mph as he runs past the line of scrimmage on outside zone concepts, the sort of immediately problematic speed that gives defenders real pause.
That speed creates missed tackles. Tuten has forced opposing defenders into misses on 35.5% of their tackle attempts this season, the fourth-highest rate among regular backs behind Kenneth Walker III, Jahmyr Gibbs and Kyren Williams. That's good company. Tuten is naturally better as a zone runner, where he can make a quick decision and burst upfield past defenders before they have the time or ability to react. He's averaging 4.3 yards per carry there to 3.8 yards per attempt on gap runs.
His vision is still a work in progress. I'm not sure I'll ever forget the swing screen he caught last season when he ignored swaths of open space to instead detonate directly into a blocked defender. Tuten can still be indecisive as a runner, especially on gap scheme attempts, but it's also fair to say that the Jags as a whole are just better running zone concepts than gap ones this season.
And thankfully, Tuten has improved as a receiver. He has 13 catches for 126 yards this season, including a 27-yard score on a swing pass against the Texans. Most of Tuten's work has come on screen passes, and coach Liam Coen loves to get Tuten out fast into the flat because he can make plays as a receiver and because it forces the defense to communicate and pass off routes on the fly, which can create opportunities for the wide receivers to get open.
Coen's former boss, Sean McVay, has found real value in using Williams as a third- and fourth-down receiver on option routes when opposing teams focus on Puka Nacua and Davante Adams and leave Williams one-on-one against an overmatched linebacker. That would be the next step for Tuten, who isn't really yet in position to make those sorts of plays. Even if he's just converting swings and screens into first downs, though, Tuten will offer real value as a receiver, which is important given that Rodriguez almost never catches the football.
There's a lot to like here, and I'm more optimistic about Tuten through seven weeks than I was heading into 2026. He's doing a better job of harnessing his speed and getting the most out of it, and Coen puts his nominal lead back in situations that play to his strength. I wouldn't expect the Jags to turn over the entire backfield to Tuten, but his role is going to expand as the season goes along -- and that's deserved.
Cam Skattebo, New York Giants
Has any running back been through more of a roller coaster over the past few weeks? After getting the Giants into position for a winning field goal against the Commanders by converting a second-and-12 on two carries, Skattebo lost a fumble and his coach's confidence in the process. John Harbaugh essentially dropped Skattebo to fourth on the depth chart the following week, limiting the Arizona State product to six snaps and zero touches in the Week 6 loss to the Saints.
One week later against the Texans, Skattebo was back on top. The Giants cut Najee Harris and restored Skattebo to the starting lineup. He delivered with his best game of the season, turning 17 carries into 124 yards and a touchdown, including the 42-yard run in overtime that helped push the Giants into field goal range. The only blemish on Skattebo's day was the hamstring injury that caused the back to fall down at the end of that carry, although reports have suggested that the issue was more of a twinge than a pull.
It's probably not an accident that Skattebo's best games of the season came in Weeks 1 and 7. Those were the two full games he played with Jaxson Dart and J.J. McCarthy, mobile quarterbacks who can at least threaten opposing defenses with the possibility of running the ball themselves. That little bit of doubt for edge rushers and linebackers is a real help for Skattebo, who was bottled up in a more traditional offense when Jameis Winston was under center.
Skattebo's style is always going to look better to fans than it does by the numbers. Attempting to run over or through anybody in your path is undoubtedly fun, but it's a very tough way to play. Skattebo breaks his fair share of tackles -- his 23.6% rate over the past two years is right in line with league average -- but he rarely ends up getting himself to situations where he can just avoid tackles altogether. It's obviously a very different kind of player, but Josh Allen has a low missed tackle rate (18.1%) because he's quick and agile enough to run away from linebackers and take them out of the play before they can even attempt a tackle.
That doesn't lead to a very efficient profile. As a pro, Skattebo has been successful on 39.7% of his rush attempts, below the league-average rate of 40.8% for backs with 150 or more carries over the past two seasons. And 9.0% of Skattebo's touches turn into explosive plays as a runner or receiver, which is right in line with the 9.1% average all backs have posted on their touches over the past two seasons. That figure rises to 9.7% for starting backs. Skattebo has also averaged 1.3 yards per route run as a receiver, which is almost exactly league average.
All of that would roughly figure Skattebo to be about an average back, but fumbles have absolutely cratered any value he has brought to the table this year. He has fumbled four times on 109 touches, tying him with James Cook III for the most in the league. One of those fumbles came as Skattebo was stepping out of bounds and wasn't ever likely to be recovered by the defense, but the one against the Commanders obviously cost the Giants a chance to win the game in overtime.
Fumbles were also an issue for Skattebo in college, as he racked up 10 over 752 touches across his final three years at Sacramento State and Arizona State. Obviously, we saw Harbaugh's reaction to Skattebo's fumble against the Commanders. It's tough to imagine Skattebo holding on to a primary role for very long if he continues to fumble as often as he has this season.
If Skattebo can protect the football, though, he's about to enter what could be a career-altering few weeks. What was a crowded running back room two weeks ago suddenly looks very thin. The Giants cut Harris, who wasn't happy with the scheme the Giants were running. Tyrone Tracy Jr. went on injured reserve this week because of a hamstring injury. The only other back on the roster besides Skattebo is Devin Singletary, who was a healthy scratch for three games earlier this season. This is Skattebo's best chance to establish himself as someone who can shoulder a heavy workload without getting injured or fumbling the ball away.
The success stories in the rest of the class
While I focused on the most notable players from the class, there are a handful of backs who have exceeded expectations, especially considering where they were selected in the 2025 draft.
That starts with the last running back taken. Jacory Croskey-Merritt of the Commanders was the 25th and final running back off the board, but he's currently fifth in rushing yards, having racked up 1,044 over his first 22 games. Croskey-Merritt got off to a great start in 2025, posting a 53.3% success rate over his first six games as a pro. But that fell to 35.7% over the remainder of his rookie season. He also fumbled four times, which kept the Commanders from giving the seventh-round pick a larger role in the lineup. Croskey-Merritt hasn't made a steady impact as a receiver, which likely limits him to an early-down role if he can keep the fumbles down. He is currently on injured reserve because of a groin injury.
Kyle Monangai of the Bears, another seventh-round pick, has been hyper-efficient while playing in one of the league's best rushing attacks. There's no doubt that Ben Johnson's scheme makes life easier for the 24-year-old, as Monangai's 4.4 expected yards per carry is the seventh-best figure among regular backs since the start of 2025. (Teammate D'Andre Swift is just ahead of him in fifth.) Monangai has averaged 4.8 yards per rush over that span, and unlike Swift, he hasn't fumbled once across 252 touches. Monangai is not as explosive as his teammate, but he's a reliable runner and can stay on the field on passing downs. He's a good 1B option in a great place to be a running back.
The other notable success story has been Ollie Gordon II of the Dolphins. He has filled in for injured De'Von Achane and made me wonder whether the Dolphins should have just traded their star back and handed Gordon the job. Gordon has looked explosive in the lead role, averaging 4.7 yards per carry while producing first downs on nearly 28% of his carries, which rates among the best marks in the league. He has turned just over 14% of his rush attempts into 10-plus-yard gains, including 22-, 25- and 53-yard rushes -- the latter coming against the mighty Vikings defense. Gordon isn't as fast as Achane, but he has enough speed to break down opposing defenses by going around them, which is impressive for a 225-pound back. He has been very fun to watch for a team that hasn't otherwise provided many reasons to tune in this season.
The disappointments in the rest of the class
Other backs haven't quite lived up to their predraft expectations. RJ Harvey of the Broncos drew hopeful comparisons to Alvin Kamara after Sean Payton drafted him at the end of the second round in 2025, but the UCF product averaged 3.7 yards per carry as a rookie. Harvey has averaged 1.7 yards per route run as a receiver and made some big plays for the Broncos in the postseason, but given his usage, Denver clearly sees him as a change-of-pace back as opposed to a potential starter.
Trevor Etienne just hasn't played very much for the Panthers, touching the ball more often as a returner (59 touches) than as an offensive player (32). He wasn't great as a rookie returner, too, and after coming off injured reserve this season, he has split time with David Moore and Anthony Tyus III on punt and kick return duties. The fourth round is a pretty significant investment for a special teamer, and I'm not sure Etienne has delivered on that shot from the Panthers as of yet.
Drafted as part of Kyle Shanahan's boundless desire for Day 3 running backs, Jordan James was a healthy scratch for most of his first season with the 49ers and appears to have been passed by Kaelon Black on the depth chart. Likewise, DJ Giddens lost the backup job in Indianapolis to a 2026 rookie in Seth McGowan and hasn't seen the field once this season.
And then there are the backs who have already departed their original teams. Kaleb Johnson was the sixth back off the board in the middle of the third round for the Steelers, but he quickly fell into Mike Tomlin's doghouse after fumbling away a kickoff in the 2025 opener against the Jets and never got out. He was traded after one year to the Packers, only to fumble two more times on 29 touches. The return of Josh Jacobs booted Johnson off the game-day roster last week, and as a third or fourth back who doesn't play special teams, his path to playing time is pretty narrow.
Jarquez Hunter was a deep fantasy prospect after being drafted in the fourth round by the Rams, but he never touched the ball as a rookie before being traded to the Dolphins and then released this summer. He's on the Saints' practice squad. Devin Neal stated three games as a rookie but was cut after suffering a hamstring injury in camp with New Orleans. Jaydon Blue and Phil Mafah didn't make it out of their second training camp with the Cowboys, and Damien Martinez spent most of his rookie year on the practice squad in Seattle before joining Green Bay in late December, likely costing himself a Super Bowl ring in the process.
The 'to be determined' backs
And then, finally, there are a few backs who don't fall into to any one category. I'd throw Houston's Woody Marks into that mix as the sort of anti-Monangai -- a back with subpar numbers stuck in one of the worst environments for a running back. Marks has averaged 3.6 yards and minus-0.17 EPA per carry, both of which are underwhelming figures. But the six other backs to take carries for the Texans since the start of 2025 have averaged 3.8 yards per carry and minus-0.21 EPA per attempt. Marks has more big-play ability than the other backs the Texans have run out and has made an occasional impact as a receiver, but it's difficult for anyone to stand out as useful in that run game.
Dylan Sampson was a useful receiving back for the Browns last season, but he averaged 2.7 yards per carry, the eighth-worst rate since 1990 for a RB with at least 50 carries in their rookie season. Of course, Ollie Gordon averaged 2.8 yards per carry in 2025 and has been delightful this season, so that alone shouldn't disqualify Sampson from potentially being more productive. After suffering a knee injury in the season-opening loss to the Jaguars, Sampson had six carries for 45 yards and three catches for 32 yards in his return against the Titans last week.
LeQuint Allen Jr. has also settled in as a viable third back with a focus on the passing game for the Jaguars. Other draftees, such as Tahj Brooks (Bengals) and Kalel Mullings (Titans), just haven't seen the field very often. And while Brashard Smith got 69 touches for the Chiefs as a rookie, he had just one reception this season before going on injured reserve because of a hamstring injury.
Will 2025 be an all-time great class?
By the end of their rookie season, class of 2025 backs were averaging about 31.8 rushing yards per NFL game. That's almost exactly what the historic average has been going back to 1970, although it's better than the average since 2002 (29 yards per game). But the 2025 class is averaging 27.9 rushing yards so far this season, which isn't the sort of trend those backs would have liked to see.
While there's still plenty of time for backs to break out, a lot of the optimism that I (and many others) held about this class after that breakout week last season has faded. Injuries have really sapped some of the highest-profile players, and others have ended up in subpar or borderline hopeless rushing environments.
The comparisons to the class of 2008 now seem misguided. That class had players who were emerging as superstars by Year 2, including Chris Johnson, Jonathan Stewart and Jamaal Charles, and backs such as Matt Forte and Rashard Mendenhall were establishing themselves as solid starters. The class of 2025 doesn't really have anybody playing at that level, with situational backs Monangai and Tuten arguably playing the best ball of anyone. Week 7 was a much-needed collective step in the right direction, but there's a lot of work that needs to be done to get this group back on track.