It seems like most "experts" have Royce getting drafted in the 3rd or 4th round.
I think that he is better than some of the other kids who are ranked ahead of him.
This article rates the players using a metric that I had never heard of before and claims to be able to predict what the player's NFL success most likely will be.
If you are a draft junkie like me its kinda fun.
NOTE:
This article is from a pay site at ESPN so if I link it you cannot get to it.
Therefore, I cut and pasted the whole thing:
Saquon Barkley, who is perhaps the most hyped running back prospect since Reggie Bush, arrives at an interesting point in NFL history. The running back is no longer a "premier" position in the draft -- NFL teams would much rather use a high pick on a quarterback, offensive tackle, pass-rusher, or wide receiver.
Would it surprise you to learn that the top prospect and the top receiving back are both Saquon Barkley?
For more detail on how BackCAST works, check out the bottom of the article. What follows is a ranking of the top running back prospects for 2018 according to our model:
Penn State Nittany Lions[/paste:font]
BackCAST score: plus-181.9 percent
Type of back: Receiving
Similar historical prospects: Ricky Williams, LaDainian Tomlinson
You can believe the hype: Barkley has a massive BackCAST projection. In fact, he has the second highest projection of any running back in BackCAST's dataset, and he is a relatively close second to Ricky Willliams' best ever plus-190.1 percent projection.
Saquon Barkley 2018 ? ? 181.9%
T.J. Duckett 2002 1 18 160.0%
Ron Dayne 2000 1 11 154.7%
Leonard Fournette 2017 1 4 145.6%
Dalvin Cook 2017 2 41 141.2%
LaDainian Tomlinson 2001 1 5 136.2%
Darren McFadden 2008 1 4 130.8%
Ronnie Hillman 2012 3 67 128.5%
DeAngelo Williams 2006 1 27 119.1%
Todd Gurley II 2015 1 10 118.2%
Ezekiel Elliott 2016 1 4 118.0%
Barkley's historically great projection is primarily driven by his great size-speed combination. Barkley is the heaviest running back in BackCAST's dataset to run a 40-yard dash in 4.40 seconds or better.
Moreover, Barkley is not just a workout warrior. Penn State gave Barkley 42.8 percent of its rushing attempts when he was only a freshman and gave him more than 50 percent of its rushing attempts each year thereafter. Nobody knows a player's talents as well as his coaches, who see the player's performance in practice as well as on game day. Any competent coach (as well as most of the incompetent ones) will try to get supremely talented players the ball. Barkley's coaches gave him the ball a lot, and history shows that Barkley's coaches' vote of confidence is an excellent sign for his potential success.
The weakest aspect of Barkley's projection is his yards per attempt. Barkley averaged 5.73 yards per attempt, which is above average. It is just not stratospherically above average like the rest of his metrics. To top it off, Barkley is also likely to be effective catching passes out of the backfield.
Barkley's numbers don't nullify all the analytics that caution against using a high first-round pick on a running back. And despite all of these positive indicators, there's always the slim chance that he could bust. However, it is hard to imagine a much better prospect at the running back position than Saquon Barkley.
Royce Freeman, Oregon Ducks
BackCAST score: plus-88.1 percent
Type of back: Balanced
Similar historical prospects: Michael Turner, Kevin Jones
In last year's draft, BackCAST had three very good prospects that it rated relatively close together: Leonard Fournette, Dalvin Cook and Joe Mixon. This year, there is a huge gap between Barkley and BackCAST's second-rated prospect, Freeman. That said, Freeman is actually a pretty nice prospect who may be severely underrated as a mid-round pick.
A good all-around prospect, Freeman received relatively heavy usage at Oregon, he has a good size-speed combination, and he had a better yards-per-attempt average than Barkley.
Derrius Guice, LSU Tigers
BackCAST score: plus-86.8 percent
Type of back: Ground-and-pound
Similar historical prospects: Jamal Lewis, Rashard Mendenhall
Guice is appropriately rated as a first- to second-round pick. He had a relatively heavy workload during college, especially considering that he had to compete with future top-five pick Leonard Fournette for carries up through 2017. Guice also did a lot with those opportunities -- he averaged 6.4 yards per attempt, which is one of the best marks of this draft class.
The downside to Guice is that he is unlikely to give his team much in the receiving game. He averaged just more than seven receiving yards per game and is a larger than average back, which are both bad signs for his receiving prospects in the NFL.
Rashaad Penny, San Diego State Aztecs
BackCAST score: plus-81.0 percent
Type of back: Balanced/Ground-and-pound
Similar historical prospects: Melvin Gordon, Tevin Coleman
Aside from Barkley, Penny may be the most intriguing prospect in this year's draft from a BackCAST perspective. Penny averaged a phenomenal adjusted 7.37 yards per attempt, which is the second highest score all time in BackCAST's database. Penny also has a good size-speed combination -- he is a big back at 222 pounds, but he has the speed of a running back 20 pounds lighter (4.46-second 40-yard dash).
Penny's projection takes a big hit, however, because his workload was comparatively light. In fact, he has the largest disparity between adjusted yards per attempt and college workload in BackCAST's dataset. Until his senior year, Penny was stuck behind other running backs on the depth chart; most notably, current Philadelphia Eagles running back Donnel Pumphrey.
There is some evidence that San Diego State's coaches may have simply been mistaken about who was the better running back. Every year he played, Penny beat every other running back on the roster in yards per attempt. In particular, he averaged over a yard per carry more than Pumphrey as a junior. In fact, if you follow the running back rotation at San Diego State closely, it appears that the coaches gave a lot of weight to experience (San Diego State also diverted carries to senior running back Christian Price during Penny's sophomore year). If that is the case, then Penny may be much more talented than his college workload suggests.
In sum, Penny's BackCAST projection is good, and there is significant reason to believe that the one negative aspect of his profile does not reflect his true ability.
I think that he is better than some of the other kids who are ranked ahead of him.
This article rates the players using a metric that I had never heard of before and claims to be able to predict what the player's NFL success most likely will be.
If you are a draft junkie like me its kinda fun.
NOTE:
This article is from a pay site at ESPN so if I link it you cannot get to it.
Therefore, I cut and pasted the whole thing:
Saquon Barkley, who is perhaps the most hyped running back prospect since Reggie Bush, arrives at an interesting point in NFL history. The running back is no longer a "premier" position in the draft -- NFL teams would much rather use a high pick on a quarterback, offensive tackle, pass-rusher, or wide receiver.
Would it surprise you to learn that the top prospect and the top receiving back are both Saquon Barkley?
For more detail on how BackCAST works, check out the bottom of the article. What follows is a ranking of the top running back prospects for 2018 according to our model:
Penn State Nittany Lions[/paste:font]
BackCAST score: plus-181.9 percent
Type of back: Receiving
Similar historical prospects: Ricky Williams, LaDainian Tomlinson
You can believe the hype: Barkley has a massive BackCAST projection. In fact, he has the second highest projection of any running back in BackCAST's dataset, and he is a relatively close second to Ricky Willliams' best ever plus-190.1 percent projection.
Saquon Barkley 2018 ? ? 181.9%
T.J. Duckett 2002 1 18 160.0%
Ron Dayne 2000 1 11 154.7%
Leonard Fournette 2017 1 4 145.6%
Dalvin Cook 2017 2 41 141.2%
LaDainian Tomlinson 2001 1 5 136.2%
Darren McFadden 2008 1 4 130.8%
Ronnie Hillman 2012 3 67 128.5%
DeAngelo Williams 2006 1 27 119.1%
Todd Gurley II 2015 1 10 118.2%
Ezekiel Elliott 2016 1 4 118.0%
Barkley's historically great projection is primarily driven by his great size-speed combination. Barkley is the heaviest running back in BackCAST's dataset to run a 40-yard dash in 4.40 seconds or better.
Moreover, Barkley is not just a workout warrior. Penn State gave Barkley 42.8 percent of its rushing attempts when he was only a freshman and gave him more than 50 percent of its rushing attempts each year thereafter. Nobody knows a player's talents as well as his coaches, who see the player's performance in practice as well as on game day. Any competent coach (as well as most of the incompetent ones) will try to get supremely talented players the ball. Barkley's coaches gave him the ball a lot, and history shows that Barkley's coaches' vote of confidence is an excellent sign for his potential success.
The weakest aspect of Barkley's projection is his yards per attempt. Barkley averaged 5.73 yards per attempt, which is above average. It is just not stratospherically above average like the rest of his metrics. To top it off, Barkley is also likely to be effective catching passes out of the backfield.
Barkley's numbers don't nullify all the analytics that caution against using a high first-round pick on a running back. And despite all of these positive indicators, there's always the slim chance that he could bust. However, it is hard to imagine a much better prospect at the running back position than Saquon Barkley.
Royce Freeman, Oregon Ducks
BackCAST score: plus-88.1 percent
Type of back: Balanced
Similar historical prospects: Michael Turner, Kevin Jones
In last year's draft, BackCAST had three very good prospects that it rated relatively close together: Leonard Fournette, Dalvin Cook and Joe Mixon. This year, there is a huge gap between Barkley and BackCAST's second-rated prospect, Freeman. That said, Freeman is actually a pretty nice prospect who may be severely underrated as a mid-round pick.
A good all-around prospect, Freeman received relatively heavy usage at Oregon, he has a good size-speed combination, and he had a better yards-per-attempt average than Barkley.
Derrius Guice, LSU Tigers
BackCAST score: plus-86.8 percent
Type of back: Ground-and-pound
Similar historical prospects: Jamal Lewis, Rashard Mendenhall
Guice is appropriately rated as a first- to second-round pick. He had a relatively heavy workload during college, especially considering that he had to compete with future top-five pick Leonard Fournette for carries up through 2017. Guice also did a lot with those opportunities -- he averaged 6.4 yards per attempt, which is one of the best marks of this draft class.
The downside to Guice is that he is unlikely to give his team much in the receiving game. He averaged just more than seven receiving yards per game and is a larger than average back, which are both bad signs for his receiving prospects in the NFL.
Rashaad Penny, San Diego State Aztecs
BackCAST score: plus-81.0 percent
Type of back: Balanced/Ground-and-pound
Similar historical prospects: Melvin Gordon, Tevin Coleman
Aside from Barkley, Penny may be the most intriguing prospect in this year's draft from a BackCAST perspective. Penny averaged a phenomenal adjusted 7.37 yards per attempt, which is the second highest score all time in BackCAST's database. Penny also has a good size-speed combination -- he is a big back at 222 pounds, but he has the speed of a running back 20 pounds lighter (4.46-second 40-yard dash).
Penny's projection takes a big hit, however, because his workload was comparatively light. In fact, he has the largest disparity between adjusted yards per attempt and college workload in BackCAST's dataset. Until his senior year, Penny was stuck behind other running backs on the depth chart; most notably, current Philadelphia Eagles running back Donnel Pumphrey.
There is some evidence that San Diego State's coaches may have simply been mistaken about who was the better running back. Every year he played, Penny beat every other running back on the roster in yards per attempt. In particular, he averaged over a yard per carry more than Pumphrey as a junior. In fact, if you follow the running back rotation at San Diego State closely, it appears that the coaches gave a lot of weight to experience (San Diego State also diverted carries to senior running back Christian Price during Penny's sophomore year). If that is the case, then Penny may be much more talented than his college workload suggests.
In sum, Penny's BackCAST projection is good, and there is significant reason to believe that the one negative aspect of his profile does not reflect his true ability.
