Our Favorite Late-Round Dynasty Rookie Draft Targets at RB

The easiest way to fall behind in dynasty leagues is to Ben Simmons your first round rookie picks. the same holds true in season-long leagues. you brick your first, second, third round redraft picks, you’re going to wind up falling kiloyears behind your league-mates. A gap harder to fill in than the hole in my heart left by any Spanish girl under 5’5.

The same holds true with rookie picks. Your rookie picks are the adrenaline injection your team needs to stand up and rejuvenate itself. They are the Saturday night Adderall after pulling a Friday all-nighter. However, missing on your early-round rookie picks is like someone slipping you Nyquil instead of Adderall. Luckily for y’all, there are multiple rounds in our rookie drafts, typically 4, sometimes 5 for the freaks out there.

The later the rookie pick, the less likely they are to breakout, especially with more and more dynasty players becoming savvier to what matters when evaluating prospects. But shit still slips through the cracks like a broken toilet.

You can yell at me about what you’d consider a “late-round pick” in rookie drafts, but we’re going to staunchly settle on anything after pick 3.06 according to our rookie ADP.

Over the last two years, players you could’ve acquired in rookie drafts after pick 3.06 include: James Robinson, Myles Gaskin, Terry McLaurin, Chase Claypool, Gardner Minshew, Adam Trautman, Darnell Mooney, Mecole Hardman, Gabriel Davis and Preston Williams.

I’m not going to act like it’s a goldmine for the taking out here, and I know, not all of these guys have fired at the NFL level, but the goal is to acquire players that eventually find their way into your starting lineups OR accrue value heading into their sophomore season, and we can confidently say all of the guys listed did so.

We’re going to break down some of our favorite late-round picks (3.07+) in the 2021 rookie drafts that we’re hoping will land on ^^ that list when we write this big girl next year.

So, tuck ya shirts in stop yellin and let’s eat.

At first glance, this pick seems uninspiring — a 6th round pick slotting into a team with a secure workhorse running back in David Montgomery.

His athletic profile is nothing to necessarily go wild over, either.

Had his burst score not been so gross, I would’ve alikened Herbert to a discount Trey Sermon in rookie drafts.

With all that being yelled, there’s a lot to like about what the Hokie runner did at the college level. His speed score for one, was the 6th highest in this year’s class, above Kenny Gainwell, Chuba Hubbard, Javonte Williams, Trey Sermon.

He runs a lot like David Montgomery, too. His 4.7 yards after contact/attempt was tied for 1st in all of college football. His 6 rushing touchdowns of 20+ yards was tied for first in the class.

Herbert is fucking old. He played 4 years at Kansas before transferring to Va Tech as a grad student to play his 5th year where he put himself on the map. 1362 total yards and 9 touchdowns in 11 games. He would’ve broken out a year earlier but got hurt after starting for 4 games. He was averaging 8.9 yards per carry before getting hurt lol.

And I know, the burst score should tell us how explosive he is, relative to other NFL athletes, but despite ranking 24th in carries (155), he ranked 6th nationally in breakaway runs (15+ yards), he had 19 of them, equating to a breakaway rate of 12.3%, 8th in the NCAA. So while fraud Jermar Jefferson is out here breaking a tackle on 9.8% of his runs, Herbert is running for 15+ yards on 12.3% of his runs.

So, I like him. But don’t just take my word for it. Because that’s usually a bad idea.

 

Herbert is getting a lot of love here from all different angles. Feeling like Lela Star. We have my man Brett Kollman showing major love to Herbert, a film aficionado, Jim Nagy an 18-year NFL Scout and the RosterWatch crew – dynasty rookie analysts. There are no holes in this love.

Brett went as far as posting some ratchet shit like this:

While I can’t condone this type of behavior, you still love to see it.

Let’s add in one more to make myself feel better:

This situation isn’t ideal for Herbert right now, but it’s not something to shy away from when we dig deeper. Most of these late-round rookie picks are going to occupy your taxi squad regardless. The elephant in the room is David Montgomery who is securely locked into a heavy-volume role for this Bears team. Montgomery was drafted in 2019, so his 4-year rookie contract expires at the end of next season. Whether or not the Bears choose to resign him, who the fuck knows, but he doesn’t fit the mold of the upper-echelon backs that secures a fatty (think: C-Mac, Aaron Jones, Henry, Cook, Kamara, etc. — he’s simply not in this tier). Behind Montgomery, we have Tarik Cohen who’s likely finished in the league as anything more than a one-year contract hopper. We’re hearing that there’s still stiffness in his surgically repaired ACL that he tore in 2020. That’s horrible news and gives me no choice to be wildly pessimistic about this future NFL career. Outside of Cohen, the Bears signed former-Chiefs back Damien Williams. Williams was a fun player to yell about in his “prime”, but it’s irresponsible to suggest he’s still there. He turned 29 in April and opted out of the 2020 season. He was signed to a one-year $1.1M deal. I believe that’s the vet minimum. The dead cap if they cut him would be $125K. Aka, there’s just as good of a chance that Williams makes the Bears roster this year as he doesn’t.

The #2 running back slot is WIDE open for the taking, even for a 6th round pick.

The other notable part of Herbert’s game is that he was the kick returner for Virginia Tech averaging a thicc 27 yards per kick return. He can certainly occupy that role for the Bears immediately and we love rookies getting on the field right away, in any capacity.

Going one spot behind Herbert in rookie drafts, Doaks finds himself in Miami where they really don’t give a fuck about who is playing running back for them. Over the last two years, we’ve seen Myles Gaskin (7.20), Salvon Ahmed (UDFA), Kalen Ballage (4.31), Patrick Laird (UDFA) see meaningful backfield touches at one point or another for the Dolphins. This doesn’t seem to be a fad for head coach Brian Flores. The rebuild is real here in Miami and everything down to the running back positional value is on point.

Thus, Doaks making an impact here is not out of the range of outcomes. The addition of Malcolm Brown, who this coaching staff seems to love for some crooked reason, admittedly hurts Doaks’ chance to contribute as a rookie.

The most attractive part about Doaks is his athletic profile, without a doubt.

He’s 5’11-228lbs. That’s real workhorse size, something this draft class was sorely missing.

Doaks ran a 4.58 at his Pro-Day which slots him in as the 5th highest weight-adjusted speed score in this class. The W-ASS is one of the more predictable stats for running back success at the NFL level. His burst score is also wildly impressive falling in the 87th percentile and 3rd amongst the running backs in the class.

His numbers during his time at Cincinnati aren’t necessarily impressive, but he missed all of his sophomore season (2018) with a sports hernia, before returning to an RBBC behind Michael Warren who made his way to the NFL following 2019.

At the end of the day, Doaks is a 7th round pick which doesn’t bode well for him, but he lands in a pretty ambiguous backfield in Miami under a coach that’s shown they don’t gaf about draft capital and he’s one of the most athletic backs in the 2021 class. The likelihood of him hitting is low, but these are the guys you bet on long-term. You want to draft Kylin Hill over him? Kylin Hill whose going to rot behind a $48M running back and a 2nd round running back for the entirety of his rookie contract? I’m good.

Although Evans technically broke out in 2017, as a sophomore, his counting stats are wildly unimpressive. He didn’t touch 700 rushing yards at Michigan, he never caught more than 18 passes in a season and he’s almost 24-years-old.

But if there’s one thing I’ve learned about the NFL is that if you’ve got size and jiggle, they gone let you wiggle. At 5’11-211lbs, Evans is built for today’s NFL game and his athleticism puts him squarely in that Damien Harris, Josh Jacobs, Trey Sermon, James Robinson and Kareem Hunt mold.

I could care less about his 40-time when he’s got the requisite size plus burst and agility scores in the 92nd+ percentile range.

The coaches love in Cincinnati love Chris Evans’potential in the passing game, and Evans has flashed it repeatedly, looking more like a wideout than a running back. “He’s showed us exactly what we saw in him in the draft process with his ability to run routes, and he’s got great ball skills.”

And he backed that up in the Bengals first pre-season game, routinely making something out of nothing, scoring from the goal-line and catching all 4 of his targets for 33 yards. Trayveon Williams didn’t touch the field. And it’s not because they’re saving him for the regular season. Evans is immediately slotted into that RB3 spot on the depth chart behind Joe Mixon and Samaje Perine. We’re yet to find a more JAG-like running back than Samaje Perine and it’s only a matter of time before Evans jumps him, too. Perine is a 233lb back with borderline zero burst or agility who doesn’t catch passes. Outside of a few 2-3 yard carries every game he’s useless. He’d also save the Bengals $1.5M if they cut him after this season. Evans will be Mixon’s handcuff sooner rather than later. It’s an ascending offense and not only has Mixon dealt with injuries annually, but this is a coaching staff yet to put their faith in Mixon as a pass-catcher. Do we see Evans eat into a 3rd-down role as soon as 2021? We just might!