2025 NFL Combine Stock Watch: Running Backs

The 2025 RB class showed out at the NFL Combine this past weekend. According to our SPORQ athleticism model, we have never seen so many hyper-athletic prospects in a single draft class.

Athleticism doesn’t always directly translate to fantasy production, but it’s definitely not a bad sign to have so many players posting such extreme marks. In fact, that’s how athleticism has most mattered at the RB position historically — within similar areas of the NFL draft, the most outlierish-ly hyper-athletic RBs tend to outperform the sub-mediocre athletes.

In last week's piece, I explained how much athleticism matters and how the SPORQ model can best be used for fantasy football. Today, I want to zoom in on the Combine’s biggest winners and losers, outlining how my opinions on these prospects have evolved since the weekend.

Winners

Bhayshul Tuten, RB, Virginia Tech

SPORQ Percentile: 99.5

Tuten entered Combine weekend as a projected Day 3 pick. Now, I wouldn’t be surprised if he heard his name called by the end of Day 2.

Tuten already had fans within the film community and analytical community alike. Then, he showed off his blazing speed to the tune of a 4.32-second 40-yard dash, resulting in a 96th-percentile speed score at his 206-pound weight. Add in a 97th-percentile BMI-adjusted broad jump and a 97th-percentile vertical, and we’ve got the 4th-best SPORQ score at the position since 2000 on our hands.^[1]

So long as an NFL team is as impressed by Tuten as we were (and proves it by selecting him within the top-100 or so picks in April), I’d view this profile as worthy of a Round 2 selection in dynasty rookie drafts. Especially recently, the NFL’s record has been excellent when allocating draft capital to hyper-athletic RBs, resulting in plentiful fantasy production.

Omarion Hampton, RB, North Carolina

SPORQ Percentile: 96.1

After amassing over 2,000 YFS and leading his team in receptions per game (3.2, min. 8 games) in his final season, Round 1 whispers had already begun for Hampton before the Combine. But his performance there all but locked up elite draft capital, putting him in real contention for the consensus 1.02 in dynasty rookie drafts should he land with a team like the Chargers or Steelers.

Hampton isn’t as much of a “home-run hitter” as someone like Ashton Jeanty, but he strikes me as the increasingly rare type of back in today’s NFL who could immediately command 20+ touches per game across all three downs, getting the job done in fantasy football off sheer volume. That’s only really on the table if he goes to an ideal landing spot in the top 25 or so picks, but the group of similarly athletic RBs commanding that type of draft capital includes some of the biggest rookie-season workloads in recent history (outside of injury-bitten players like Travis Etienne and Rashaad Penny).

And this list of comparisons honestly undersells Hampton’s performance. The only RB to be selected in Round 1 with better than a 95th-percentile SPORQ score over the past decade was Saquon Barkley, who went on to finish as the overall fantasy RB1 while scoring the most fantasy points by a rookie RB of all time (385.8). Of the eight RBs to do so since 2000, only Jonathan Stewart and Darren McFadden failed to reach 300 PPR points (~18.8 FPG) in any of their first three seasons. I have probably been underrating Hampton’s fantasy football ceiling until now.

Quinshon Judkins, RB, Ohio State

SPORQ Percentile: 91.0

I frankly expected Judkins’ college teammate Treveyon Henderson (~80th percentile SPORQ) to be the Ohio State RB to wow at the Combine. But Judkins became the first ever RB in my database (going back to 2000) to hit 11 feet in the broad jump at over 220 pounds — resulting in a 99th-percentile BMI-adjusted broad jump. Alongside speed score (in which Judkins hit the 83rd percentile) and the weight-adjusted 3-cone (which Judkins and most of this class did not run), the BMI-adjusted broad jump is one of the most heavily-weighted metrics in the SPORQ model, as it’s shown solid predictiveness for high-end fantasy seasons in recent years.

Henderson profiles as the shiftier back by the advanced metrics — his 4.17 yards after contact per attempt in 2024 having ranked top-5 among qualifying FBS RBs in this class, compared to Judkins’ 3.02 — but at nearly 20 pounds heavier, it’s Judkins who has the body type to which NFL teams are typically comfortable assigning a massive workload. There are plenty of landing spots and scenarios that could push Judkins up to the mid-1st round in rookie drafts.

RJ Harvey, RB, UCF and D.J. Giddens, RB, Kansas State

SPORQ Percentiles: 93.2 and 94.6

Per NFL Mock Draft Database, Harvey and Giddens were considered consensus early Day 3 selections entering the Combine. Both ultimately ranked above the 90th percentile by SPORQ thanks to 83rd and 84th percentile speed scores, alongside 94th and 95th percentile BMI-adjusted broad jumps, respectively.

For either back to truly be a “winner” coming out of the Combine and massively increase their fantasy football outlook, they would ideally be pushed up into Day 2. But even among Day 3 picks, hyper-athleticism is certainly helpful. Every similarly athletic Day 3 selection over the past six seasons has found themselves in a fantasy-relevant role for at least a moment in time.

I’m not planting any flags here until the NFL weighs in, but both Harvey and Giddens are now firmly on my radar as potential later-round rookie draft selections.

Losers

Kaleb Johnson, RB, Iowa

SPORQ Percentile: 60.1

Listing Johnson as a “loser” from the Combine is a bit tongue-in-cheek. His 4.57-second 40-yard dash isn’t really a concern for me within the context of his 224-pound weigh-in (resulting in a speed score and overall SPORQ rating above the 60th percentile), but I wanted to discuss him here, and I couldn’t exactly call him a “winner” when the rest of the class melted faces.

As I’ve extensively discussed, athleticism matters most at the top-end extremes for RBs. Outcomes wise, there isn’t much difference between an 85th-percentile athlete and a 60th-percentile athlete at the position, and Johnson easily clears the minimum threshold (~50th-percentile SPORQ) below which we’d see average production begin to decrease.

Johnson’s chances of sneaking into Round 1 appear lower after his competition (Hampton, Judkins, and Henderson) outshined him — and I do have some questions about whether an NFL team will be willing to feed him work in the receiving game, affecting his fantasy football ceiling — but he still appears on track to be selected on Day 2 and to garner consideration in the mid-to-late 1st round of dynasty rookie drafts. The Combine itself should not have moved him down your board.

Devin Neal, RB, Kansas and Ollie Gordon II, RB, Oklahoma

SPORQ Percentiles: 47.7 and 47.6

In contrast, I am worried about projected early Day 3 picks Devin Neal and Ollie Gordon II. Each came in just barely below the 50th percentile by SPORQ (the cutoff where I begin to worry about a prospect’s athleticism based on historical production outcomes), with Neal in particular posting just a 38th-percentile speed score by running a 4.58 at only 213 pounds.

These aren’t total death-knell marks — recent Day 3 RBs like Aaron Jones and Bucky Irving have showcased fantasy football ceilings despite similarly subpar testing — but the odds aren’t in these backs’ favor. Only 8 of 110 SPORQ-qualifying RBs (~7%) drafted on Day 3 have hit just 200 PPR fantasy points (~12 FPG) in any of their first three seasons.

That’s not too far off the overall Day 3 hit rates, but the fact that we’re talking about Day 3 is most of the issue. Since 2018, the NFL has drafted only 6 RBs (less than one per year) ranking below the 50th percentile by SPORQ on Day 2 or earlier: David Montgomery, Devin Singletary, Ronald Jones, Clyde Edwards-Helaire, Tank Bigsby, and Zack Moss. That compares to 32 RBs (~4.6 per year) above the 50th percentile.

Neal’s and Gordon’s chances of sneaking into Day 2 are now much slimmer. This should all even out in terms of post-NFL Draft rookie ADP, but I wouldn’t be that interested in taking shots on them in any pre-NFL Draft rookie drafts given I doubt their prices increase from here.

Cam Skattebo, RB, Arizona State

SPORQ Percentile: DNQ

I was interested to see how Skattebo would test given his gaudy counting stats and advanced metrics alike (truly rivaled by only Ashton Jeanty), but I came away disappointed that he didn’t run the 40-yard dash.

Skattebo did test in the broad jump — ranking in the ~86th percentile after BMI adjustment — but this is a less predictive metric than the 40 on its own. As with Johnson, it probably isn’t entirely fair to call Skattebo a “loser” (as he could still run well at his Pro Day, even if that result won’t be directly comparable to Combine numbers), but the rest of his draft class stole the show in comparison.

To that point, I’m unlikely to still care much about the Combine for either Johnson or Skattebo if each is ultimately selected on Day 2. The NFL does a relatively good job “pricing in” athletic testing for RBs outside of the highest-end outliers — all we’ve learned is that neither player fits into that elite group.