Who were truly the worst running backs of the past decade?
Introducing the McCown scale for rating RB draft busts
NFL wisdom has shifted in many ways in its evolution from “winter diversion” to an economy unto itself, particularly in the last two decades. Los Angeles was a city capable of sustaining zero franchises, then a metropolis worthy of dueling rosters. Texas Tech’s Air Raid offense was a gimmick incapable of producing a worthwhile NFL quarterback until Patrick Mahomes came along, his rising tide pushing Kliff Kingsbury to a head coaching job in Arizona. Rob Ryan was a defensive mastermind until year after year of awful results proved otherwise.
No philosophy has seen a greater decline in value than the idea you need to pay up for a top notch running back to win an NFL title. Rule changes aimed at limited defensive backs in coverage have led to an explosion of passing offense. Playbooks that once skewed heavily toward the run in the 70s and 80s became a 50/50 proposition by the 2000s. In the past 10 years, that’s been pushed toward something more in the ballpark of 60/40 for teams devoted to throwing their way to victory (or, in the case of the 2020 Falcons, something much less than that).
As a result, running back has gone from the crown jewel in many team’s offenses to the league’s lowest-paid non-special teams position. The rise of backfield platoons has insulated teams from potentially devastating injuries and increased playcalling flexibility, all while reducing the value of even the best tailbacks. Why pay up for one guy who could tank your offense with a torn ACL when you can pay three guys a fraction of the cost to handle different roles nearly as effectively?
This has heaped additional scrutiny on teams that spend a premier draft pick at RB, especially after starters like Aaron Jones, Chris Carson, and Alvin Kamara entered the league in the third round or later. Sometimes these moves pay off; the Titans’ rise has been defined by Derrick Henry’s tremendous late-season efforts as much as anything else. That’s great! I’m more interested in when they don’t.
In order to better understand just how bad these first and second-round picks have been, I’ve developed a system. All you have to do to be a valuable selection is run for more yards in a single season (just one season!) than the top running back taken on Day 3. All you have to do to be something greater than “useless” is run for more yards than journeyman quarterback Josh McCown.
There was good and bad among the list. In 2016, the only two backs taken in the first two rounds were Ezekiel Elliott and Derrick Henry. Very good! In 2012 -- the year future AAF participant Trent Richardson went third overall -- three guys selected between picks 32 and 61 combined for 797 total rushing yards. Extremely disappointing!
Who qualifies as a wasted pick from the past decade? I’M GLAD YOU ASKED!
The guys with fewer career rushing yards than Ryan Fitzpatrick (2,621)
Trent Richardson (third overall, 2012)
TJ Yeldon (36th, 2015)
Toby Gerhart (51st, 2010)
Shane Vereen (56th, 2011)
Daniel Thomas (62nd, 2011)
Ameer Abdullah (54th, 2015)
Kerryon Johnson (43rd, 2018)
These guys were ultimately useful, albeit in limited stretches. Richardson, taken third overall and somehow traded for another first round pick in his disastrous NFL career (three years), had 100 fewer yards in his first two seasons combined than sixth-rounder Alfred Morris had his rookie year alone. Yeldon, Abdullah, and Johnson -- the latter two obscured by the curse of being a Lions’ draft pick (Detroit alone makes up 21 percent of this list) -- are all still active and could all eventually outgain FitzMagic, but probably won’t.
Vereen was a Patriot platoon back, which meant his playing time heavily depended on whether or not Bill Belichick thought his pre-walkthrough handshake was firm enough that week. Gerhart was supposed to be the Vikings’ Mike Alstott but averaged 1.2 rushing touchdowns per season. Daniel Thomas ran a 4.62-second 40 time, which turned out to be pretty telling for how his NFL career turned out (3.6 yards per carry). He -- and everyone else on this list from 2011 -- all could have been easily replaced by the much more successful Bilal Powell.
The guys with fewer career rushing yards than Josh McCown (1,106)
Christine Michael (62nd, 2013)
Jahvid Best (30th, 2010)
Rashaad Penny (27th, 2018)
Mikel Leshoure (57th, 2011)
Bishop Sankey (54th, 2014)
Montee Ball (58th, 2013)
McCown is one of the league’s more athletic quarterbacks, but he’s also a longtime backup who has only started a quarter of the games for which he’s been eligible. He’s also higher up the all-time rushing ranks than several high profile draft picks. Best and Leshoure were both hampered by injury as the final two horsemen of the Lions’ backfield apocalypse. Michael would have been great as a sixth rounder rather than a Day 2 pick.
Penny feels like he shouldn’t count, since he was the Seahawks annual “take a guy with a third round grade in Day 1” selection. He’s averaged nine games per season as a pro, has started none of them, and had his fifth-year option predictably declined by Seattle this spring. Sankey was the first tailback drafted in 2014 and an absolute destroyer of naive fantasy GMs. Ball was occasionally great as a rookie before off-field issues made him unemployable before he could play a third year in the league.
The guys with fewer career rushing yards than Philip Rivers (601)
Montario Hardesty (59th, 2010)
David Wilson (32nd, 2012)
Derrius Guice (59th, 2018)
LaMichael James (61st, 2012)
Ryan Williams (38th, 2011)
Isaiah Pead (50th, 2012)
Philip Rivers runs like he’s trying to shoplift kitchen appliances out of Sears. Do you know how bad you have to fuck up to have fewer career rushing yards than Philip Rivers? These guys were all very bad and are now extremely out of the league, including Guice who appears to be a total piece of shit on top of being a wasted draft pick.
Wilson, sadly, played parts of two seasons before a neck injury ended his career. Williams missed his entire rookie campaign due to a preseason torn patella tendon, played five games the following season before getting hurt again (2.8 YPC), and was done forever after that. Pead followed a similar path before a car accident ended his career in 2016 (he’s currently training for the Paralympic Games, according to reports, which is rad). Hardesty? A season-ending injury during exhibition play *his* rookie year as well.
The tail end of this list is basically a piece-by-piece breakdown of why a four-game preseason schedule was bullshit.