Ashton Jeanty or Tyler Warren?

St. Widge said
So versus exactly what he would see with many teams, particularly the Saints, in the NFL. That means something and needs to be part of the assessment. As does the level of competition he played against and his level of athletic ability.

He had an amazing year but that is no guarantee he is going to be a star in the NFL especially when the level of competition needs to be taken into account. These are the to 10 years by NCAA RBs. It's a mixed bag as far as NFL success. Most are solid players but few are stars and many that were just good NFL RBs played lower level competition:

  1. Oklahoma State RB Barry Sanders (1988): 2,628 yards
  2. Boise State RB Ashton Jeanty (2024): 2,601 yards
  3. Wisconsin RB Melvin Gordon (2014): 2,587 yards
  4. UCF RB Kevin Smith (2007): 2,567 yards
  5. USC RB Marcus Allen (1981): 2,342 yards
  6. San Diego State RB Rashaad Penny (2017): 2,248 yards
  7. Alabama RB Derrick Henry (2015): 2,219 yards
  8. Wisconsin RB Jonathan Taylor (2018): 2,194
  9. Iowa State RB Troy Davis (1996): 2,185 yards
  10. Boston College RB Andre Williams (2013): 2,17
Click to expand...

And this is why film gets watched…to get an assessment of his abilities and what he’s looking like and what special things he’s doing when getting yards. Just like every other position, highly decorated and statistically elite players sometimes bust.

It’s hard to project how a player’s skill level and motivation level will translate to the NFL, and it just as hard to project how the players’ skill sets will project into the specific team environment and system he gets drafted into.

Any argument I make for Jeanty going top 10 is centered on the idea that the scouts and experts have his evaluation correct. Sometimes, most of the time even, they don’t, regardless of position.