After flashing game-breaking ability and elite athleticism despite never truly earning a featured role during his time in college, Trey Benson showed enough potential for the Arizona Cardinals to use an early third-round pick on him in the 2024 NFL draft. With James Conner producing career highs in both rushing yards and yards per carry for Arizona last season, the addition of Benson could be seen as more of a luxury pick for the Cardinals than a true area of need. After analyzing Benson’s potential and the state of the Arizona backfield, should we be expecting him to earn a featured role early in his career, or does he have the profile of a perennial role player?
College Career
Benson came into college as a three-star recruit, but ended up suffering a catastrophic knee injury in December of his first collegiate season at Oregon. After tearing his ACL, MCL, lateral meniscus, medial meniscus, and hamstring in 2020, Benson saw the field in a very limited fashion in 2021 for Oregon before transferring to Florida State for the 2022 season.
It was during Benson’s time at Florida State that he really blossomed into an electric playmaker as part of the Seminoles’ backfield committee. With the recovery from such a serious injury generally expected to take two years, the efficiency Benson showed in 2022 boded extremely well for a full-scale breakout in 2023. Even though Benson did see an increase in his RB Dominator rating in his final college season, his usage — or lack thereof — left plenty to be desired for those who wanted to see what Benson could do in a true workhorse role.
Even with the lack of elite usage, Benson was still able to pull in some pretty compelling sims in the Prospect Box Score Scout.
