The Running Back Prospect Lab is one of my favorite tools on the site, but it’s not exactly a precision instrument. It uses a simple linear model to predict an RB’s early NFL career based on a few important college metrics. However, the simplicity ends up being a benefit — it knows what to look for and isn’t often fooled by outliers.
Even in a pre-draft model, when we don’t yet know who is going to be drafted early and earn opportunity in Year 1, the Prospect Lab is good at picking out potential difference makers. The top backs of all time (since 2009) in the pre-draft model — a model that does not include draft position — are Saquon Barkley (Prospect Lab Score: 100), Leonard Fournette (94), Jonathan Taylor (93), Todd Gurley (91), Ezekiel Elliott (89), Dalvin Cook (87) and Christian McCaffrey (87). All except Taylor and Cook were taken in the top-10 picks of the reality draft.
This year’s model inputs include a player’s final college age, weight, forty time, competition level, and career and final season productivity metrics. As draft position remains an important predictor of early opportunity and NFL production, many measurements in the pre-draft model are correlated with draft position, and will drop out of the post-draft model.
You can find even more advanced metrics in the 2025 RotoViz Rookie Guide. For a limited time, purchasers of the Rookie Guide can take $29.99 of the first-year cost of a new 1-year RotoViz subscription!
