Kyren Williams flew under the radar as a rookie after being selected on Day 3 of the draft and missing half of the year due to injury. Heading into his second season, there was a steady drumbeat of positive reports surrounding Williams during training camp before he emerged in Week 1 as the Rams’ workhorse and finished as a top-10 fantasy running back that year.
Now, Williams is heading into the final year of his contract, and the Rams just drafted another Day 3 RB, Jarquez Hunter, who, in many ways, is a superior prospect to the player Williams was coming out of Notre Dame in 2022. If Williams misses time or shows signs of decline, does Hunter have the skill set necessary to take his place atop the Rams’ RB depth chart?
If you want to dive deeper into the 2025 rookie class, pick up the 2025 RotoViz Rookie Draft Guide and check out the rest of our rookie preview series:
Quarterbacks
Running Backs
- R.J. Harvey
- Kaleb Johnson
- TreVeyon Henderson
- Cam Skattebo
- Omarion Hampton
- Devin Neal
- D.J. Giddens
- Ashton Jeanty
Wide Receivers
- Emeka Egbuka
- Jayden Higgins and Jaylin Noel
- Matthew Golden
- Tre Harris
- Pat Bryant
- Tetairoa McMillan
- Kyle Washington
Tight Ends
Jarquez Hunter’s NFL Comps
Hunter came to Auburn as a three-star prospect and 40th-ranked RB in the 2021 high school class. He spent two years playing alongside Tank Bigsby, with Hunter posting a better backfield dominator rating (BDR) in their final season together. Once Bigsby left for the NFL, Hunter’s role continued to grow, reaching its apex in his senior year when he put up 1,200 rushing yards and a 77% BDR.
Although he was not a prolific receiver, Hunter proved to be an adequate pass catcher across his college career. Despite never earning a target share above 7.9%, he did increase his reception total each season he was in school, even reaching an 11% receiving yards market share in his sophomore season.
Despite weighing only 204 pounds, Hunter plays with plenty of power. Among the 2024 rookie RB class, only Ashton Jeanty and Damien Martinez averaged more yards after contact per carry last year. Hunter’s evaded tackles were heavily skewed toward broken tackles the past two seasons, with a huge gap between his 21.4% broken tackle rate and 3.7% forced missed tackle rate in 2024. He was able to turn all of his broken tackles into efficiency, as his 0.254 rushing points earned per play (ruPE/P) last year ranked fourth in the draft class, with his positive rate (eighth in the class) and boom rate (sixth) also being noteworthy.
Digging deeper into Hunter’s receiving profile does not do him many favors, as his 87.0% on-target catch rate (OTC%) from 2024 is the second worst in the class behind D.J. Giddens, while his 11.5% drop rate (DRP%) only bested Giddens and Martinez. Things were not much better for Hunter in 2023 when he recorded an 88.9% OTC% and a 9.5% DRP%. However, Hunter’s ability to break tackles helped salvage his receiving efficiency, with an impressive 57.1% receiving evasion rate favoring broken tackles (42.9%) over forced missed tackles (14.3%) at nearly a 3:1 rate. This undoubtedly contributed significantly to Hunter’s 0.057 points earned per route, which ranked fifth in the RB class, and his 25.9% boom rate, which finished fourth.
Due to the depth of the 2025 RB draft class, Hunter was flying a bit under the radar heading into the combine. He did nothing to hurt his draft stock at the event, but he also did not significantly improve his standing.
It is a bit concerning that Hunter’s three highest-upside comps in the Workout Explorer were all prolific pass catchers, signaling that Hunter will need to improve in that facet of his game if he is to become a standout RB in fantasy.
The Rams selected Hunter with the 117th overall pick in the middle of the fourth round. Once his draft capital was factored in, Hunter’s score of 58 in the RB Prospect Lab tied for 11th in this year’s rookie class with Woody Marks. Hunter’s comps in the Box Score Scout bring in a long list of strong positive correlations.
