He’s one of the best 5-7 kick returners I’ve ever seen.
I hope he gets to do it in the pros.
Pacheco is not a terrible comp (in fact I think it’s the one Zierlein uses). Both guys kinda have that video game run into a pile but the legs keep moving before breaking out of the scrum vibe to their games. I like Abanikanda’s vision better but he’s prone to misread his blocking now and again.
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Easy to fall in love with phone booth RB’s. It’s just naturally more exciting for any viewer to watch.
I have zero problem with non phone booth make you miss RB’s. A ton of ways to skin a cat. This Izzy guy is pretty exciting to watch & looks to be one that can offer a ton of value to NFL teams moving forward
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I think he’s absolutely gonna be a player defenses have to account for, and that’s an element I love to have from a RB.
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Just fyi, this is one of the more frequent comps you see out there:
I can see him fitting on this squad. He looks like he’s got some wicked quick acceleration. This offensive line should make a lot of RB’s look good, and anyone who can zip through the crease like greased lightning should be able to force defenses to go heavy and bring eight into the box.
Now I have to go look up the ten yard split, because he looks fast
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Looks like 1.54, which is 91st percentile. You can tell how explosive he is because of his crazy jump numbers. He’s definitely a see hole-explode through hole guy. Unless he doesn’t see it which does happen from time to time. But even then sometimes he’ll find another one, or bounce off tacklers and wind up in the open.
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Thanks, I couldn’t find it. I wouldn’t be disappointed to see his name called for the Lions. Anyone who can break Tony Dorsett’s records is someone that should be examined closely.
Of course, there’s a LOT of likeable Running Backs in this class. It’s going to be interesting to see where some of these guys go, because someone has to fall.
Part of the reason I posted this was to really highlight how deep this class is. I could do a similar post for Spears, Gibbs, Achane, Bigsby, Zach Evans, Kendre Miller, Deuce, Keaton Mitchell, Charbonnet, Chase Brown, Roschon, McBride, Eric Gray, McIntosh, Ronnie Brown, Deneric Prince, Tiyon Evans and more. It’s such a great class.
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looks like Keaton Mitchell (top 30) and Evan Hull (pro day) have had interviews or discussions with Lions.
Looks like pass catching ability may be a big factor…
as we expected.
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Bijan Robinson , Zach Charbonnet , DeWayne Mcbride, Sean Tucker, Chase Brown, & Deuce Vaughn all have at least 2 seasons of over 1,000 yard rushing seasons. Israel Abanikanda, has only one season/2022 -where he ran for 1,431 yards, and only 2,177 career yards…the others had over 3,000 yards in their careers.
A. Bijan : 3,410 .
B.Zach : 3, 348 .
DeWayne : 3, 523 .
Sean: 3,182
Deuce : 3, 604
- Izzy : career of : 2,177.
Chase : 3,558.
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Have seen Izzy a couple times live. He’s definitely an incredible athlete and just has that look about him. He’s an incredibly physical runner, tough customer, the kind that punishes corners and safeties who get stuck coming down to tackle him. And he does all the little things you like to see out of a rb, plays really hard, sells run fakes and misdirection well, takes pass pro seriously and mixes it up when he has to take some one on. He has good but not great vision and is the epitome of an impatient runner, he’ll plow into where the hole is supposed to be and fall forward for a 2-3 yard gain like a dutiful soldier instead of showing that recognition and creativity that the best backs have a knack for. Definitely excels at twitch and jump cuts on the interior and is devastating when able to accelerate through the interior junk. Not loose hipped nor does he have great contact balance (good not great). I was surprised by his testing numbers because I don’t think he plays 4.4 fast (4.35 iirc), I would say closer to 4.5 in pads and doesnt show great burst in my opinion, he definitely has some wind up to get to top speed. My best comp for him would be Damien Pierce, sudden and physical runner with a punishing style, really hard to bring down when he gets up to speed, will excel at picking up chunk yardage in a gap scheme, less effective in a zone scheme unless you have the right personnel to get consistent space advantages on outside zone/stretch type runs. Adequate as a receiver out of the backfield but by no means natural.
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Good breakdown. You see what I see except personally I do see a 4.4 guy on tape. I kind of him him and Sean Tucker bunched together and I actually liked Tucker’s 2021 tape the best out of all their seasons. Not sure what happened with Tucker in '22. Maybe they changed some run scheme or something bc he often seemed indecisive bordering on confused.
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The word around Syracuse was that he sustained a pretty nasty injury in the Louisville game and spent the rest of the season trying to play through it. I think the recent developments with him not being medically cleared at the combine and held out of testing seem to back up that narrative and he probably hurt his stock by trying to play through the injury. I definitely can’t be objective when evaluating Tucker but based on the things that I saw him do in 2021 and all of the buzz during the summer of 2022 was that he had added significant strength and speed during the offseason, I have to put him in a tier above Izzy. His burst and contact balance are some of the best I’ve ever seen. I have questions about his top end as well because I don’t see the kind of speed in pads that was rumored in Syracuse (I was hearing he was expected to run low 4.3 and possibly 4.2…I don’t see it on film).
In 2021 Tucker definitely looked like a low to mid 4.3 guy. Though most of those runs were on the Carrier Dome turf which may skew it faster.
Injury could explain the indecisiveness. I was of course aware of him being flagged but didn’t know about it dating back to mid season. Thx for sharing that.
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I think it was 1st game of the season and it was early in the game. He wasnt the same guy right off the bat in 2022.
The old Dome turf was definitely a super fast surface. Those games back in the late 90s you really saw some incredible speed, especially on the Defensive side of the ball. People forget what a savage guys like Donovan Darius and Jason Poles were.
The stuff they have in there now is a far cry from that old turf. It actually has a really long napp and the substrate bed is really deep. I’ve heard that the players don’t like it and it:s considered one of the more dangerous surfaces in the ACC. I don’t know what the count of torn ACLs and achilles are, but it’s alot. I think Garret Williams tore both of his ACLs over a 3 year career on that turf.
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Don’t forget Izzy is the youngest of those guys. He only had 390 carries in college compared to Bijan’s 539, McBride’s 484, Charbonnet’s 565, Tucker’s 589, Deuce’s 651 and Chase Brown’s 676. You wouldn’t expect him to put up nearly as many stats unless he was averaging more than ten yards a carry.
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This is good info cause it’s hard to watch Tucker’s 2022 tape and come away from it thinking he has a future. But then there’s the 2021 tape, so it’s nice now that we maybe have a reason for the discrepancy. Because as @CuriousHusker said, looking flat out confused is a bad look for a RB, and it’s all over his 22 tape. Makes me very nervous.
You more or less see the same stuff with Izzy as I do, except that I do think his explosiveness is evident on his tape. But I agree about his hips, vision and contact balance. That’s one of the reasons he reminds me of Pacheco, kind of run it up in there and if you run right into a lineman - your own or a defensive one - just keep the legs churning and something good will happen lol. Izzy’s vision is better than Pacheco’s by a good margin, but to me they’re pretty similar backs.
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Let me clarify because I didn’t mean to imply he lacked explosiveness. I think his lateral agility and the speed he makes single cuts are top notch and one of his best attributes. I don’t think the zero to full speed acceleration is top rate, he shows good to above average burst but I don’t think elite. There is an element of climbing the ladder for him to get to top speed. I think his reaction speed and twitchiness in the hole can cloud this because he’s particularly sudden when he gets over his hips and takes an angle while squared up in the hole. But I don’t see the same kind of straight line burst.