FWIW ... RB Draft Round projections ...
Taking the medians of the "current" (within the past week or so) rankings of RB prospects from six draft sites, and combining those with the medians of "when" RBs were selected over the past six drafts, yields the following projections:
Rnd-1
- Fournette, Cook
[Hard to guess on the number of 1st-rounders. Since the recent high of 3 in 2012, the last four drafts have produced 0, 0, 2, & 1 1st-round RBs.]
Rnd-2
- McCaffrey, Kamara, Mixon
[McCaffrey could go at the end of Rnd-1. Maybe.]
[Mixon is a wildcard. Sites still have his talent-ranking as tied with Kamara at #5. But, if everybody (except perhaps the Browns) still sees him as "poison", all the prospects from here down to wherever he falls to would move up a notch.]
Rnd-3 (possibly one of these in the late-2nd)
- Foreman, Gallman, Mack
[Typically, 6-8 RBs off the board by the end of the 3rd. There were only 4 in 2016, but that's the outlier.]
Rnd-4
- Perine, Hunt*, Hill, McNichols (possibly one of these in the late-3rd)
*Hunt is one of my binkies, so you should probably take him off all your Pats mocks right now.
Rnd-5
- Jamaal Williams, Conner*, Clement, Dayes
[Typically, another 6-8 RBs off the board in rounds 4 & 5]
*Conner is another binkie. So, y'know, "buh-bye!"
Rnd-6
- Logan, Pumphrey, McGuire, Aaron Jones (possibly one of these in the late-5th)
Rnd-7/FA
- De'Veon Smith, Joe Williams, Rushel Shell, Taquan Mizzell
[Anywhere from 3-9 RBs may go off the board in rounds 6 & 7]
- At least 20 other RB prospects have been mentioned on at least two sites as potential 7th/FA possibilities. The four I've included are merely the most frequently mentioned.
This projects 24 RB prospects drafted, which matches the recent highs set in 2011 & 2013. The median number drafted over the past six drafts is 20. In median-count (or lower) RB draft years, another 1-2 decent players often come out of the UDFA signees.
Random speculation #1: If a majority of teams indeed view this as a strong RB class, that might work to drive the total draftee count lower, especially in rounds 2 & 3. Some teams may wait, figuring that they're still likely to pick up a decent RB later. In 2016, 16 of the total 20 RBs drafted were taken in rounds 4-7.
In addition to the RB draft being fairly volatile in total count, it seems to me that it's often fairly volatile in terms of prospect order, even moreso in the later rounds. Prospects who "everybody" expected to go in the 2nd or 3rd often drop to the 5th for no apparent reason, and sometimes others who were thought of as 6th-7th round talent get taken in the 4th. This happens to some degree with all positions, of course, but it seems a bit more frequent with RBs.
Random speculation #2: If "heftier" RBs actually are a thing this year, guys like Foreman, Perine, Conner and De'Veon Smith could go a bit higher than they're ranked, and a guy like Elijah Hood, Rushel Shell or someone who's not even on our radar (nominally UDFAs), could get picked in the 6th.
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DISCLAIMER:
This is merely my own, personal, back-of-the-envelope, pseudo-statistical musing based on popular "talent rankings" (NOT round projections or mock drafts) - at least some of which are based on Combine/Proday "wow-level" measureables and/or cherry-picked highlight reels/mix tapes - and likely to change a bit over the next couple-three weeks. Not accounted for are such trivial variables as "team needs", actual objective scouting, or however the Browns may screw everything up with their 8 gazillion draft picks.
