Just how good is Ashton Jeanty?
Running backs don’t get quite as much love in the NFL Draft as they did in decades past. That, however, has been changing some as defenses have been geared toward stopping explosive offenses.
By moving a defender out of the tackle box and into deep shells, defenses are creating opportunities for running backs to find success.
Boise State’s Ashton Jeanty was the best running back in the country in 2024 and is coming off a truly historic season. He might not have elite measurables, but he is a truly elite athlete when it comes to moving and controlling his body in space.
It seems very unlikely that the New York Giants Jeanty, but he’ll be a factor in the 2024 season.
Prospect: Ashton Jeanty (2)
Games Watched: vs. Washington (2023), vs. Georgia Southern (2024), vs. Oregon (2024), vs. UNLV (2024)
Measurables
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Kent Lee Platte | RAS.football
Strengths
Best traits
- Vision
- Contact balance
- Quickness
- Agility
- Play strength
- Competitive toughness
Boise State running back Ashton Jeanty has an elite combination of contact balance, vision, and play strength for the position.
Jeanty sports a very dense physique at 5-foot-8, 211 pounds with a rare combination of natural leverage and power. Jeanty lacks elite measurables and doesn’t have stand-out speed or explosiveness. However, he is an elite athlete from the perspective of moving his body through space and solving problems in real time.
He has truly incredible balance, consistently picking his way through traffic, absorbing or bouncing off glancing blows, running through arm-tackles, and regaining his feet on the move.
His frame, combined with his vision and balance, make it incredibly difficult for defenders to bring him down, and he racked up yards after contact at a historic pace. Jeanty had so many yards after contact, that they eclipsed the next most productive back in the country’s total yardage.
Jeanty shows impressive patience in the backfield, doing a great job of manipulating his tempo and pathing to help set up his blockers, as well as manipulate defenders. His vision and understanding of the blocking scheme allowed him to anticipate where holes would appear, as well as what defenders would do at the second and third levels.
The result is that tackling Jeanty is a team activity and it was almost impossible for a single defender to bring him down without a perfect angle and form tackle.
Jeanty has true Three-Down upside and is a capable pass protector who’s unafraid of coming up to aggressively meet defenders. He’s also a reliable receiver out of the backfield as well as the slot. He wasn’t asked to run a diverse route tree, but he ran his routes well. Jeanty presents a good target for the quarterback, frames the catch well, and does a good job of securing it before turning up field.
Weaknesses
Worst traits
- Long speed
- Top end measurable athleticism
Anything listed here feels like nitpicking in the extreme. Jeanty might be the single cleanest prospect in the draft.
IF we want to look at the aspects of his profile that are less than phenomenal, they’re his lack of elite speed and arm length. Jeanty has plenty of breakaway runs, however he doesn’t quite have angle-breaking speed in the open field.
He also has short arms at 29 ¼ inches. That can impact his pass protection, as he needs to be particularly aggressive in coming up to meet defenders, as well as his pass catching. Jeanty is a good receiver, however he has a very small catch radius and can struggle to haul in poorly thrown passes.
The only other (slight) concern with Jeanty is the sheer volume of work he received in 2024. He carried the ball an incredible 374 times last year, in addition to 220 carries the year before. All told, he’s touched the ball 660 times over the last two years.
Game Tape
(Jeanty is the Boise State running back wearing number 2.)
Projection
Ashton Jeanty projects as a starting running back with scheme versatility and All Pro upside.
It doesn’t take long watching his tape to settle on the fact that Jeanty is a special player and one of the best running backs to come out of college in recent memory. His vision, contact balance, play strength, and competitive toughness are truly elite, and he also has enough quickness and agility to act on those traits.
He might not have the explosive athleticism of Saquon Barkley or the serpentine movement skills of a young Christian McCaffrey, but Jeanty’s ability to simply disregard contact is in a league of its own.
Does he fit the Giants?
Yes, though value is unlikely to align.
Final Word: A Top 10 talent.
