This is the last article that will be published on noahmoreparties.com for the foreseeable future. I want to sincerely thank everyone who has supported me and this project over the last year+, and I hope I was able to provide some value – informational, entertainment, whatever – to you during that time. I’d like to send especially big shoutouts to Chris Bartolomei, Ryan McDowell, Ryan Lopes, Nate Liss, Matt Kelley, Felix Sharpe, and Nick Ercolano, who each played a big part in my journey from posting-bad-takes-on-Reddit to doing-football-analysis-full-time. It’s been a fun ride and a huge learning experience.

That said, I’ll be stepping back from writing (and maybe even thinking!) about football after this piece, in order to prepare to move across the country to begin law school at Washington University in St. Louis later this summer.

Nobody will continue to be charged, but existing subscriptions will retain access to the relevant paywalled content (rankings, articles, or both) through the end of August (and those who are not currently subscribed can gain access to paywalled content through the summer via a one-time payment over on the new Access page), at which point all paywalls will be lifted and the site’s entire archive will be made publicly available. I’m not sure where (or if at all) running back analysis fits into this next chapter of my life, but my guess is I won’t stay permanently retired from evaluating prospects. I’d like to put out a yearly guide outlining my thoughts on the rookie class each spring, but we’ll have to see what my schedule and motivation look like when the time comes.

For now, I leave you with this piece of post-draft analysis on the current class, as well as with some forward-looking takes on what appears to be a stacked group of 2025 runners. Enjoy, and thanks again for all the support.

Scheme Fit and Situational Upside

The surrounding talent in Carolina is not great. The team just went 2-15 and finished the 2023 season with the fewest points and yards of any offense in the NFL, and boasted a bottom-five run-blocking unit according to Pro Football Focus grades. They did address some of their blocking woes in free agency via the additions of tackle Yosh Nijman and guards Robert Hunt and Damien Lewis (all three of them multi-year starters, Hunt boasting really solid PFF grades), and Bryce Young will have more weapons at his disposal with Diontae Johnson, Xavier Legette, and Ja’Tavion Sanders (as well as Brooks himself) now in the mix. New head coach Dave Canales coaxed Pro Bowl-level seasons out of both Geno Smith and Baker Mayfield in the last two years (as quarterbacks coach and offensive coordinator, respectively), so it seems reasonable to be tentatively optimistic about seeing a functioning – though likely still low-calorie – offense in Carolina in 2024.

Brooks does seem like a good schematic fit for the system Canales will likely run. The rushing attacks in Seattle (where Canales was an offensive assistant from 2010 to 2022) have been zone-heavy since the Marshawn Lynch days, while the Tampa Bay offense that Canales led in 2023 had zone runs make up more than 68% of total running back attempts. The new coach has said that he plans to run “whatever we can block and coach the best” in Carolina, and while his current team saw most of their success running power concepts last year, Brooks profiles as a zone runner, and all three of the newly acquired offensive linemen come from zone-heavy systems. Rachaad White’s heavy and varied passing-game usage from last season perhaps also portends exciting things for the use of Brooks’ receiving skill-set.

Opportunity and Speculative Role

Recent history tells us that backs drafted in the range Brooks was selected in will get every opportunity to become their team’s workhorse runners. Last season saw the Panthers deploy their RB1 (first Miles Sanders but by week six it was clearly Chuba Hubbard) on a weekly average of 64% of offensive snaps, though Canales (as well as new offensive coordinator Brad Idzik) most recently led the 2023 Tampa Bay offense that trotted out White – one of the least efficient lead runners in the league – on nearly 80% of the weekly snaps. Prior to that one-year stint with the Buccaneers, Canales (and Idzik) was a key assistant in Seattle, where throughout his tenure the team deployed Lynch and then Chris Carson as high-volume workhorses. Brooks’ ACL recovery and the presence of a dependable veteran in Hubbard on the roster combine to make the kind of 300-touch workload that Canales’ past runners have enjoyed an unlikely event for the rookie, but I’d anticipate Brooks ascending to the top of the depth chart and earning a significant snap share (probably via a legitimate all-situations role) as soon as he’s truly healthy (which could be week two or week twelve, who knows).

Future Considerations

Hubbard is in the final year of his deal and Sanders has a potential out in his contract following 2024 as well, so the runway is open for a healthy Brooks to set up shop in a cleared-out backfield after his rookie season. The bigger issue to consider here is the development of Young and the resulting life-span of Canales’ tenure: if the quarterback starts making strides in year two, then we could be looking at an ascendent offense creating a cushy situation for a young and versatile running back, but if Young just can’t play, then Canales probably won’t last long in this job and Brooks may be mired in situational purgatory for the duration of his rookie contract.

Scheme Fit and Situational Upside

Arizona feels like a good spot for Benson. They ran one of the gap-heaviest rushing schemes in the league last season, and offensive coordinator Drew Petzing was part of staffs in Cleveland that deployed Nick Chubb on mostly gap runs in both 2021 and 2022. Benson bears some superficial similarities to Chubb in that he’s big, fast, and breaks a bunch of tackles, and his reckless tendencies were curtailed a bit at Florida State on gap concepts that didn’t require him to make a ton of decisions at the line of scrimmage.

The infrastructure of this offense is also solid. They have a quality quarterback in Kyler Murray, a decent trio of pass-catchers in tight end Trey McBride, receiver Michael Wilson, and rookie wideout Marvin Harrison Jr., and a revamped offensive line that – after James Conner gained five yards per carry a season ago – now boasts veteran tackle Jonah Williams in addition to fourth-round guard Isaiah Adams (and they added 6’5 and 271-pound tight end Tip Reiman – a blocking specialist – in the third round). It’s not a sexy group, but Pro Football Network notes that last year’s unit already cleared a league-high 3.1 yards before contact per attempt for its running backs.

Opportunity and Speculative Role

Conner’s 2023 performance suggests he still has something left in the tank, so Benson should slot in as Arizona’s day-one RB2. The team mostly unsuccessfully cycled through Emari Demercado, Keaontay Ingram, and Michael Carter as Conner’s primary backup (and injury fill-in) last year, and Benson is obviously better than all of those guys. The non-Conner runners averaged just 6.4 touches combined in games in which Conner played at least 50% of the snaps in 2023, and I expect Benson to approach that number on his own as a rookie. I don’t have a good read on which particular niches the rookie will be used to supplement Conner in early on (reviews are mixed on his pass-protection abilities, he’s not a reliable decision-maker behind the line of scrimmage, and Conner is a do-it-all back who doesn’t need to be pulled off the field in any specific situation), but his explosiveness will demand playing time and touches regardless of the specific circumstances he ends up being deployed in. He has enough juice to make a statistical impact on light opportunities, and Benson will have RB1 upside in the few weeks that Conner will inevitably miss during the course of the season.

Future Considerations

Conner is entering the last year of his contract, so the opportunity is there for Benson to step into a three-down role as soon as next season. Whether that happens or not is going to depend on the relationship between his explosive play-making ability, his rough-around-the-edges rawness, and his growth over the course of his rookie year. Dynamic talents can pull off a bunch of exciting plays and nonetheless remain capped below their hypothetical ceilings due to frustrating inconsistencies (as we’ve seen in recent years with attempts to supplement players like D’Andre Swift and Kenneth Walker with steadier running mates), and Benson is certainly not immune from that kind of teasing career arc. There’s also a chance that he cleans up his rough edges and becomes a do-no-harm ball-carrier and reliable pass-protector under the mentorship of Conner, in which case he has the physical talent to produce like one of the best running backs in the league. I would bet more on the former outcome, but cresting even a 50% opportunity share should be enough for Benson – in his volatile, peaks-and-valleys fashion – to contribute RB2-level numbers in fantasy.

Scheme Fit and Situational Upside

The Rams had about a 45-55 gap/zone split in their running game last season, and as PFF rated their run-blocking unit as the league’s fifth-best, Kyren Williams enjoyed light defensive fronts and a lot of yards before contact on his way to one of the highest Success Rates and one of the highest per-carry averages for any running back in the NFL in 2023. Basically, this is a good offensive line and a schematic attack that is well-suited to Corum’s strengths: the Rams ran the most inside zone and duo of any team in the league, and on those plays posted the second-highest Success Rate and gained the sixth-most yards before contact per attempt. If we limit our sample to runs into just the A and B gaps, Williams gained 4.95 yards per carry and had an average of 1.50 of those come before contact, marks both better than what Raheem Mostert averaged on a largely off-tackle running game in Miami.

Corum is the most technically-sound inside runner in the class and made a living off similar concepts during his time at Michigan. He should feel very comfortable in an offense that asks him to do many of the same things in Los Angeles.

Opportunity and Speculative Role

Corum boasts better collegiate production, a far more robust amateur efficiency profile, and vastly superior athletic testing results than the prospect version of Williams did, and while I can’t speak personally to the latter’s college tape (I hadn’t yet incorporated it into my process back in 2022), the fact that Corum was selected 81 picks before the fifth round slot at which Williams was taken suggests that at least one NFL team (and the one who selected them both) thought the Michigan man’s film was a bit (and perhaps substantially) better than the Notre Dame product’s. Basically, if Williams hadn’t run like one of the best backs in the NFL last season, there wouldn’t be much question in my mind of who the more capable of these two running backs is.

However, Williams did run like one of the best backs in the NFL last season, and he also was capable enough in the other areas of running back play that Sean McVay saw fit to deploy him on upwards of 90% of the team’s offensive snaps on any given week. In most of the marginal ways in which a modern halfback can reasonably provide value to an NFL team, Williams did for the Rams in 2023, proving emphatically that he is a capable three-down contributor at the professional level. Because of that, it’s going to take a lot for the hypothetically-better Corum to prove to be actually better than the established Williams, and I would not bet on it happening; it would be a surprise for any player to live up to the ridiculous standard that this team’s incumbent starter set last year, and on top of that to wrest control of the backfield from the guy who set that high standard (even if Williams himself doesn’t completely duplicate his insane numbers from 2023, which would be a tall task). In short, I don’t think Williams is going away.

Much has been made in the days since the draft of the powers-that-be in Los Angeles likening Corum’s game to Williams’, and there certainly are similarities. Both are compact, mistake-free runners who add value less through raw physical talent than through technical skill and schematic fidelity, both are capable enough on passing downs to warrant leaving on the field to either block or leak out for checkdown opportunities, and both seem to be high-character, high-effort presences in the locker room. As I alluded to above, Corum strikes me as being an objectively better prospect than Williams was, but I’m not willing to go so far as to say he’s the kind of 1-for-1 copy that will allow the Rams to simply tag-team these backs out for each other and have the playbook equally open with either on the field. I anticipate Corum turning out to be a capable pass-protector and dump-off receiver, but at least the first of those propositions frequently comes with a steep learning curve for young players and is something that Williams is already actively good at, and I’d be surprised if he doesn’t continue being LA’s go-to option in situations that call for those skills.

At least in the short term, I view Corum as the running back McVay probably wished he had behind his lead runner last year, a guy who can do the same things on the ground and approximate the value Williams adds on passing snaps, thereby allowing the team’s workhorse to take on something closer to a 70% snap share than the unsustainably heavy burden it was necessary for him to actually shoulder a season ago.

Future Considerations

This is a difficult situation to evaluate because the moving parts are somewhat unprecedented. As a fifth-round pick, Williams belongs to a cohort of players that you generally don’t expect to have much staying power in the league, and that you would similarly expect to be easily supplanted by a day-two selection with a stellar amateur resumé. But Williams was so good in 2023 that dismissing him as a true Mackinaw Peach seems, well, overly dismissive: guys can outperform their long-term prospects for short spurts, but generally not to the degree that Williams did and generally not for as long as Williams did. That said, Corum is good enough to seize greater opportunity if the guy in front of him does fall back down to earth (or gets hurt, which Williams has been known to do through two seasons in the league). The several paragraphs above make clear that I’m not projecting such things to happen immediately (and perhaps not at all!), but it’s certainly possible that the rookie outplays the vet and a changing of the guard takes place in Los Angeles, or that a true 50/50 split develops between guys offering comparable skill-sets.

If the status quo of Williams-as-lead-back sustains itself, then we’re looking at two years (until Williams’ rookie deal expires) of Corum-as-breather-back-and-handcuff, something that would make him valuable as a situational starter in fantasy football but ultimately disappointing given his talent profile and draft stock. If it seems like I’m being noncommittal in this section of the article, it’s because choosing one of these various outcomes as My Official Blake Corum Prediction would just be arbitrary. I don’t know if Williams is going to continue playing like a Pro Bowler, and neither does anyone else. But given my evaluation of Corum and my impression of Williams as an overachiever who has undeniably earned the trust of this coaching staff, the nebulous answer I’ve given here reflects how I view the contingent outcomes for this backfield over the next few seasons. Sorry if you were expecting a flag planted on “Corum is gonna put that bum on the bench”, but such a development just doesn’t strike me as uniquely likely among the possibilities (though I’d love to see it).