 Welcome to another edition of the OTP. I'm Amy Wells, joined once again by the Draft Duo. Dave McGinnis, Coach Mack is here. Hey, Coach. Hi, Amy Wells. And Rhett Bryan is also here. Hello, Rhett. Hi, Amy. Coach Mack. Good to be back on the OTP. Hello, Rhett. Yes. Always look forward to being with you guys talking draft. So good to see you guys and your respective backgrounds on this Zoom call. Truly such great insight into your lives. I like it. Technology gurus, Amy. Now, as we're getting closer to the draft, we have more position groups to dive into. And today, guys, I want to talk about running backs. And I want to start out with a very simple question and Coach Mack, I'll start with you. Do you think a running back is going to go in the first round of the 2020 draft? To me, there are three running backs that have first round ability. Whether they go in the first round or not because of the abundance of other types of positions that I think are higher ranked than the running backs are. But I'm going to give you three names that it would not shock me if one of them went in the first round. The first one is Deandre Swift from Georgia. Okay. I think this is definitely a first round talent. J.K. Dobbins from Ohio State has done enough to display first round talent. And then in my horizontal rankings, where my pod kind of cuts off with first round picks is Jonathan Taylor out of Wisconsin. Those three names, Amy, to me, if somebody were just going to say who do you think has the talent in the running back position to warrant a top 32 pick. Those three would be my names. The number one being I think will go is Deandre Swift. I wouldn't disagree with that at all. If there's going to be a back taken in the first round, it will be Georgia's Deandre Swift. But Coach Mack is a thousand percent right. Those other two backs, Taylor from Wisconsin and J.K. Dobbins from Ohio State certainly would have a first round grade in this. But as he mentioned, because the move to get quarterbacks, pass rushers, tackles which are good in this draft, and certainly the rich wide receiver draft that this is, it bumps likely a running back out of the first round. So there will be a run on them in the top of the second round to the middle of the second round with those names and a few others. Now, Mack, what are the merits of drafting a running back in some of the later rounds? I seem to see that a lot as a draft unfolds. Running backs seem to fall back into some of those round two, round three, round four areas. Running back, Amy, is a position in the National Football League. And this has historically been true that can contribute immediately when they come in. Because the requisite skills that make you a top running back in the NCAA, regardless of what division you are playing in the NCAA, those traits transfer to the running game in the National Football League. And so you're able to get guys particularly in those middle rounds that can contribute. Some of the better backs in the league that have had better histories in the league, you've got first round picks that have been outstanding backs, but you also have got guys all the way through to free agents that have had really good careers as a running back, because that skill translates more quickly to immediate help, in my opinion, than any other position on the football field. Jack, I want to stick with you for a second, because the Titans obviously have their star running back in Derek Henry, who has signed his franchise tag. What type of back could the Titans be looking for to complement him? What skill sets could be valuable to go with a guy like Derek Henry? Well, first of all, I think you still have to get a guy that is able to threaten the defense of running the football when you get in. You don't want to have two disparate types of backs that they know that when Derek Henry's in there, that you're more than likely to run the football so they screw their cleats in the ground and come after the run game, and at the same time that you're not going to throw it when Henry's in there. And then when you put the next back in, they say, well, you know, the run game, we don't have to worry about. We can lighten the box and we can get our coverage a little bit more. You'd like to get somebody that has the ability in both of those traits to be able to threaten the defense. But to me, one of those guys, if you want to start talking about some of those types of players, Clyde Edwards-Hilaire out of LSU, I think would be a wonderful complementary back because any back that you get to Derek Henry is going to be a complementary back. Derek Henry's a premier back in the national football league. So you bring a young player in, he's going to be a complementary back to him, but he's got the requisite skills to do that. I really like cam makers out of Florida State. I think this kid has untapped talent, untapped potential, played in a horrible program at Florida State. They were really bad around him, but you could see some of his physical traits and his ball carrying ability and also being able to catch the ball that come out. The other one that I'm going to give you here, I like Zach Moss out of Utah, a little bit different, a little bit more of a pounding back in there that would still give you the threat of being able to catch it out of the back field. Those are three names I think that you could look at. And all of those players that I've given you, Amy, in my opinion, now that doesn't mean I'm right, is second to third round picks. Now I want to dive into some of these other names that we've already mentioned. J.K. Dobbins is a guy who's one of the top running backs in this class. He says that he went to Ohio State because he saw the success of Ezekiel Elliott. Rhett, I want to ask you, do you think that he has turned himself into the next Zeke Elliott? In a word, no. And I'll tell you why. The one thing that separates himself from Zeke Elliott is his ability to catch the football out of the back field, which Zeke does very well and is paid very well by the Dallas Cowboys to do just that in addition to running the football. J.K. Dobbins, I think the knock on him going into this draft is showing a consistent, good level of catching the football out of the back field. That's why Coach Mack brought up a Clyde Edwards-Hallaire from LSU who is one of the best in this class to be able to do that. If you think about this, in the national championship game, he had a couple of crucial drops on some drives in that game and I think that has stuck in people's minds. That's the last image we saw of him outside of what he did at the Combine because there have been no team visits, pro-days and workouts due to everything going on. But if he can sharpen up his skills at that, he can become a very good contributing running back at this level. I don't think he's Zeke Elliott though. Coach Mack, you had mentioned Jonathan Taylor and that he was a guy that could be a potentially good fit for the Tennessee Titans. What is it about him that you like so much and are there other players who have similar skill sets to him? Well, you know what I always like to do, it's like we're in a draft meeting when we're doing this. You're the general manager and you say, Coach Mack, read me your report on Jonathan Taylor. I start off with he's got outstanding contact balance. He's always going forward when he runs. I thought he's got great vision, he's got patience at the line of scrimmage and here's what he does. He is very flexible body type. He can stick his foot in the ground, he can drop his hips, he can change course, he can change direction. Now look, this guy's had a lot of carries just because of what they do at Wisconsin. That's what they do. They make a living at pounding the football at people, knocking their opponents into submission with big offensive linemen and with a power back, which he is. His weaknesses, I think his lateral quickness is great, but he's not an elite sudden back. He really isn't. And I talked about their offensive line at Wisconsin. When you watch his tape, you see he's got a lot of what we call block yardage. And when you look at block yardage, it means it's holes are being cleared for him so that he's got a pretty clear space, you know, sometimes when he goes through it. But overall, here's what I would say. He's had some fumbling issues there, which you can't have in the national football league. He needs to improve his reliability on passing downs, but he's got instinctive run ability. And plus I like his control movements. You want a back that has control movements. You don't want a back that is herky jerky and it's all over the place and can't make a decision and is not patient. He's got that. I think he will still be a premier back in the national football league, but you've also got to understand, you know, just how much tread he's worn off his tires because he's had over 900 carries in his collegiate career. I am in fact the general manager of this podcast. I'm going to ask you to do the same thing for DeAndre Swift. Give me a little bit of a scouting report on him. Rhett and I both have already said he's number one guy. Here's what I like about DeAndre Swift. You can do anything with this guy that you want to do. Inside zone, outside zone. I mean, he's able to get in the open space and make people miss. And the other thing is he's a very durable back. He's a durable back because as we all know, Georgia has always done it with running backs by committee, but that committee is a set of backs that are very, very competitive. And so if you don't stay on your game and if you're not at the top of your game as a running back at the University of Georgia, you're not going to play very much. This guy is a premier back in the league. And the other thing, Amy, that is very important to me when I'm looking at running backs, we've talked about going from the spectrum of running backs through all divisions and classes in the NCAA. You know DeAndre Swift has played against athletes like he's going to play against in the National Football League because the Southeastern Conference has more athletes year in and year out drafted into the National Football League. And thus there are more players in the National Football League, especially defensively from the Southeastern Conference. DeAndre Swift has competed against these people. Right. Who are some of the guys that we could see come off the board in some of those mid-level, second, third, fourth picks that could be great acquisitions at that spot? Well, I'm going to lead with one from a small school. Coach Matt kind of made me think about that. And that's Darrington Evans of Appalachian State. This guy's a 5'11", 185 pounds and he doesn't have really good short yardage skills, but his elusiveness is what will separate him from things. And in terms of like a compliment to Derek Henry and the Titans offense, he's a really good outside zone runner, which we know that's kind of what this offense is with Arthur Smith. He needs to show a little more consistency, but he played big numbers in a small pond kind of thing. He's one that I would look in the middle rounds. I also like Patrick Taylor from Memphis. He's another guy that has pretty good size power back from Memphis. There are some really good backs in these middle rounds. As Coach Matt said, could it contribute immediately because the position relates so much to touches and an offense. Matt, do you have anyone to add to that group? Yeah. How many do you want? As many as you've got. I mean, this is what our life has been for about six months here, Amy. How long has the season been over? Anyway, this is kind of what my life has been until we were hit with this other obstacle. He talked about Derrington Evans and Antonio Gibson from Memphis is another guy. Eno Benjamin from Arizona State, very, very interesting player that plays with Brandon I. Yook, which we've talked about as one of the really good receivers in this draft. I like Eno Benjamin. LaMichele Perrine from Florida. I mean, this is a guy that, again, played in the Southeastern Conference. Then AJ Dillon from Boston College. Big, big, powerful back. Not going to make very many people miss, but he's going to make a lot of defensive backs, make business decisions down the field if they want to try to tackle it. There's a kid that's very interesting. He's a smaller type player, but this kid is from Illinois State. His name is James Robinson. Okay, James Robinson is 5'9", 219 pounds. He ran a 4-6-4. Don't worry about the speed. He's an instinctive, instinctive runner. And then Keyshawn Vaughn from here at Vanderbilt. Keyshawn Vaughn is a very, very good football player. And he, to me, he's got the requisite skills, especially in the inside and outside zone stuff. And Keyshawn Vaughn can hit the home run. He's a 4-4-4 guy. And so there's some guys down the line, and he said earlier in the podcast that you're directing so well as the general manager, these guys are going to be there in these rounds that I've said. And Amy, I'll give you one other one that has my attention, and I think may even go up the draft board a little bit with his potential. That's Michael Warren of Cincinnati. This is a guy at 5'11", 218. He isn't a home run hitter with long, long speed, but he's a very good runner. He has very good skills out of the backfield as a pass catcher. He has a lot of guys' attention in this thing, and will be another name that will be in that third, fourth round area, maybe a little higher if somebody really falls in love with it. So, Rhett, I'm going to stick with you. Give me some names that we could hear in those last few rounds. Some guys that can still make an impact for an NFL team. There's some guys like Benny LeMay from UNC Charlotte that you might hear the name of. Jim Michael Hasty from Baylor is another one. Rico Dowdle from South Carolina. A big power back that actually played with Coach Brable's son at Boston College and A.J. Dillon, who's a bigger dude like Derek Henry is. D.J. Dallas from University of Miami. Raymond Collay from Louisiana Lafayette. There's several of these guys in here. One I really like is Anthony McFarland of Maryland who was not really used a whole lot out of the backfield, but had hit it in speed. There are several guys in this thing, day two into day three that can help you in this draft. Mack, you have any names to add to that list? Well, I got names. I got plenty of names, Amy. To me, it's really a little bit presumptuous to talk about rounds, especially when you get out of the first round, because then, look, all draft rooms are independent of the others. Nobody really cares what anybody else thinks. Just like, you know, Rhett and I will disagree on where a guy will go, but at the end of the day, it doesn't really matter what we think. It's who the people pulling the trigger. There's a kid at South Carolina named Rico Dowell. There's a kid named Savon Ahmed from Washington. Okay. Sayu Olanawu from TCU Frog. Okay. Javon Leek, another kid from Maryland. He talked about Benny LeMay. Brian Harian at Georgia. Split some time there with Deandre Swift. There are players, there are running backs, because most college football teams, Amy, carry more than one running back, clearly. And as I said, it is a position that when you are either recruited in college or you're drafted in the National Football League or get to a camp in the National Football League, you have proven you've got the requisite skills to run the ball. Now it just depends on what level and what your fit is when you show up in a National Football League campus. So are there any players that you have your eyes on that you're excited to see how their story ends up shaking out as this draft happens? Well, I mean, to me, when I look at it, I really like Clyde Edwards-Hilaire as a football player. I really do. And he's got some things to me. He's a football player. And at the end of the day, what we are doing is drafting football players. We're not drafting height, weight, speed, you know, Olympic participants. I like the way he plays the game. I'm going to be real interested to see not only where he goes, but who he goes to and how they're going to incorporate and use him. And I would follow up with the guy that you liked, Coach Mack and Cam Akers of Florida State, just because poor Willie Taggart couldn't find his way out of a paper bag in that deal and ended up getting canned midway through their season at Florida State. So I don't know really what he was used and probably wasn't used correctly. He has a lot of upside heading into the National Football League in terms of level of play. And I'm really excited to see where he goes, as long as it's not the AFC South, other than being at a Titan, of course, to see what he does at the NFL level. You guys, there's still so much to watch with this draft getting closer and closer. I'm so excited to finally see where some of these chips fall. Thank you so much for taking some time to talk running backs with us. Thank you, Amy. Always a pleasure. Thank you, GM. Amy. Thank you, head coach Dave McGinnis. Brett Bryan for Dave McGinnis and his notebook full of names. I'm Amy Wells, and this has been the OTP.