As the NFL draft draws near, more and more claims and predictions for prospects are put out there, whether good or bad.
Some top guys will suddenly drop, while others will have sharp rises in value. Some opinions are more valued than others by the public based on their backgrounds.
In terms of the running back position, the opinion of a former NFL running back in theory is well respected.
That is why seeing consensus first-round pick Omarion Hampton, widely considered the second-best running back in this year’s class behind Ashton Jeanty, ranked as the seventh-best running back in the draft is a bit jarring.
More news: NFL Mock Draft 2025: Predicting the Entire First Round
Maurice Jones-Drew played in the NFL for nine seasons, eight coming with the Jacksonville Jaguars.
In 2011, he put up 1606 rushing yards and eight touchdowns, the best season of his career.
Jones-Drew was a great back in the NFL, which has earned him the right to be a football analyst for the NFL network.
Seeing Hampton, an elite running back prospect out of North Carolina, all the way down at seven raises lots of questions.
.@MJD released his best RBs in this year’s #NFLDraftFull RB prospect rankings from 1-31 https://t.co/L5gJ8hlz8j pic.twitter.com/4UT9YRfaW1
— NFL (@NFL) March 18, 2025
To be fair, this year’s running back class is loaded, so there are a lot of elite guys besides Hampton and Heisman runner-up Ashton Jeanty.
However, Jones-Drew is in the minority in his opinion of Hampton, who has often been mocked late in the first round of the NFL draft by teams like the Minnesota Vikings, Pittsburgh Steelers, Denver Broncos, and even as high as 12 or 10 to the Dallas Cowboys or Chicago Bears.
Another top back that is surprisingly absent from Jones-Drew’s rankings entirely is Iowa running back Kaleb Johnson.
Johnson is considered by many to be a top-five back in this year’s class, making him being outside the top 10 feel a bit extreme.
Overall, as the draft gets closer and April arrives, it will be interesting to see how people continue to view this year’s running back class.
In what appears to be the deepest class in years, teams could always decide to wait on the position to get a better value later in the draft. That could mean a guy like Hampton could fall out of the first round.
With the combine happening already, it is hard to imagine much changing in terms of consensus rankings, but it will be worth keeping an eye on if consensus starts straying closer to Jones-Drew’s running back rankings.
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