Next up in our positional rankings series ahead of the 2023 NFL draft is one of the more polarizing positions of the modern NFL: running back.
It’s no secret that running back is largely considered one of, if not the most replaceable positions on either side of the ball.
Teams rarely prioritize running backs in the top half of the first round these days; however, this year could be different due to a truly special prospect at the top of the rankings.
But before we get started, as always, I want to go over my grading process once again for first-time readers to get them up to speed. These explanations could get repetitive once you’ve read them a few times, so feel free to keep scrolling and jump right into the rankings.
Over the last couple of months, I have evaluated over 150 players in total. This process includes me grading a minimum of three contests for each prospect before coming up with my opinions/grades.
More often than not, I would watch at least five or six games for each of the prospect before doing an evaluation, but unfortunately, there were some cases where I had trouble getting all-22 tapes, so I had to work with what I had.
The way this works is I evaluate each game that I watched individually, and then I averaged those grades into one final film grade worth a total of 20 points.
Example: blue-chip prospects (90 percent or higher) received anywhere from 18-20 points in all likelihood.
Game tape is the only criterion that is worth 20 points on my grading scale, while other areas, such as analytics, athletic score, ceiling/floor, etc., are worth a maximum of 10 points.
Keep in mind that I will be doing one final update to these rankings on the morning of the draft (April 27th). Now, let’s take a look at my top 10 backs.