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Examining The UDFA RBs via Big Boards and Analytics
May 29, 2026/u/dcn_blur/DynastyFF
Getting things ready
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Player mentions
Mike Washington
RB · LV · #general
...opportunity plays. Hemby seems to offer a nice complement to the explosive Mike Washington, with a real production history to match Washington's more checkered recor...
Dean Connors
RB · LAR · #general
....2 second difference in the players' 40 times, which strongly favors Ott. Dean Connors Maybe I'm a sucker for traits, but Connors is pretty firmly "my guy" of t...
Desmond Reid
RB · BUF · #injuryupdate
....75 and .7 on holdout years 2021 and 2023, respectively. The Prospects Desmond Reid The only RB in this group to grade out as a "real" prospect, with a score...
J'Mari Taylor
RB · JAX · #breakoutcandidate
...ically praying he's Darren Sproles, an unlikely outcome to say the least. J'Mari Taylor Taylor is similar to Reid in that he showcased decent receiving ability b...
Roman Hemby
RB · LV · #general
...raits, showing decent receiving ability and passable elusiveness as well. Roman Hemby / Robert Henry Jr. In contrast, these two are the definition of opportuni...
Robert Henry
RB · WAS · #general
Article text
Hi everybody, Over the past few weeks I've shared running back, receiver, and tight end models. I had some fun conversations and got good feedback in the process. As many of you are moving past your drafts and heading into waiver wire season, there's an increased need to evaluate undrafted free agents. It's less of a pressing need in theory, since 2026 was a poor running back class, but the past decade or so of football has shown some real starters come out of the ranks of these guys. At the very least, many players with pretty meager draft capital who became real stars have come out of this group, including guys like Austin Ekeler and Jaylen Warren. What's intriguing, however, is that despite the vast pool of undrafted free agents out there to prognosticate, it usually turns out that most of the guys poised for long-term success were actually notable prospects. The top four undrafted running backs, at least in terms of the first three years of their career in the last decade or so, were all ranked in the top 400 of MockDraftDatabase's consensus big board. Even for the guys who do something in year one, we see nearly double the amount of big-board guys crossing a rosterable threshold heading into year two versus guys who weren't. In short, if we look at these high-salience prospects in depth, we'll have a pretty good idea of who the most important backs from this class are going to be. The Model To quickly recap, my model uses a variety of inputs to prognosticate running back outcomes. Usually, the most important of these is draft capital, but since we're dealing with late-round picks, it carries less weight. This is actually a benefit, since the advantage gets so marginal later in the draft that it allows the players' raw talent and production to shine instead. As for the other inputs, many are focused on receiving since we're predicting PPR outcomes. We use the combined PFF grade, which mixes a player's overall offensive and route-running grades, as well as their targeted QBR. Equally important are elusiveness rating and height-adjusted speed score, giving different types of backs equal chances to succeed. The model predicts how much PPR backs will accrue over a three-year window. I take these predictions and compact them into a 0-100 score, which basically tells you what percent of prospects over the past decade the model thinks a given player is better than. This is mostly useful to check whether these UDFAs were of "draftable" quality, i.e., roughly as good as anyone who was actually taken in the 2026 class. Performance-wise, the model demonstrated an R-squared of .75 and .7 on holdout years 2021 and 2023, respectively. The Prospects Desmond Reid The only RB in this group to grade out as a "real" prospect, with a score of 43 placing him firmly in the middle of the class. The math on Reid is simple: he needed to test insanely well to offset his diminutive size, and his 4.58 forty failed to do that. He's carried by excellent PFF grades, elusiveness, and targeted QBR numbers, but you're basically praying he's Darren Sproles, an unlikely outcome to say the least. J'Mari Taylor Taylor is similar to Reid in that he showcased decent receiving ability but turned in a brutal 40 time of 4.66. It's worth noting that the model still likes him a decent amount in spite of this, given his prediction far outpaces Oklahoma's Jaydn Ott despite the two being taken a mere two picks apart. I'd argue the model's not giving enough weight to the .2 secon…