Benson-mania

There's got so much I like about Trey Benson. But that's that's just me breaking down one game. You've got a much bigger sample size. Let's talk about Trey Benson out of State.

His first couple of years, he was at Oregon and he had a catastrophic knee injury and uh aclmclateral meniscus, medio meniscus.

was a lot better with that. There was some tentative stuff in this past year with that. I would nitpick more the usage that Norvell used him with Jordan Travis was also taking some of chomping out some of the the rushes with him last year. But Norvel likes to

use the two running backs at YadA YadA. But the thing I'd say about Benson In addition to the utility, the tackle breaking, the size, speed stuff as a runner, he also has very good hands and he's a handful when when he gets trucking up field in space, when he converts from the receiver into a runner, you see examples of him adjusting to the ball in the air

and making the play. So if you know, I didn't see the reports of the of the medical teams, you know, as far as signing off on him, but as far as long as your team's medical team did sign off on his knee and everything like that.

of tread on the tires. He was in a three man rotation at Tennessee this past year. He rose to the top of that thing and became sort of the one a back of that. Some people nitpick him for this, You know that that he wasn't, you know, ever, sort of the bellcow guy or whatever. But you know, you can't have it both ways as far as that goes. You know, he goes into the NFL healthier than a lot of these guys and with less of that tread and is certainly the fleet uh sort of athlete as well.

He's more of the straight line type guy. When he gets that crease and there's that all the way to the he is going to start a racing angle by angle by angle of guys and you're not catching him from behind. That that's Jalen Wright. I've heard comps tossed out of Elvin Kamara. I think that goes a little bit too far. But the other one I hear of Tevin Coleman. I don't think that one goes far enough.

So he's somewhere in between those two guys. But with Jalen Wright, you're very early on the developmental curve with someone who has all the ability that you want and and going forward in the NFL, he's going to be a better NFL player than he was in college.

all the way up to the draft. But right now you have Jonathan Brooks third. I we touched on this a little bit last week. He didn't dazzle me with what I saw. And I'm looking for when I'm looking at running backstore, I'm looking for guys where I can identify some part of their game that's going to be

special at the NFL level. And just what I've seen so far out of Jonathan Brooks, and I've only looked at a game and a half, was a guy who looks like a sort of a jack of all trades, so we can do a lot of things, but nothing special. And then I'm just I'm worried during special NFL trades here.

guys that we just talked about. Jonathan Brooks was stuck behind Beijon and Rochean earlier in his career at Texas to get by those it's tough to get by those guys. But he's not the freak athlete the Bijon is or even you know, Rochean obviously in the bigger package. But Brooks is an okay athlete, but not a stud athlete where he excels. His contact balance is very, very good. He has good feet. I like his vision, I like his patience and his feel for running. Those are the

things that I like about him. He is decent size, He's a decent athlete. He's not a dynamic receiver, but he does how He's reliable in that phase. He has soft hands. But it's sort of like what you're saying. It's like, you know, no physical attribute you know, stands out an elite level anything like that. It's you know, the contact balance is the one thing where I'm like, that's really good. But outside of that, it's just a lot of things where you know it's he he you know,

he's sort of at Texas at last season. You know, while he was healthy, he sort of added up to more than the some of his parts.

was as a receiver. Because he brought up at both at South Carolina and then at USC those offenses did not deploy him as much as a receiver as much as he would have liked, you know, they used him as the running back, he was the RB one whatever, but not as much as a receiver. He did show in mobile that he is a very smooth receiver and in the flashes we saw on film, but he showed, you know, in the receiving drills he's very smooth with that. And then during the combine, I wanted to see, is

this like, where is this kid's athleticism. I actually bet my colleague Derek Brown at Fantasy Pros who is He's much? He was much higher on on Lloyd as an athlete than I was. We made a bet on his forty time. I was in the four five's on Lloyd and and Derek was in the four fours. And let's just say I was wrong, Okay. Lloyd ended up running in the four four. He four four six with an nine to nine RAS. So wow, Yes, So I Derek Brown some drinks next time we go to the senior ball. Lloyd

also had a thirty six vertical. He had a very very good workout. But on the field, he a couple of different things. Very very good agility, so you like that. He has good vision, so he sets people up and then he has that agility. It's really hard to hit him square and he runs angry. We asked him about this in mobile too. We were like, you know what, you know, why do he run so angry? Like you know who hurts you? You know? And he's like he I didn't even know this about him. You know, he goes,

he goes. It's because I'm from Delaware. He's like, okay, he goes. You come from Delaware, you go out there to prove yourself. Wow. I was like, okay, yeah. It was like in a wedding crashers. You know, that's what Marilyn does. You know. It's like I was like, all right, you learned something new every day. But I like Lloyd for all these reasons. You know, he he proved it a South Carolina. Then he went to usc Us. He had sorted the trying year last year, but he averaged

over seven yards of carry. And I do think he is a better receiver than we saw at his last two stops, just because they didn't use him that way. Obviously a good athlete, his stock is going up.

not breaking down Troy. I'm not running to Troy and my TV. You know, so I got nothing on him. What can you tell me about Kimani Vidal?

a type with running backs. He measured in five eight, two hundred and fifteen pounds down at the combine, but he has incredible acceleration and agility, a combination of that and he gets power from that acceleration and then he just has a fearless running style. He's another one of those guys that you cannot square up. He sort of hides behind the line of scrimmage and you can't square him up because of the agility, and then he gets

through there so fast because of the acceleration. There was a lot of people out there that were sort of sleeping on his speed. Everyone out there thought he was gonna run above a four to six combine. He comes in runs a four four six who had an eight point eighty four raz very very good numbers for him. So you know, for me on my board, I have him as RB five right now. He was way way down there on a lot of other boards. I think he's going to be rising up after his combine performance.

For me, I comped him to Jalen Warren. When I was down at the combine, I asked, I'm sorry. When I was down at the senior ball I asked him who he patterned his game after or who you know he his own game reminded him of, and he said Maurice Jones Drew.

it's always way above their import. But Vidal, he reminds me so much of a current NFL player. So I just had to ask him if he'd seen this guy, if you know, if he saw any of this. He reminds me so much of Jalen Warren coming out of Oklahoma State. It's the same size. I thought they were gonna test similarly, and then Vidall went and blew that out. But they the last year at Oklahoma State, Jalen Warren finished number two in the NPS and forced miss tackles.

Last year, come Oni Vidaal at Troy finished number two in the NPS in forced myths tackles at the exact same size. So I asked him, I said, have you ever seen Jalen Warren? You know, what do you think he He just lit up. He's like, oh yeah, I could see that, all right. I think he's gonna in the same way. He's gonna be very similar to Jayalen Warren, either a very very good, complimentary back or a sort of a low level starter.

particular was built to maul in the run game. And you could see this right Like Blake Korum yards after contact on average last year was two point four to two, which is one of the lowest of the top twenty guys. It's hard to nippick him too much for that, though, because his yards before contact was absolutely ludicrous, which wasn't necessarily his fault he had well, no, he had a freaking envoy every single time they handed of the ball, right, he was just a scarted down the field. It's another

reason you look at his elusive rating. It's comically low. Twenty seven point four. You know, one hundred is considered like a solid one whatever. But it's for the same reason, right, Like the metrics are sort of skewed because that offensive line was so nasty as a run blocking unit. To another reason, you know, only thirty broken tackles. Another thing contextually, Blake Korm had the injury, the knee injury late twenty

twenty two. He was still recovering from that early on last this past season, in twenty twenty three, so he was a bit sluggish early in the season as well. So you had a couple of those things going. The thing that I like about Blake Korm I mentioned before, I fetishized the bowling ball build. Yeah, I love guys like that, the agility and everything like that, the powerful build, everything like that. Blake Korum five eight two o five weight in at the combine, he has that agility, very

very agile. In fact, his three cone six eight to two was tremendous. The forty was more meager at four five three, but the ras overall was solid at eight four eight. You like the the three cone, You like the vision, very very good. He runs with power, he breaks the arm tackles. Those are the things I like about Blake Korum. But I do have him down there at running back six right now, just because he's not as good of a receiver he is. He has the

reliable hands, but he's not a great route runner. He's probably gonna be off the field on most passing downs. He's gonna get the early down work in the NFL, But for fantasy, you do have to mention that that you're probably gonna have a better receiving back on your roster.

hitting a brick wall. He even though he runs upright, it's it was so funny watching his tape because he has both the contact balance but also just like it's like touching an electric fence, like the kid just has the superpower that now you do have to say he was in the FCS, but at the highest level of it. You know, at South Dakota State, they won, They were a juggernaut. I mean, they went undefeated and he was the Bellcow. They also played Iowa, you know, they played

some FPS teams over the last couple of years. You happen to know how he.

what it is. It's the combination of the agility one cut agility, you know, it's not joystick agility, but the one cut thing, and then the power and the contact balance even for an upright runner. And he showed the reason. You know, he was another guy, you know, along with Vida, who are sort of my guys, you know, heading into

the combine. Just like Vidal Isaa Davis proved the concept in Indianapolis eight seven to three RAS at the bigger size six foot two hundred and twenty pounds eight seven three RAS four five seven forty, which is fine for a bigger back like that with his style thirty four and a half vertical. So yeah, he's going to go

into the NFL. He's going to be a strong back probably complimentary initially, but as far as the short yardage guy, the early down type guy, he's going to be productive I think in the NFL, just not not a receiving guy initially.

a thirty eight inch vert at a bigger size. He had an over ten foot broad. That's why he came in in an eight to five to nine RAS. But again you have the slow forty with the sluggish ten yard split. The compy like most for him, which I think fits very well. As Jamal Williams for estimating in the NFL. I think he sorted that your early down type grinder guy in the goal line type guy. And I don't think that the speed thing necessarily changes my view point on that comes in six foot little over

two hundred twenty pounds. The guy who I'm more concerned about the combine was Bucky Irving. He comes in five to nine hundred and ninety pounds. His his RAZ three seven to two. What runs a four five five, one five four ten yard split. His vertical is under thirty inches. Wow. Yeah, he couldn't jump over a stack of ten dollars bills and his broad was was nine feet. Uh. Not good Bucky Irving. He made guys missing college. He has some receiving skill, but he has to show that he can

run by people at that very small size. I don't know what to say with that lack of athleticism. He might have just made himself undraftable. The people who like Bucky Irving are now making the argument that he is Kyron Williams. Brian Johnson is already drafting his argument that he's Kyrien Williams. But yeah, it's not a good day for Bucky Irving at the combine. So is he just gonna be a pure re even back in the NFL? You think, I think that's what it's gotta be.