Bijan Robinson Should Be a Top Ten Pick in the 2023 NFL Draft

BY JONATHAN WILLIS

One of the newest “rules” in the NFL Draft is to not take a running back in the first round. The first running back off the board last year was Breece Hall at No. 36 overall, and that has continued a trend we have seen since 2018. The first running back selected in the 2019 NFL Draft was Josh Jacobs at No. 24, Clyde Edwards-Helaire was the top RB taken in 2020 at No. 32, and Najee Harris and Travis Etienne came off the board at No. 24 and No. 25 in 2021. A running back hasn’t been taken earlier than the No. 24 overall pick since 2018, but that should change this year as Bijan Robinson deserves to be a top ten pick. Robinson is the most talented running back we have seen coming out of college since Saquon Barkley, and he has the potential to be a game changer as a rookie.

On a recent Ryen Russillo podcast, Daniel Jeremiah and Todd McShay both noted that every team they had talked to had Robinson rated as one of the top six prospects in this class. Robinson is seen as the most talented running back in the 2023 NFL Draft by a wide margin, and even some of the most stalwart proponents of not taking a running back in the first round are in agreement that he deserves to hear his name called on Thursday night.

However, what makes Robinson a great bet to be a top ten pick is the fact that so many teams are in need of a running back with his skillset. Robinson can do it all as a runner and a receiver out of the backfield. He ran for 1,580 yards and 18 touchdowns while averaging 6.1 YPC this season, and he caught 60 passes for 805 yards and eight touchdowns during his collegiate career.

At the NFL Combine, Robinson ran a 4.46-second 40-yard dash at 215 pounds, and his 10-yard split was the third fastest among running backs. That has led to him being compared favorably to Saquon Barkley, who was the last running back taken in the top ten of the NFL Draft. Barkley went No. 2 overall in 2018, and although Robinson won’t go that high, he still is good value at -120 to be a top ten pick at BetOnline.

After highly rated running backs like C.J. Spiller, Ryan Mathews, and Trent Richardson turned out to be busts at the start of the 2010s, we started to see teams taking the axiom of not taking a running back in the first round to heart. However, we saw a lot of talented running backs taken from 2015 to 2018 that were well worth their draft picks.

Todd Gurley (No. 10) and Melvin Gordon (No. 15) both lived up to the billing and were awesome under their first contracts. In 2016, Ezekiel Elliott (No. 4) was fantastic for a few years, and Derrick Henry would have been a top five pick if there was a redraft in 2020 given what he has meant to the Tennessee Titans. The 2017 NFL Draft saw its first running back end up as a bust (Leonard Fournette at No. 4), but the next nine picks have all had success in the league. Christian McCaffrey (No. 8 overall) has been fantastic when healthy, and second-round picks Dalvin Cook and Joe Mixon both should have been first-round picks given how they performed. The same is true of third-round pick Alvin Kamara in that same draft. Finally, although Rashaad Penny and Sony Michel have been somewhat disappointing as 2018 first-round picks alongside Barkley, Nick Chubb has been the most efficient running back in the NFL over the last five years.

The key with running backs isn’t to avoid using a first-round pick on them, it’s to avoid giving them a second contract. Almost every team that has given a talented running back a second contract has come to regret it, starting with Zeke Elliott. A lot of teams would have loved to have Elliott in his prime though considering the numbers he put up when he was at his best.

Dallas, Tampa Bay, and Philadelphia are reportedly enamored with Robinson, and we could see either the Cowboys or the Buccaneers try and move ahead of the Eagles at No. 10 in order to snag the top running back.