Will the 2024 NFL Draft have the longest RB drought we’ve seen? | Zero Blitz

Yahoo Sports’ Jason Fitz, Jori Epstein and senior NFL reporter Charles Robinson discuss how this 2024 running back class is one that lacks a big star. Hear the full conversation on “The Exempt List with Charles McDonald” - part of the “Zero Blitz” podcast - and subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you listen.

Video Transcript

- One of the things, C. Rob, I know you've been writing on that impacts this year's draft class I think is really interesting is the running back class. Because last year, we saw some big names go early. People had a lot to say about that. But this year's draft class is much different. What are you hearing about it?

- So Bishop Sankey in 2014 was the latest a running back ever came off the board, the first running back off the board. The latest a running back has ever gone is 54th to the Tennessee Titans. That's when Sankey was the first running back selected in the 2014 draft. By

The way, 2013, 2014, neither of those years had a first-round running back. This is trending toward being in that class. And there may be-- the first running back off the board, probably not going to be to Dallas at 56, but it's feeling like this is the class that lacks that star at the top. I think it's a very real possibility we could see the longest running back drought in a single draft that we've ever seen.

We're going to have this glut of, like, 15 running backs that are going to go off somewhere near the end of the second round and then through the end of the fourth round, maybe very top of the fifth. That's a lot of running backs jammed into the middle of the draft. But I don't think, even now-- and I know people are going to point to Brooks and say he's the consensus number one. I don't know if that's the case.

There's just not-- certainly the feel I have gotten, there's not one player that anybody's looking at and going, yeah, he's the slam dunk, do-it-all, three-down running back. He can fit any scheme. He can do whatever you want. There's no Bijan out there like that. Jahmyr Gibbs was obviously taken 12th by the Lions, and highly critical-- I think there were a lot of people highly critical of that draft position for Gibbs. Turned out really good, but he was a rotational player, obviously, with Montgomery in that backfield.

It's really interesting to see this happen now. And that means-- there's no question in my mind this is happening. 2013, 2014, and 2024, we will have three drafts in an 11-year span where no running back is taken in the first round. And it's that continuation of the devaluation of the running back, as I wrote. I was like, the devaluation of this position actually begins on draft day. That's when they start to be devalued on draft boards, and then it just continues on.