Hall of Fame Running Backs Weigh In on a Special Running Back Draft Class

LaDainian Tomlinson, newly announced Hall of Fame running back and NFL Network analyst, would make one heck of a mock drafter. 

"Christian McCaffrey is a guy I think, going to the right system, can be a very, very good player," Tomlinson said during Super Bowl week. "If he can make his way to Green Bay, look out."

Former Stanford standout McCaffrey to the Packers: That's some Sriracha-hot draft 'shipping, L.T. The only folks who wouldn't love to see McCaffrey catching flat passes from Aaron Rodgers and running draw plays in Green Bay's pass-happy system are NFC North opponents...and fans in cities like Denver, who covet McCaffrey for themselves.

What about Leonard Fournette from LSU, L.T.? "I think he's a guy, much like Ezekiel Elliott, that can step in right away and possibly be a Pro Bowl rusher," Tomlinson said.

Ooh—hot but not quite as distinctive. Marshall Faulk said the same thing minutes earlier at a table about 40 feet away from Tomlinson.

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"I think he's kind of similar to Ezekiel Elliott," Faulk said of Fournette. "I hope that he gets the experience that Ezekiel experienced—to go to a team with a great offensive line that maybe experienced some misfortune last year."

There don't appear to be teams with great offensive lines but outrageous misfortune like the 2015 Cowboys heading into this offseason. Perhaps Super Bowl teams on the skids, like the Broncos or Carolina Panthers, will make worthy landing spots instead.

C'mon, Marshall. LaDainian is trucking you when it comes to the sizzling draft takes. What do you have on Florida State running back Dalvin Cook?

"The kid is special," Faulk said. "He can go. The first time I saw him was his freshman year against Miami. Oh, my God, he shredded them. I was watching with Michael Irvin, and it was ugly."

Better, better.

Just in case you are still nursing a Super Bowl hangover, the groundhog saw his shadow last week, which means we're in for 13 solid weeks of draft season. It's a time of simultaneous prospect-hyping and nitpicking, "anonymous scouts" with vehement opinions and armchair draftniks tweeting 2 a.m. criticisms of quarterback footwork.

Faulk and Tomlinson may not be scouts or draft specialists, but both can tell what a great running back looks like just by checking their own driver's licenses. So when they talk about running backs, we listen.

And this is the time to talk about running backs. Quarterback prospects are usually the kings of draft season, and Deshaun Watson, Mitch Trubisky and other passers will get their due. But after years in the pass-happy wilderness, running backs have worked their way back to the top of the draft class—and the conversation.

We may be at the start of a running back renaissance. Just don't call this year's draft class historic. Faulk threw ice water on that take when I suggested it. "I wouldn't say it's historic," he said. "There's variety."

No one can argue with Faulk on the "variety" point.

There's Fournette, whose barreling style and sudden open-field acceleration are truly Elliott-like, if not Tomlinson-like. There's Cook: explosive, shifty and versatile, not unlike Faulk. There's McCaffrey: a speedy, elusive rusher-receiver-returner from a family with a three-time Super Bowl winner and an Olympian.

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There's also ample depth beyond the Big Three. Tennessee's Alvin Kamara, this year's Prospect Everyone is Saying That No One is Saying Enough About, is a Brian Westbrook-like speedster and backfield receiver. Texas' D'Onta Foreman is a 249-pound battering ram who can also hurdle defenders. Oklahoma's Joe Mixon has featured-back talent but a stomach-churning domestic violence incident on his rap sheet. The list goes on.

It's a tremendous class, the best since at least 2007 when Adrian Peterson and Marshawn Lynch entered the NFL. It's a shame we'll be spending months grinding at every flaw, obsessing over every 40 time and musing over whether running backs are even worth a first-round pick.

And there are flaws. Cook fumbles. Fournette and McCaffrey have durability issues. Fournette is an unpolished receiver. McCaffrey lacks between-the-tackles power. Foreman is a one-dimensional Mr. Inside, while Kamara is more of a Mr. Outside. Mixon's issues speak for themselves.

Nobody's perfect. Go back and watch the shredding on the game film, particularly from the Big Three. It's beautifully ugly.

Still, there's plenty to like about a great many backs.

Take San Diego State mighty mite Donnel Pumphrey. "I call my guy Donnel Pumphrey the 5'2" guy," Faulk said. "He can line up in the slot and catch the ball. He can play power. He can run the spread stuff."

Pumphrey is actually 5'8" and a scant 169 pounds. On tape, he looks like Darren Sproles. At the Senior Bowl weigh-in, he looked like a tweenage red belt at the neighborhood dojo. When I asked Faulk if Pumphrey could compensate for his size at the NFL level (Sproles, for the record, checks in at 190 pounds), Faulk was in no mood for prospect nitpicking, giving me a WTF is wrong with this guy look?

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"Did he compensate in college?" Faulk asked rhetorically...and sarcastically.

Why, yes. But it's a big leap from the Mountain West Conference to the NFL.

"It's a good question," Faulk said. "Draft him and find out."

Draft season is all about establishing a balance between mythmaking and overanalysis, hype and spin, facts that matter (Pumphrey's slight build really is a problem) and facts that don't (anyone who calls McCaffrey "sneaky fast" is probably focusing on the wrong attributes).

We'll spend weeks engaged in quantum scouting, measuring hand sizes, timing 40-yard dashes to the second decimal place and critiquing instances in early October when these backs failed to see a hole develop. Then we'll return to where we started: Cook can go, Fournette is Elliott-like, and watch out for McCaffrey in a pass-happy system.

After the fine-toothed combing, we will spend weeks speculating about how many of these running backs will be drafted in the first round. Plenty of teams have glaring needs at the position, so that is not the issue. But there's the so-called "analytics" argument that running backs are too replaceable and injury-prone to merit first-round picks. There's also a supply-and-demand factor at work; with so much depth at the position, perhaps the smart move is to go thrift-shopping in middle rounds.

As I have written in the past, the "replaceable running back" theory is based on out-of-date factors. Elliott's success may have put it to rest for a while.

As for bargain-hunting, Philadelphia Eagles executive vice president of football operations Howie Roseman used last season's excellent defensive tackle class as a cautionary tale for those who think a McCaffrey or Kamara will get lost in the shuffle until the middle rounds.

"Last year, we said, 'The defensive tackles in this draft are unreal,'" Roseman said during Senior Bowl practices two weeks ago. "'You're gonna be in the fourth or fifth round and there's gonna be a second- or third-round guy.' And what happened is they all went [early].

"So you have to be careful that you're not sitting there thinking, 'This is a great draft at Position X, and in the sixth round, we'll get a great guy.' Just stick with your board, and don't get cute."

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Come to think of it, the Eagles will be in the market for a difference-making running back, too. Imagine Cook taking some of the pressure off Carson Wentz...

Draft season can be a three-month tension headache for those who have a low pain threshold for endless, semi-informed speculation. The good news, though, is that the 2017 draft class is diving-bell deep at many positions. Not only are the running backs great, but there are also edge-rushers, tight ends and defensive backs galore, plus enough decent passers to keep things lively. We won't have to suffer through quarterback-versus-quarterback opinions until the crocuses bloom. Like Faulk says, there's variety.

There are also plenty of potential Pro Bowl running backs entering a league that has rediscovered what to do with them. It's an exciting time for mock-draft 'shippers to channel their inner LaDainian and dream.

Now if you'll excuse me, I am going to load up some Cook-Fournette-McCaffrey game tape and watch them shred.

Mike Tanier covers the NFL for Bleacher Report. Follow him on Twitter: @MikeTanier.