I offer for your consideration Blake Watson, of the Memphis Tigers.
Excellent but undersized WR in high school who switched to RB in college on account of shortness (5'9"), has fantastic hands and ran a 4.3 40 at the Memphis Pro Day (which the Packers attended). 1151 yards and 14 TDs rushing last season, and 463 yards receiving and 3 TDs. He averaged 5.9 yards per carry, with 2 fumbles on 177 carries.
Over the last 2 seasons, he's been targeted 105 times coming out of the backfield, and has four drops -
four out of 105 targets. He also tore off 557 yards after the catch the last two years. He's not just a dump-off safety valve, he is a legitimate route-runner. And he plays excellent in traffic; finds his opening, high-points the ball, and comes away with the contested balls. His ball-awareness, agrresiveness, and self-confidence let him play inches taller than his 5'9".
Of his 1151 rushing yards, 719 of them came after contact. He's not a big man, or particularly physically strong, but at the college level he's very difficult to tackle - 50 broken tackles in 2023. He's slippery and elusive; has tremendous initial burst and accelerates to top speed in a single stride. Doesn't lose any speed coming out of a lateral step and heading downfield. Misjudge your angle by even a fraction, and you won't get another shot at him because all you can see of him is his name on the back of his jersey.
Has tremendous vision and football intelligence; he spots his hole while it's still developing and by the time it opens he's at top speed. He rockets through the crease like he was fired out of a rifle. He also averaged 26.4 yards on kickoff returns in his junior year.
Like I say, he's not the incredible hulk - 5'9" and 189 pounds - so he'll never be an every-down 30-carry workhorse, or even 3rd down back because of his size. He's not the guy you want as the last resort to stop a blitzing 250-pound linebacker, but he's a perfect mid- to later-round change of pace RB. At the NFL level, he won't bust through as many tackles as he did in college, because the players are much stronger and practice far better technique. And that does take away a siginificant part of his game. I've watched a lot of film on him, and to be honest, a lot of those busted tackles have a lot do with just the level of competition.
But aside from that, once he gets into space, he's a legitimate threat to go home every time he touches the ball. He's probably the most exciting RB in the open field I've seen all year; he seems gifted at "selling" a move and setting up a defender, and then a split seond later he's just.... someplace else. Excellent instinctive runner. Of course it should be noted that this is at the college level - he won't outrun as many defensive backs in the NFL, or muscle his way past them. His size and lean frame will make it more difficult for him to transition his strengths to the NFL level than a lot of other running backs.
And at the NFL level, he won't find as much open space once he gets loose in the secondary - NFL defenses will be much less likely to give him so much running room unless Lafleur can find ways to scheme them out of position; but I suspect Lafleur will have some ideas to make his skillset successful. He seems like the kind of player that Green Bay can afford to look at now that we have Jacobs - a Day Two feature back is no longer as high of a priority as it might have been; we can go Day Three and consider an RB like Watson.
And a smart and very unselifsh player as well - on the final play of the East-West Shrine Game last month, he took a handoff, blew through the line of scrimmage, made two nen miss in the secondary, and then (with nothing but daylight in front of him) took a knee at the 12 instead of running it in for an easy touchdown. To run out the clock. He had more yards receiving than rushing that day too.
If he's still there in the 4th or possibly even the 3rd, I would be very excited if we snatched him up. Just watch some of these runs...
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Rating: 79.3 Rank: #16 Forty: 4.39 <p>Blake Watson has carved a niche as a multi-faceted offensive threat, capable of impacting the game on the ground and through the air. His transition...
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