Ronald Jones is an interesting RB prospect. As people have pointed out he is a bit tall for RB but not very heavy. So his frame is something that perhaps he will want to add weight and armor up a bit by adding some muscle mass, which will help him break tackles and gain yards after contact, something his other gifts as a runner were less necessary at the college level. I do expect that he will do so and the process of this has likely already begun.
Based on the 4 games of Jones that I have charted for positive traits, his best trait is his vision and spatial awareness to read the defense and always be one step ahead of their reactions. I think Chaka made a very good observation that Jones is more of a glider than a slasher, He is running under control and has very good footwork to time his steps with the blocking and the flow of the defense. He doesn't waste momentum with unnecessary steps. He runs under control and knows how and when to shift gears to give defenders poor angles. He doesn't make sudden juke moves often, which is something that I love in RB who do, in the early process of watching him this kind of bothered me, as I am looking for RB who do that, who can just make defenders look foolish with great cuts and elusiveness. Over time though I realized that he was running under control so well, that he did not often need this Houdini like move to make the first tackler miss.
After vision his next best trait from the 4 games I charted was his pad level. Ronald Jones runs with good forward lean and he runs under control, providing a small target for defenders to hit. He gains yardage after contact most of the time by forcing a glancing blow from the defender that allows him to still fall forward and stretch for extra yards. He really doesn't have very good power, but he does have good pad level and technique to gain yards after contact.
After vision and pad level his next two best traits are his burst and his footwork. Ronald Jones has this extra gear where he can get to top speed very suddenly and gain chunk yards because of this very good ability to accelerate to top speed. He reminds me a lot of Melvin Gordon in this aspect of his running style/ability. He can just cover a lot of space quickly and this puts stress on the defense because he was get behind or outside angles with burst that they are not quick enough to react to. His footwork is excellent, he is able to pick his way through traffic and maintain good control and balance his footwork. This is also related to what I was talking about before, with not seeing many extreme jump cuts, he can change direction very smoothly without wasted motion, even when using his great burst and acceleration because of his footwork.
Obviously because of the above combination of abilities Jones also has good balance. While he isn't powerful, defenders who do not wrap up may find that Jones has slipped off the hit and is still going.
I don't really pay attention to the combine data in regards to Jones. I believe he had an injury that hurt his performance on those drills. I can see the speed he has from watching him, and the excellent burst and acceleration. So I don't really care what those numbers say. Jones is pretty fast.
The questions about him as a receiver is something I have discussed quite a bit in
this thread. What I see is Jones running some pretty good routes. He is wide open several times but Sam Darnold just fails to see him. On one play in particular he is running downfield with no defenders near him about 10 yards down the left sideline. If Darnold would just lead him on this play, Jones is going to gain 15 to 20 yards easily, maybe take it to the house, who knows. But instead Sam throws to his WR over the middle of the field and is picked off for an interception. Jones was so wide open he is putting his hand up begging for the ball.
I like the way Jones runs routes. I think he should have been used as a receiver more in college, but you have a QB who doesn't see him. Another reason why Jones didn't catch that many passes in college is because he is such an excellent pass blocker. I know he doesn't have a lot of weight on his bones, but he knows how to get low and get leverage. His blocking technique is very good. Similar to the pad level, Jones wins these assignments with the right leverage and being in the right position to make the block. His vision helps here as well as he reads the rushing defenders and pretty consistently figures out the biggest pass rush threat and solves that problem. When Jones was going out on pass routes, the USC pass protection would break down a lot. He was that good of a blocker that his presence was missed when they didn't have him blocking.
So I expect that skillset to carry over to the NFL level and Jones will not be slowed down for playing time because he needs to work on his blocking. His technique in pass protection is already very good.
I expect the Bucs to be in either 3 WR or 2 TE 2 WR formations most of the time on offense. I think Jones is a nice fit into these alignments, for one because of his ability as a blocker. Two his vision to exploit creases in a lighter box, and 3 the ability to burst and gain yardage outside the tackles if the Bucs find a mismatch from their 2 TE sets to spring him there.
I have a concern that Winston is much like Darnold, always looking to push the ball downfield instead of taking the check down, so this may limit some of Jones opportunity as a receiver. I think Jones is very capable of being used as a receiver frequently though, just not sure if he will be or not in this offense.
The Bucs have a lot of very good skill players at WR and TE to keep defenses honest. I can see Jones facing some light boxes at times because of how good the receivers are getting extra attention from the defense. The Bucs defense is still a work in progress. They have been terrible in coverage and part of that is because of the teams lack of pass rush as well. They just let other teams throw all day on them, they can't seem to stop it, so why not? And of course this forces their offense to throw the ball a lot trying to keep up. I am not really seeing much reason to expect improvement there and so the pass to run ratio for the Bucs will remain pretty high until this does change (if then).
Peyton Barber is a player who does not concern me much although I admit I haven't spent much time learning about Barber. He just never really interested me. I don't see what he is really good at. I can get pretty sick about watching some longshot RB at times just because I enjoy doing that. Barber is a player I didn't really feel like was worth the time. Maybe I am wrong about this as I only watched briefly some highlights of him where I was unimpressed and didn't look into him further after that.
For those talking about Barber putting up numbers at the end of last season,. He basically had one very good game against the Packers 24% of his total rushing yards for the year was in this game. He had a decent game against the Saints in the last week of the season, otherwise he was barely putting up 60 combined yards, which is something any RB in the NFL could likely do with that amount of opportunity.
Sims and Rodgers concern me more mixing in as receivers (limiting Jones opportunity there) than Barber does as a runner.
So I see Jones playing a lot of snaps and getting the majority of the RB opportunities because Jones can block, no need to take him off the field. Jones fits the personnel packages that I expect Tampa Bay to be running most of the time better than I think the other RB do. Tampa Bay has shown a willingness or even a preference for a feature RB to get most of the work as evidenced with Doug Martins 288 rushing attempts and 44 targets in 2015. The RBBC recently is more out of necessity than preference. They want a feature RB and I think this is why the selected Jones because they think he will fit in well with what the rest of their offense is trying to do.
Buccaneers offense the last 3 seasons:
2017 1035 plays 605pa 390ra
2016 1066 plays 578pa 453ra
2015 1017 plays 535pa 455ra (Doug Martin 288ra 44 targets. Winstons rookie year)
3 year average 1039 plays 573pa 433ra (this leaves 33 plays unaccounted for.
As we can see the pass attempts for Winston have gone up as he has gained more experience. The 33 left over plays I will assume are sacks.
I think Jones could earn 65% of the teams rushing attempts even as a rookie, but as he is a rookie, I will go with 60% instead. That would be 260 rushing attempts. As the lead RB who will be spelled in some passing situations for Sims or Rodgers I will guess Jones get 45 targets from Winstron, similar to what Martin got in 2015 even though Sims had 70 targets as well that season (more than Martins 44). 260 rushing attempts is kind of high for a rookie. The conservative side of me wants to say that will be more like 240.
Assuming an average catch rate for a RB of 73% this would be 33 receptions.
Just using league averages for ypc and ypr Ronald Jones 240 rushing attempts 1008 yards 33 receptions 246 yards 6 TD which is 161 points in standard (RB 15 using the average of the last 3 seasons) 194 points in PPR (RB 17 using the average of the last 3 seasons) or solid but not spectacular numbers that should have Jones performing as a RB two over the course of the season with some big games and some dud games along the way.
As a dynasty asset I have ranked Ronald Jones as a tier one RB prospect, which means I think he has the upside to finish as a top 12 RB within the next 3 seasons. The rookie season is the least likely of those seasons for it to happen based on historical evidence of the rookie year being the lowest VBD on average for all RB first 6 seasons in the league. How I think he will do that after this season is due to more volume in terms of rushing attempts and receptions in 2019 or 2020.
I think Jones is less risk of busting than Rashaad Penny or Nick Chubb although I do consider these 3 players all very close in my view. In my charting of the RB Jones was the closest to Guice in average overall score per game. So me placing him ahead of Penny and Chubb is largely based off of that as well.
I don't really see the Jamal Charles comparison, perhaps some body type and running style similarities? Jones is fast but he is not that fast (like Charles was). His play style reminds me more of Melvin Gordon, although with a bit less power.
