So give this guy a crease in an outside zone play and he looks great. But he never makes people miss on his own. He needs good blocking. I just don't see the love for this guy.
This couldn't be more wrong. Google is free man. It's fine to not like him, but at least fact check yourself before saying things that are completely baseless. 66 missed tackles forced on 240 rushes; a rate of 27.5%. PFF also has him in the 94th percentile for YAC per attempt. He both makes people miss, and drags them for more yards, than just about any RB in this class. He's basically behind Jeanty, and alongside Skattebo, with regards to elusiveness. He also did this facing stacked boxes on 50% of all his touches. The next highest RB in this class was at 39%.
You wanna hate on him; jump on the "he's slow" bandwagon. At least there's some actual data to make that argument.
The slow stuff is nonsense. His 40 time is good for a guy his size, but also not a reflection of his speed. His game speeds are crazy fast. He has a ton of explosive runs.
This guy is going to thrive in Pittsburgh. I am not saying he is going to be incredible but he will get volume and is good enough to put up solid numbers.
Agreed. Easily one of the safest late 1st round rookie picks ever.
I guess it depends on your expectations but his poor draft capital does not allow me to share this point of view.
And fwiw I like him and was in on him early in redrafts before the NFL draft. I just see the low level of draft commitment as making him a long term dynasty asset as risky.
3rd round is pretty good draft capital for a RB
It's back end of round 3, let's not pretend that's less then ideal and it's a pretty far cry away from being safe.
Would have been nice if I had heard they thought about moving up. Instead I discovered they actually tried to forego the pick and move back into round 4.
The Steelers have three 3 thirds next year to say nothing of the two 4's and 5's. This again is why he's not what I consider a safe investment. The commitment to him is low and the ability to bring in comp is high.
To be fair to Meno (and these numbers will differ a bit based on what thresholds you use), in general fantasy success rates for 3rd round RBs are about 75% of the success rates for 2nd round RBs for a single season; they are about 50% of round 2 RBs for multiple seasons. The charting I use has 2nd round RB
single season top 12 chance at 71% and 3rd round at 50%. I have
multiple seasons as a top 12 back for 2nd round backs at 42%, while 3rd round drops to 22%. Trying to interpret that data leans into what I think Meno is getting at; multiple seasons of top 12 production start to drop with lower draft capital as they are simply more easily replaced/moved on from.
Kaleb aside; I'm still in the boat that as much as the above numbers are statistical trends for a reason, if there was a year to think some of guys will go against this trend it's this one. The class was incredibly talented and deep IMO. So while the odds are still certainly against a 3rd round RB having multiple top 12 seasons, the numbers tell us ~2 out of every 10 still do it and I think, in general, this class will provide us with more of these aberrations who hit the long odds. I'm making this same gamble with guys like Skattebo, Blue, Neal, and Brooks. And I think when we look at their profiles and data like YAC, MTF, YPRR, etc. and compare these numbers against rookie RB classes from the past 5+ years; the 2025 backs are generally comparable to previous rookies drafted a round+ higher than this year's guys were.
I'm still trying to find the balance between paragraph 1 and paragraph 2; but I'm continually leaning on the gamble of #2. Playing dynasty in a 3 year window, if Kaleb gives me an RB1 season and two RB2 seasons for a late 1st round pick, I still think I can consider that a win and not worry much about what happens after that. Anything more would just be "found money". And for Kaleb specifically, I think the Steelers have enough needs on that team that if Kaleb is doing well, I can see them not spending many/any early round picks on RB for the next few years. Not to mention, I think it's highly unlikely we have another RB class this deep for the next couple years (but who really knows on this front). I can say I'm not at all impressed with the 2026 class outside Love and Singleton. And those guys might be 1st round picks with the classes overall weakness. I'd bet heavily they aren't falling to the 3rd round outside injury or off field issues.
Thanks for the detailed reply but this convo has gone a bit sideways from my comment I don't view him safe.
I had Kaleb ranked as my 8th overall player in rookie drafts, chose him at 9, so I'm certainly not dismissing his chances but I was just responding to the safe comment. I was pretty high on him before the draft and had 9 redraft leagues before the NFL draft and chose him in 6 of the 9 leagues. I felt that his two best possible landing spots were the Bears or Steelers so there are certainly things to be hopeful about with him and him having a nice or big rookie season will be a boon to me.
But with regards to "safe".
I just don't view a player chosen in the 80's, when the team tried to move back off the pick and had reasons to believe it would have cost them Johnson moving back into round 4, as a safe investment. It's more taking a calculated swing IMO. For me safe is a player I view as talented who the team has a level of commitment towards with either draft capital and/or moving up to get if the player fell. Again in the Steelers case they were willing to move back.
My only thing to add on quality of the RB class pushing some players down is if we are making that contention should player like Judkins and Henderson be held in higher regard then RB's who were chosen as high as them? I don't view them that way myself, but they already got major bumps for going in a premium zone.
In terms of next years class I do see a lot of solid RB prospects with Love looking elite. But in the end how worried I would be on Kaleb surviving the draft has more to do with how he plays. I'm just making the point they have a boatload of draft capital next year and that if he's merely ok they got a ton of ammo to bring in meaningful comp which again puts some dents in his "safe" label.
As a far more minor issue is we don't yet really have a firm grasp on how good he can be if he's not in the outside zone scheme and what happens if that changes? Arthur Smith has head coaching ambitions and was reportedly offered the NC head coaching job. Just saying with a decent year there is a chance that the perfect system for Kaleb has legit danger or changing.
This guy could be the next Demarco Murry/Larry Johnson or just a RBBC/handcuff type of guy and neither outcome would be even midly surprising. The range is large. Again in summary this is why to me he's more of what I view as a homerun shot then "safe".