2023 NFL Breakouts: Second and third-year offensive players ready to explode ft. Desmond Ridder, George Pickens and more

#2, Rachaad White, Tampa Bay Buccaneers (RB)

Rachaad White could have a huge 2023 NFL season

It was a steep climb for Rachaad White to go from complete unknown to the 91st selection of the 2022 NFL draft in a couple of years. A zero-star recruit two years prior, who spent two years at community college before slowing coming along with Arizona State, he put up just over 1,000 yards rushing and caught 43 passes for another 456 yards, with 16 total touchdowns as a redshirt senior.

Coming to Tampa Bay, he became part of the least efficient rushing attacks in the NFL, as the Bucs averaged 0.3 yards less per carry (3.4) than any other team in the league. Yet, a certain offensive coordinator would make you believe the numbers weren’t that far off compared to years prior and the team continuously talked about how they needed to continue running the ball.

Altogether, they turned a minuscule 19.5% of carries into first downs (79 across 405 attempts), which also ranked dead last. White himself turned 129 carries into 481 yards (3.73 yards per), along with catching 50 of 58 targets for another 290 yards, with three combined touchdowns.

He also converted 11 touches into 77 yards in their Wild Card playoff game against the Cowboys (two uncatchable targets). He didn’t receive double-digit opportunities until week nine and then started the final eight games, across which he touched the rock 121 times.

For a 210-pound back, White has impressively light feet and looks like he’s almost gliding out there on the field. Whether it’s pivoting off the outside foot as he takes the counter handoff from shotgun, or pointing to the toe towards the sideline when he realizes he has to bounce runs, you don’t typically see guys his size make those directional changes look as effortless.

Throughout his debut campaign, White definitely improved his pacing as a runner, as you see him tightly hug blockers and lean the wrong way on purpose. On duo-blocking, he stays square behind his linemen with the ability to hesitate and cut down his stride length in order to allow those concepts to develop. But how he also tilts his body in order to get first-level defenders peaking that way, whilst the linebacker is being secured, and he creates a lane for himself.

Yet on GT power or counter, when there’s an opportunity slice through the crease between the two pullers, he will purposefully aim vertically at the inside shoulder of the wrap-around to get the backer pinned there and then hit that lane he originally intended to take.

91 of his 129 total rushing attempts last season were gap schemes, but 41 of that mark went outside the tackle/tight-end – so plenty of toss plays, where he has enough burst to win the corner. However, a significantly larger rate of those (44.2 vs. 36.5%) came from shotgun compared to Leonard Fournette, coming on as a third-down back over the first half of the year.

White packs a nice jump cut to navigate around defenders crashing across the face of his blockers and having to quickly avoid the penetration. Then, he does a great job of contorting his body and reducing the surface area as defenders try to hit him from the side. That’s how he averaged 2.33 yards after contact and forced 14 missed tackles as a runner, according to PFF.

More impressively, while he only had an average depth of target of -0.3 yards, White still earned a passer rating of 99.0 when targeted, dropping just two passes and forcing ten additional missed tackles across 52 catchable targets – not a single one of those came 10+ yards down the field.

He has a great feel for releasing through the line of scrimmage and not getting hung up in traffic, plus while he’s not like a dynamic separator on angle or option routes, he doesn’t lose much time in his transitions, in order to quickly present himself as a target.

White consistently extends for the ball, even as he turns back towards the quarterback on hooks for example and shows great awareness for defenders converging on him, without actually being able to really see them.

If Brady put the ball onto his chest on swing routes before he could really turn back for it, the rookie back still typically didn’t double-catch, because his hands are soft enough to slow down the pace of the pass. However, it’s how fluidly he turns up the field all the time and puts himself in position to dictate one-on-one tackling situations that really stood out to me.

He was really effective at making flat defenders miss once he secured the catch, with some maneuvers that are hard to counter for those opponents, as he squares them up and cuts or spins off the “wrong” foot at times. Plus, then he gets to a secondary move instinctively and can utilize that spatial and bodily awareness to not allow guys to get a straight shot at him.

In terms of pass protection, he quickly erases that space towards mugged-up linebackers and at least rides them off track when they come, to not affect his quarterback. Plus, he lands some solid chips before he releases into the flats or hooks up over the middle, allowing his tackles to square up their rushers.

With that being said, White in general plays fairly slow, and I would like to see him step on the gas after setting up blockers a little more. He was tied for 23rd last season – smack-dead down the middle – in time spent behind the line of scrimmage (2.77 seconds) among the 48 running backs listed by Next Gen Stats, with 90+ rush attempts.

However, looking at the guys that are “slower” with crossing the line, most of them operated in outside zone-heavy schemes, where they’re supposed to string plays out and create lateral flow. Whereas there was a lot of duo runs at Tampa, where the RB needs to manipulate one linebacker typically, along with tosses and power concepts, which can be looked at as B-/C-gap iso runs.

That’s kind of a representation of why I was significantly lower on him than where he was ultimately drafted, looking at that phase of runs where the decision is made but he doesn’t purposefully accelerate into imminent contact.

What has me encouraged in that regard is that he didn’t try to work around or spin off defenders for being as big as he is, but he needs to become better at setting the tone around the line of scrimmage, since we did see some strong finishes to his runs as a rookie.

At the same time, he’s a little too fast towards the point of attack at times and has to tip-toe around pressure points as pullers get crashed into and there’s little space to navigate. Along with that, he lacks real break-away speed and did fumble three times as a rookie – all lost.

Along with this typically not being my personal favorite profile for a runner, we have yet if he can provide more of a downfield element as a receiver, if the coaching staff gives him those types of chances in year two.

Yet, even though White certainly benefitted from a small pool of running backs I could choose from, because they were either already pretty established commodities or don’t have a clear path for lead duties, I did want to outline him here. He has the opportunity to earn a heavy workload with Leonard Fournette out and no significant additions, and he certainly looked better than I anticipated, taking the suboptimal circumstances into account.

Going from Tom Brady to Baker Mayfield or Kyle Trask handing the ball to him, that’s a significant downgrade, but the Bucs still have a very strong trio of receivers, that allow them to spread defenses out and create lighter boxes.

With the switch at offensive coordinator from Byron Leftwich to Dave Canales, I expect them to go from static motions to a lot more players moving at the snap, along with expanding the field from condensed formations, where they could create some opportunities for rubs and wheel routes for the second-year RB.