#2 Saquon Barkley may already be the best running back in football
We are definitely not the ones to overhype guys after their first season in the pros. Especially with running backs, we tend to give them a couple of years to see how the offensive scheme and the players around them make that player look before really going all-in on them.
No matter how impressed with Todd Gurley, Ezekiel Elliott and then Alvin Kamara we were, we put up all those guys way lower on our NFL Top 100 lists for each year than the official countdown had them after just one season.
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We're not sure if we can hold back on this one. Saquon Barkley truly was a generational talent and the best RB prospect we have ever scouted, since we didn’t grind tape yet back when Reggie Bush came out in 2006.
Watching Barkley play for Penn State, he stood out from when we first saw him shred an Ohio State defence that was loaded with NFL talent as a freshman all the way until his last game in college, when he had pretty much secured a top ten selection and had to be pulled from a meaningless bowl game by own coach.
He was remarkable before coming into the pros and earned our number one prospect ranking, but he didn’t simply back that up with an incredible rookie season that featured 2028 scrimmage yards and a ridiculous highlight reel, yet instead already put himself into the conversation for the top guy at the position with what he put together.
First people blamed the Giants’ lacklustre offensive line, then they finally started coming around on the fact that Eli Manning is not a quality starting NFL quarterback anymore and later on it was Odell Beckham Jr. being banged up and missing some time at the end which was the reason for New York’s downfall.
All those things (especially the first two) were true and Saquon still made ridiculous plays on a weekly basis. He should ask basketball Hall of Fame member Dominique Wilkins if he can use the nickname “Human Highlight Reel” because he seemingly was on the top ten plays week after week.
Barkley can run power and zone, contributes in the passing game catching the ball and protecting the passer and he makes the first defenders miss every single time. Nobody makes more out of nothing and there are things he does we don’t see from anybody else, plus his humility and work ethic are second to none.
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