Top 10 running backs in the 2019 NFL Draft

#10 Myles Gaskin, Washington

Gaskin is a tall, lean runner with outstanding lateral movement and shiftiness

Another highly underrated running back during his career with the Huskies, Gaskin recorded 1250+ rushing yards in all four years and had double-digit touchdowns in each of them as well. He leaves Washington with a ridiculous 26 games of 100+ rushing yards.

Over the course of his illustrious career with the Huskies, I thought Gaskin improved his vision, patience, straight-line burst and willingness for contact, which he ended as the school’s all-time leader in rushing yards and touchdowns by a wide margin.

Gaskin is a tall, lean runner with outstanding lateral movement and shiftiness. He can make people miss in tight spaces and is constantly fighting and twisting for extra yardage through the grasps of defenders.

He probably had the best spin move by any running back in the country these last few years. His star-and-stop quickness is off the charts, as he completely freezes pursuing defenders with his stutter-steps and accelerates quickly out of that to kill any angles they had on him.

Defenders just seem to slip off this guy because he manages to never present more than half his body. On zone plays he keeps his peripheral vision on the back-side and often times gets the corner for good yardage, as he uses the flow of the defenders against them,

The four-year contributor never really was a household name in college football, but to me he always was one of the most effective runners, who consistently made that unaccounted defender miss.

I think he really improved his physicality throughout his collegiate career with a big jump as a junior. Gaskin has the balance to sustain hits and torque his body in different directions to keep going forward.

He was a touchdown machine once his team moved inside the ten, scoring a total of 62 touchdowns, and he was even lined up as the Wildcat quarterback at times when they were on the goal-line. The Huskies started using Gaskin more on those swing screens and quick touches in the passing game as well.

Gaskin lost a bunch of snaps last year to a very talented Salvon Ahmed, who brought something different to the table and put up almost 800 scrimmage yards himself. Gaskin had his lowest yards per attempt at 4.9 and dropped a little on my board with some other guys emerging.

While he does force a ton of missed tackles by avoiding straight hits, he doesn’t have the pure power to run through defenders head-on. Gaskin also runs himself into trouble at times when the play-side closes down and he tries to make people miss in the backfield or reverse field.

In two games in 2017, Gaskin caught 11 combined passes for almost 200 yards, but he never went for more than five catches or 50 yards in any other game during his career and if you take those two outlier games away he had just 272 receiving yards as a four-year starter.

I also saw him drop a couple of easy passes on screens and check-down routes, which might not have been perfectly on targeted but definitely catchable.

I had this kid as a top-ten back in each of the last three years when I looked at the competition in college, but he moved down the board a little.

With that being said, I think he is still one of the most effective zone-runners in this class and brings a very unique running style with him. I’m not sure if he is a necessarily a workhorse at the next level, but he definitely has a place in this league.

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