Reynoutria japonica, or Japanese knotweed, is categorized as an invasive species in North America. It’s now found in more than 40 states and more than half a dozen Canadian provinces, and it is almost impossible to get rid of once it takes root. If you cut it down, you might actually just help it spread out from the fragments that are left. If you burn it down, it will probably come back–and so it takes multiple burnings to actually remove it. High concentrations of very select poisons are often necessary to truly kill it, and even this takes time, and usually it requires injecting the toxins directly into the stem.
NATURE JAPANESE KNOTWEED Photo by NICOLAS MAETERLINCK/BELGA MAG/AFP via Getty Images
I’m reminded of knotweed every time I see the insistence that this year is the year to take a running back in the first round. This year will be different.
Well, let’s see if we can get at the stem of this problem–or at least burn it down with a bit of fire to make it possible to contain it a little bit. To be clear, first-round running backs are not making some bizarre resurgence, nor should a team hoping to make the playoffs prioritize acquiring a running back early in the draft.
Rushing to the Playoffs
From 2020-2025, there have been 40 divisional champions, and 29 different running backs have led these divisional champions in rushing. While seven of these men were drafted by some team in the first round, only four of them were actually drafted by the team that they were playing for at the time of their success. There are also more players drafted on the third day of the draft (5) as there are players whose teams acquired them on the first day. Likewise, free agent running backs outnumber first-round running backs by five to four as well. And a whopping 13 different players were drafted in the second or third round of the draft and then went on to be the leading rusher on that team as the team in question won a divisional championship.
It gets worse for first-round running backs if they are weighted by appearance, of course, because no first-round running back has repeated the feat in the last five years. Of the 40 appearances, only 10% were by running backs drafted by the team in question in the first round. That’s less than half as many as the 11 appearances by running backs acquired in free agency (it’s closer to a third). Nearly half (18/40) of the divisional championship rushers came from the second and third rounds, of course, with almost all of the rest (6) coming from the final rounds of the draft. The one outlier is Christian McCaffrey, who was actually a trade. The package given up to acquire him was worth only #42 in the draft, meaning that he was acquired for the value of a high second-round pick.
In the last five years, seven different men have led a team in rushing in back-to-back campaigns for a divisional championship. None of those men were acquired by that team in the first round.
Additionally, and contrary to what some might believe, Saquon Barkley being available as a free agent is not a bizarre one-off circumstance. Sony Michel and Leonard Fournette both left the team that drafted them in the first round and then led another team in rushing during that team’s push for a divisional championship. Fournette did it twice. Add in the way McCaffrey was traded, and it seems almost mundane for a team to acquire another team’s first-round running back as part of a push for the playoffs. Four different teams have done it in the last five years.
Playoff Rushing
Let’s go about this another way. How about conference championship games and the Super Bowl itself?
On the NFC side, the losing team in the NFC Conference Championship Game acquired their leading non-quarterback rusher in that game via a Day Three pick twice, via a Day Two pick pick twice, and via free agency a single time. In the interest of transparency, Jahmyr Gibbs did play in the NFCCG for the Detroit Lions, but he was outgained by a 2:1 margin by free agent David Montgomery. Also in the interest of transparency, one of those second-round picks was also Deebo Samuel, who is not even a running back.
On the AFC side, three of the losing teams saw their rushing attack led by Day Two picks and two were led by free agents, but again Clyde Edwards-Helaire was at least on the field for the Kansas City Chiefs in when they lost to the Cincinnati Bengals.
What about the ten conference champions? They are evenly split among free agents (4), seventh-rounders (2), players drafted in the second round (2), and then McCaffrey and Kenneth Gainwell (a fifth-rounder for the Philadelphia Eagles).
The Super Bowl tells the same story, although the entirety of the situation is probably summed up best by Super Bowl LV, wherein the team that drafted a running back in the first round (the Chiefs) lost to the team that picked up their running back in free agency (the Buccaneers).
So no, first-round running backs are not making a resurgence. If recent trends show anything, it’s that a small handful of teams position themselves to build good teams through the draft and then to take advantage of talent that hits free agency in an opportunistic fashion, picking up the running backs they need with either lower-value picks or in free agency, after mismanaged teams made the mistake of burning draft capital on luxury players.
As teams face the exceptionally deep running back class of 2025, they need to remember that successful teams these days seem to draft their leading rusher in Round 2 or Round 3, or else they simply pick up their rusher in free agency.