The Next Bucky Irving? Finding Another Breakout Among Later-Round NFL Rookie RBs ...Middle East

Running back Bucky Irving proved to be a late-round rookie gem in the NFL last year – similar to Isiah Pacheco two years earlier. Who’s next? We’re looking to Day 3 selections from the 2025 draft for the next potential breakout among ball carriers.

Tampa Bay Buccaneers running back Bucky Irving became a household name in the NFL last season.

Irving, the No. 125 overall pick from Oregon in the 2024 draft, was the only rookie to eclipse 1,000 rushing yards, led first-year players with eight rushing touchdowns and helped the Buccaneers advance to the playoffs. He also finished with the 10th-most rushing yards among all running backs (1,122 yards) and the 10th-most scrimmage yards (1,514 yards) among offensive players.

That type of production from a player selected on the third and final day of the draft would have any team salivating, and it’s why taking a shot on a late-round prospect is almost a sound strategy. Similar to Irving in 2024, Isiah Pacheco was a rookie revelation during the Kansas City Chiefs’ 2022 Super Bowl season.

Irving was among top contenders when Opta Analyst sought the “next Isiah Pacheco” last offseason, although New York Giants’ Tyrone Tracy earned the final selection. It wasn’t far off, though, because Tracy finished second behind Irving in rookie rushing yards.

We’ll attempt to find the next diamond in the rough from the 2025 running back class given the five rules laid out last year.

Rule 1: Day 3 Draft Pick

It would be disingenuous to look anywhere other than Day 3 of the draft for the next Irving, especially since five of the top-10 rookie rushing yard totals since 2022 were Day 3 picks (Irving; Tyler Allgeier, 2022 Atlanta Falcons; Dameon Pierce, 2022 Houston Texans; Tracy; and Pacheco).

Now, there’s a spectrum of expectations for a Day 3 running back. Pacheco, a seventh-round pick from Rutgers, was a bit more of an unknown than Irving, who the Bucs selected in the fourth round. Considering how late in the draft they were taken, none of the Day 3 rookie running back will likely begin the season as a Week 1 starter.

Following are the players we will consider in this exercise. It’s a gaudy list of 19, which is 76% of the drafted running backs this year. Most of these players won’t make it past this initial rule, though.

Rule 2: Non-Elite College Counting Stats

Irving had a solid collegiate career with consecutive seasons of at least 1,300 total scrimmage yards as well as 21 total touchdowns over the 2022 and ’23 campaigns. However, those numbers paled in comparison to the 2024 numbers for some of the running backs selected on Day 3 of the 2025 draft, such as Skattebo (2,316 yards and 24 touchdowns from scrimmage at Arizona State), Taj Brooks (1,704 yards and 18 TDs at Texas Tech) and Dylan Sampson (1,634 yards and 22 TDs at Tennessee).

Similarly to Irving and Pacheco (672 yards and five TDs in his final 2021 season at Rutgers), we’ll want to look at Day 3 running backs who finished with fewer than 1,500 scrimmage yards and/or 15 total touchdowns.

That trims the list down significantly to just nine running backs:

Rule 3: Strong Vision and Trustworthy Hands

Irving was known as a powerful runner in college who also could help as a pass catcher. Those skills translated well in the NFL last year, as he led all rookie running backs with 47 receptions and 392 receiving yards.

For this rule, we will look at a running back’s yards per carry per run disruption as well as his catch rating.

This creates a little bit of a split between the nine remaining players. They weren’t elite at both in their final college season, although some players were solid at one or the other.

Therefore, it makes the most sense to look right in the middle of the group for those who could fit the bill for an Irving-type player. That means Marks, Etienne and Monangai would be the top contenders.

It’s worth keeping Blue and Martinez under consideration, though, considering their YPC-RD ranked second and third, respectively, among 2024 FBS running backs with 75+ carries, including ahead of Ashton Jeanty, the first selection at the position, taken by the Las Vegas Raiders at No. 6 in the first round.

Rule 4: Top-End Athleticism

Last year, we looked at NFL.com’s Next Gen stats for the top running backs with a better athleticism score than production score.

Pacheco was a great barometer for this rule, given his athleticism score was 25 points higher and he turned into a star at the next level. Tracy’s score difference was 27, which also foreshadowed his rise. Irving had a better production score by 10 points, but that doesn’t make his breakout any less impressive.

Rather than just look at one athleticism stat, we’ll look at two here: Next Gen and the Relative Athleticism Score (RAS). Developed by Kent Lee Platte, RAS takes a player’s NFL Combine measurables like height, weight, wingspan, hand size, athleticism and drill results to build a number from 0 to the highest score, 10.

Here’s how our new list of five potential running back sleepers fared:

This more or less knocks out Monangai, as his RAS is below average and his athleticism wasn’t much better than his production in college. Martinez has an impressive RAS score, but he was more productive than athletic in college. However, that doesn’t mean he can’t break out in the NFL.

Marks, Etienne and Blue have the best chances of being highly productive among the late-round running backs.

But there’s one more rule to analyze before we make a prediction.

Rule 5: Window to Play

While stats are important, a player’s situation might matter the most when it comes to breakout potential.

Irving, Tracy and Pacheco each had minimal competition to see significant snaps in his rookie season. All three had just one player ahead of him on the depth chart: Rachaad White for Irving, Devin Singletary for Tracy, and Clyde Edwards-Helaire for Pacheco. It didn’t take long for all three to leapfrog those players.

This should apply to the 2025 class, too.

It’s another reason why Martinez has a slim chance of being a productive rookie. He has little path to significant playing time in Seattle with Kenneth Walker and Zach Charbonnet ahead of him. Both have been terrific starters for the Seahawk, so it would likely take a trade or injury to one or both for Martinez to see the field more.

Similarly, Etienne will have a tough time getting snaps in Carolina. While Jonathan Brooks is already out for the season as he rehabs another ACL injury, Chuba Hubbard just got a new contract after his first 1,000-yard season. The Panthers also signed Rico Dowdle in free agency.

That leaves Marks and Blue as the running backs to watch from the Day 3 picks.

Marks is behind Joe Mixon, who’s had injury issues in his career, so a boatload of snaps is possible on a Houston Texans team that just added former Sean McVay assistant Nick Caley as its offensive coordinator. Mixon missed three games last season, but still rushed for more than 1,000 yards, while his backups combined for 593 yards on 121 carries. Marks rushed for 1,133 yards in his only season at USC last year after never hitting 600 yards in any of his four previous seasons at Mississippi State.

Blue is intriguing as well given the Dallas Cowboys’ rushing success over the past several years and because he was a great dual-threat back at Texas. While the offensive line isn’t as good as it once was and Brian Schottenheimer is set to call offensive plays for the Cowboys, their running back depth chart is weak. The veterans are Javonte Williams, Miles Sanders and Deuce Vaughn, and Blue also would contend with 2025 seventh-round draft pick Phil Mafah.

While it’s no guarantee Marks or Blue will succeed in 2025 similarly to Brooks or Pacheco, this breakdown explains why they could have breakout seasons as NFL rookie running backs.

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The Next Bucky Irving? Finding Another Breakout Among Later-Round NFL Rookie RBs Opta Analyst.

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