Among players the New York Giants could select in the first round of the 2017 NFL Draft, there might not be one to draw a bigger range of emotions than Stanford running back Christian McCaffrey.
He’s been brought up as a potential pick at No. 23 overall multiple times on this site, although he’s no longer among the seven most mocked players to the team among mainstream mock drafts.
Blowback for the selection is understandable. Running back isn’t the biggest need for the Giants and the thought is overall running backs are no longer worth a first-round pick. While I’m typically in that camp and have reservations about the value of a player like Leonard Fournette, writing off McCaffrey simply because he’s a running back is doing a disservice to his game. He’s much more than that. While some worry about his ability to carry a full workload, I wonder why you’d ever want to take him off the field.
McCaffrey’s size and speed should be nothing to be concerned about. His 4.48 40-yard dash at 202 pounds at the NFL Combine gives a Speed Score of 100.3, ninth-best in this class. Add in his other measurables and McCaffrey comes out with the fourth-best SPARQ for backs in this class and in the 70th percentile for NFL players at his position.
The video above should help show what McCaffrey can bring to the NFL and quell some concerns about what he can’t.
A thanks to Draft Breakdown, an invaluable service from which all the clips above were taken.