The Ringer

After Ezekiel Elliott ran for 1,631 yards and 15 touchdowns en route to earning first-team All-Pro honors as a rookie last year, one line of thinking suggests that there will be an early run on one of the most-hyped running back classes in recent memory. It’s a copycat league, as they say, and LSU’s Leonard Fournette, Florida State’s Dalvin Cook, and Stanford’s Christian McCaffrey would appear to be pretty tempting for a team hoping to re-create the magic that Dallas captured with 2016’s fourth overall pick. The problem with trying to emulate the Cowboys is that you have to be built like the Cowboys — and no one else is. Elliott’s value behind the best offensive line in football is an outlier for a position that, with the league’s boom in passing frequency and with the increased prevalence of the running-back-by-committee approach, has gradually been devalued over the past decade. The supply of depth and talent at the position, both in the league and in the pipeline through the draft, exceeds the demand, and that’s been apparent in free agency: Latavius Murray, Danny Woodhead, and Eddie Lacy each took mid- to low-level deals with limited guarantees, and Adrian Peterson, Jamaal Charles, and LeGarrette Blount all remain unsigned. There’s a chance this reluctance to invest too much at the position could carry over to the draft.