2025 RB Speed Scores

2025 is a great year to need a running back. This year’s class is the deepest since 2018, a year when eight running backs went in the first three rounds. That’s a number this year’s class could match.

2018’s class included a little someone named Saquon Barkley, who destroyed the combine to the point where the Giants could hardly help but take him second overall. Barkley ran a 4.4 40 at 233 pounds, good for a Speed Score of 124.3 – the fifth-best number since electronic timing started in 1999. There’s no Barkley in this year’s class – something that could be said about basically every class ever – but teams are spoiled for choice. Four of the five running backs projected in the top 70 who ran at the combine put up Speed Scores over 100, with a pair of them topping 105 – it’s difficult to put a foot wrong drafting any of them. In fact, the biggest argument against taking the big names this year might be this year’s exceptional depth, with great athletic testing numbers coming from backs projected all over the draft order. It’s a Lake Wobegon class, where nearly all the running backs are above average.

Created by Bill Barnwell and introduced in Pro Football Prospectus and on ESPN Insider back in 2008, Speed Score has been one of our metrics for evaluating running back prospects for nearly two decades. It’s built on the simple idea that smaller backs tend to run faster than larger backs, so we should be more impressed by a 4.5s 40-yard dash from a 220-pound back than the same clock reading from a 170-pound back. As such, Speed Score incorporates a back’s official time in the 40-yard dash with his weight to produce a measure of his speed given his size using this formula:

(Weight * 200)/(40 time^4)

The average running back who makes it to the NFL will have a Speed Score around 100.0, with most prospects at the position falling between 85.0 and 110.0.

Speed Score measures speed in the context of strength and power. It doesn’t measure agility, receiving ability, or any of the other aspects related to the position. It does not claim that a larger player with a higher 40 time is somehow faster than a smaller player with a lower 40 time thanks to the power of exponentiation. Speed Score is useful because it’s beneficial for a running back to be both fast and large.

Speed Score has a higher correlation with yards, carries, and DYAR than 40-yard times alone, making it a better way to contextualize the performances at the Underwear Olympics and a better tool for finding valuable players later in the draft. When combined with college production, it forms the basic of more complicated projection systems like BackCAST, which will arrive later this offseason.

Last year, your Speed Score leader was Isaac Guerendo (125.7), the third-best score in combine history. He averaged 5.0 yards per attempt for the 49ers, flashing in a backup role as the rest of San Francisco’s running back room imploded. It’s not an end-all, be-all stat, of course – rookie rushing leader Bucky Irving had a terrible 89.6 Speed Score as he couldn’t break either the 4.5-second mark or the 200-pound mark at the combine. But most of the names that were relevant in 2024 – Guerendo, Tyrone Tracy Jr., Ray Davis – put up above-average marks running the 40. It’s a great way to pick between players in the same tier of your draft board. It shouldn’t override film or anything, but if you’re deciding between two fourth-round prospects, the player with the better Speed Score will, historically, be the right call.

2025 Speed Score Table

Let’s start with the Speed Score table and then discuss the notable names and numbers on it.

Did not run: LeQuint Allen. Ja’Quinden Jackson, Ashton Jeanty, Phil Mafah, Kalel Mullings, Dylan Sampson, Cam Skattebo

Top Performers

Bhayshul Tuten’s first run was a 4.36 – a very good time that had him atop the leaderboard after the first set of runs. That would have been enough to put the Virginia Tech star first in our writeup, but it was just a standard, solid run from a mid-round prospect. Then he came out again, and laid down a 4.32, triggering a roar that got Rich Eisen to break off mid-interview with David Spade to see what was going on.

Tuten’s 4.32 ties him with De’Von Achane for the seventh-quickest 40 since electronic timing started in 1999. Achane weighed in at the combine at just 188, too; Tuten matched his time while carrying nearly 20 more pounds on him. That’s what turns an exciting, fast run into one of the 20 best Speed Scores ever recorded, and one of the top 10 of the past 15 years.

That’s not a list of nothing but hits by any means, but any time you’re on a list with Saquon Barkley, Jonathan Taylor and Lamar Miller, you’re doing something right.

There’s always the fear that players who run this fast are sprinters masquerading as running backs, rather than actual NFL prospects – that’s the case of Keith Marshall, the all-time Speed Score leader. If you were to put the U.S. track team onto the field, they would crush Speed Score … and then be crushed by an NFL linebacker slamming into them. And, yes, Tuten has an established track pedigree – he was a 10.9 100-meter athlete in high school, and both of his parents were track stars. If there was anywhere he was going to excel, it was going to be running in a straight line.

But Tuten has been smashing through the pre-draft process all offseason long, showing off during Senior Bowl practices before heading to Indianapolis and destroying the testing. It’s not just the 4.32 40. Tuten also lead all running backs with a 40.5-inch vertical jump and was second with a 10-foot, 10-inch broad jump, both great metrics of explosiveness. If the only thing you had to go by was the combine itself, Tuten would be the top running back in the class.

Tuten is not, in fact, the top running back in the class, but he’s been gathering momentum as a sleeper. He entered Indianapolis projected as a fourth- or fifth-round pick. There are concerns about his hands, as he’s struggled with both drops and fumbles. He lacks some decisiveness and isn’t anything special reading the front to find lanes. He takes a lot of contact, perhaps a bit too eager to dive into collisions. He is, by no means, a perfect prospect.

But his home-run ability and explosiveness does jump off the tape at you. It’s not just the straight-line speed; it’s his sudden cuts and turns that makes him very difficult to tackle in open space. His speed lets him get to the corner quickly, blasting past linebackers to get to the sticks. And he’s got power for someone of his size, too – there’s a reason he’s willing to take on as much contact as he does, because he can bowl people over. Arm tackles aren’t going to bring him down. Tuten had 6.3 yards per attempt and 15 rushing touchdowns last season at Virginia Tech. He also has history as a kick returner, with two touchdowns in 2023. Add in above-average pass protection, and there are a lot of different roles Tuten can fill. Balance, power, home-run speed are all there. He says he models his game after Saquon Barkley, and if he was Saquon Barkley sized, he’d be a Day 2 pick for sure. As it is, these testing numbers might well propel him into the third round.

But while Tuten’s combine performance was the best, there are so many good prospects in this class, most of whom put up very good numbers themselves. This is not a class where you have to reach or rush to get an athletic star.

With Ashton Jeanty sitting the combine out, the top prospect actually competing was probably North Carolina’s Omarion Hampton. He didn’t disappoint, with a 111.7 Speed Score, running a 4.46 at 221 pounds. He projects as a battering ram – he’s not going to make you miss; he’s going to run straight over you. There were questions about his top-end speed going in, but 4.46 is more than fine for a back of his size. He basically put up Ezekiel Elliott or Doug Martin numbers, and you can certainly work with that.

Sandwiching Hampton on the were Florida’s Montrell Johnson (112.1) and Kansas State’s D.J. Giddens (110.1), both of whom put on nearly identical performances at 212 pounds. Giddens is in Tuten’s range as a mid-round prospect, though a 4.41-40 might answer a few of the questions about his perceived lack of burst. Johnson is a late-round flier who probably ran his way into the draft and out of the UDFA pool – a rugged interior runner who just proved he can fly when needs be.

The Arian Foster and Devin Singletary Lines

Speed Score doesn’t guarantee anything, of course, but the higher your score, the better the career you generally have. You can see the production of backs fall off as Speed Score drops off in this table.

One of the better uses of Speed Score, I think, is as a negative indicator. You can run fast and still not succeed at actually playing football; you may be a track star in pads. But if you can’t run well in jockey shorts, the odds that you’ll transition into a successful running back in the pros drop dramatically.

For years, we’ve tracked some specific lines – floors for production. The worst Speed Score ever for a running back who topped 5,000 yards in his first five years belongs to Arian Foster, at 94.2. He’s the “1.0%” on the chart – the only running back with a Speed Score under 100.0 who managed to average a thousand yards a season for five years. He’s the only player since electronic timing was introduced to have a below-average Speed Score and still develop into a superstar. The worst Speed Score for a running back to hit 2,500 yards in his first five years belongs to Devin Singletary at 86.1 – the shining light in the darkness for those who have awful days in Indianapolis. If you’re getting compared to these sorts of numbers, your chances of a successful NFL career rapidly approach zero.

The only player to fall under either line was Mississippi’s Ulysses Bentley (88.2), who probably ran himself out of the draft after not being able to break a 4.6. There were a few other disappointments, however, most notably Kansas’ Devin Neal. All of the other running backs projected in the top 100 on Scouts Inc’s big board topped 100, but Neal’s 4.58s 40 clocked him in at just 96.8. There were concerns about Neal’s top-end burst and speed coming in, and those questions have only gotten louder now. Neal did have strong performances in the vertical and broad jumps, and he has a long track record on tape as a reliable, consistent runner. But in a class this deep, being the one guy who didn’t show off in the 40 is less than ideal.

Other Notable Names

Ohio State’s Quinshon Judkins and TreVeyon Henderson are both touted as Day 2 picks, and neither disappointed. Henderson was three-hundreths faster, but Judkins did it with 19 extra pounds, so he ends up winning the Speed Score battle, 109.7 to 104.9. Iowa’s Kaleb Johnson maybe wasn’t as explosive as advertised, but a 4.57 at 224 isn’t going to hurt him too much; that’s a Speed Score of 102.7. Honestly, every highly-touted back other than Neal had fine days. None of them are going to catch Ashton Jeanty for the top back in the class, but it could hurt the draft stock of a Cam Skattebo or Dylan Sampson, neither of whom ran. But even them, both Skattebo and Sampson had other efforts in Indianapolis that support their hype. Sampson didn’t run because of his lingering hamstring issue, but did perform in the drills and looked very solid. Skattebo had the second-highest vertical jump of the day. If you’re going to skip the 40, it’s great to show out elsewhere, and both Skattebo and Sampson hit those marks.

This class is crazy deep. The last time we saw eight backs go in the top 75 was 2018, when Saquon Barkley, Rashaad Penny, Sony Michell, Nick Chubb, Ronald Jones, Kerryon Johnson, Derrius Guice and Royce Freeman all went off the board before the end of Round 3. It’s certainly in play for 2025 to match it, and nothing we saw in Indianapolis should dampen this hype.