2026 NFL Draft Prospects | Rookie RB Jonah Coleman

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I've got a sleeper running back for you from the 2026 NFL draft class.

It's not my washed-in junior.

This is not somebody who came out and impressed.

This is the NFL combine.

And I think as a result, he's going a bit under the radar.

I'm pretty excited to get into this with you.

So it's Jonah Coleman running back out of Washington.

I'm just getting started with digging into this class.

But I just loved everything that I saw from Coleman.

So much so that we're going to make him the first rookie profile

that we roll out here on beyond the box score.

So Jonah Coleman, let me tell you about Jonah Coleman a little bit.

I think he's going under the radar because he's a four-year player.

He's going to be 23 years old at the start of the 2026 NFL season.

And he's also not an overwhelmingly athletic player.

So I could see why he's maybe not the most popular running back on big boards right now.

But in terms of just projecting a skill set that I think will fit at the NFL level,

that I think NFL coaches will value,

it feels like Coleman has a really good shot of getting on the field.

He reminds me of Kyle Menongai in 2025.

But I think there's more receiving upside and there's more explosive play upside with Coleman.

So I've got a fun tweet here from our buddy Ian Hartitz.

He says Jonah Coleman is running back one in the little things.

This is something that Ian compiled here where he looks at drop rate,

pressure rate allowed, and fumble rate.

And yeah, Coleman, man, he barely ever let any opportunity slip through his hands.

I really, really liked his past protection.

We're going to dig into that more.

I just saw this was a fun way to illustrate this from Ian what I was seeing from Coleman.

And then the rushing profile is not bad either.

So somebody who came to mind as I dug into Coleman and somebody who I liked a lot from last

year's class, I wanted to make sure I wasn't making a similar type of mistake here with was

Taj Brooks, who ended up going to Cincinnati and barely getting on the field as a rookie.

I just thought it was a really, really good football player.

And I thought there was some intrigue to his rushing profile.

I thought that he could operate as a good processor of blocks and a good running scheme,

potentially be a decent pro rusher.

But we just haven't seen that come to fruition yet.

I think ultimately in real one at least Brooks looked limited by his athleticism.

I don't think that that's what we have here with Coleman.

I do think he's a better athlete and a better rusher.

So the closest recent comparisons I found

when digging into collegiate rushing profiles

among NFL draft picks for Coleman are Chris Rodriguez,

Tyler Algier, Kendra Miller, and Audric Estimate.

So that's not a super exciting list.

But those are pretty good runners of the football.

We've seen now, you know, multiple contracts for Algier and Rodriguez as they get into their

careers. Millers had the injuries.

Estimate hasn't really panned out.

But those aren't bad rushing profiles by any means.

And that's kind of where we're at with Coleman, I think, is that he's a totally passable

rusher. And he might be a value add on passing downs.

So there's, yeah, there's a clear distinction between those running backs that I just mentioned

and Coleman. And it is the past protection.

I love the film.

It's backed up with the data as well.

What I've got here is just the most pass pro reps.

Any of those backs saw in a single season,

Coleman's the only one who ever saw more than 100.

If you look here among the top five seasons, the only five with more than 50 pass pro reps

among Rodriguez Estimate Miller, Algier, Coleman makes up three of those five seasons.

So that is a clear and important distinction between him and some of those decent rushers.

You know, guys who've been able to translate their games to the pros in terms of their

ability to move the ball on the ground, Coleman does clearly stand out as the best

pass protecting profile coming out of college.

If you look at just this year's class, the 2026 rookies,

it's Coleman and it's Desmond Claiborne, actually,

who stand out at the top. They're the only two rookies who have more than 100 pass pro reps in

a season. Roman Himby out of Indiana stands out here too. If you look at total pass pro reps,

but he also played more games. So that's, I think, an important note here is that his team

trusted Coleman in these situations. And then if you actually do dig into the film,

he looks good. And he has the size compared to Claiborne, who comes in at 195 or so,

Coleman's 225 pounds. So I think he's more likely to be able to handle NFL pass rushers.

And I did like the film. I really loved his effort. I loved his physicalities. Feel for space

as a blocker. His technique at times had me worried as he would lower his head to go for like

big body slams. And he got one on sunny styles, among other pass rushers.

But yeah, like after watching cam scataboo as a rookie, I do feel pretty confident that

even some of this stuff can be coached up. And Coleman is way better now than scataboo

as at this point, the draft process. So I wouldn't be surprised if NFL evaluator saw

is blocking as a plus, which is pretty rare for a rookie. Okay, so then let's let's talk about

the receiving. The receiving is pretty intriguing here. Among qualified running bags that I think

have a realistic shot. And that's of course arbitrary. That's my opinion, but digging into

projections here. Among running bags have a realistic shot of being slivered on day one or day two.

So I did throw out like Desmond Reed and Seth MacGowne and have really good receiving metrics.

Only Jeremiah Love and Nicholas Singleton had a higher yard per route run rate than Jonah Coleman

across their careers. And during the time that I had the data available, which dates back to 2017,

only four running backs have been selected in the first three rounds.

Who hit the following thresholds? It's at least 500 career routes run with a yard per route

run rate above 1.25. Those running backs are Travis, ETN, Ashton, Ginty, Beige and Robinson,

and Zach Moss. Loved didn't have enough routes to qualify, but Coleman and Singleton would join

that group among the 2026 rookies if they're drafted on day two. So if I drop the qualifier to

300 routes instead of 500, 500 is a lot, not every running back place four years like Coleman.

If I drop it to 300, we could the following additions to this group that had at least one

point two five yards per out running college. And we're selected day two or day one.

Jumeer Gibbs, Sequem Barkley, James Cook, Javante Williams, Deandre Swift, Ty J Spears,

RJ Harvey, Daryl Henderson, and Collide Edwards Haleir. Coleman comes in in between C.E.H.

and Henderson. So he's not up in that, you know, Jumeer Gibbs range. And I don't want to try to

tricky into thinking he's that type of a receiving profile. But that's his career rate. If you look

at his best single season data, his 2025 does really stand out. And again, to be fair, it's year four,

compared to maybe year three for some of these prospects. But here is at 1.84 yards per

out run on 192 routes in year four. Pretty dang good receiving metrics here in year four.

That's a top 10 single season mark among prospects dating back to 2017.

Pretty good stuff, you know, during my love's best season is 1.87 just above him. Jumeer Gibbs,

just above him at 1.87 as his best single season mark here with at least 150 routes run.

So I think there's some receiving upside as well. He isn't the fastest straight line speed

running back, but he definitely has some burst in the open field and some ability to slip a tackle

or two and make some big plays. Saw that show up a lot on film at Washington. So we've got the

blocking. We've got the potential for some receiving. Let's talk about the rushing. So the rushing

is really, really good early in the season for Coleman. And then it fell off in a big way at

Washington. And having watched all those games, I just I didn't feel like there was much that he

could have done as the year went on. I don't the line really struggled in the back half of the

season. And from what I was seeing, it's it seemed like a lot of these plays, Coleman was just

making the most of what was there, which maybe only ended up being three yards, but he is a

right back who runs hard, falls forward and is decisive. At times, maybe to a fault, there were times

as as the year went on and the blocking got worse and worse and worse, where it did feel like he was

missing some cutback lanes that he was hitting earlier in the year. And so I do wonder if maybe in

in a offensive ecosystem that's not working well at the NFL level of maybe he might struggle as a

rusher. But I mean, that's going to be the case for most running backs, to be honest. So this

that I have here on the blocking is that the team, Washington as a team on running back rushes

averaged 2.06 yards before contact through their first four games. And that included a match

against Ohio State, who they averaged 3.5 yards before contact against. That was their best

game in terms of creating yards before contact for the running backs. We saw Coleman rip off some

explosive plays in that game. I've got the game all up here on the screen if you're watching on YouTube.

You ran extremely well against Colorado State in week one. You see here each of these games,

it was at least 1.3 yards before contact. And then it fell off in a big way from that point on. I'm

even being negative yards before contact against Wisconsin. Well below one and a lot of these

games. So it was two yards before contact per rush in the first four from that point on. It was

just one yard before contact per rush. And that affected all of the running backs there.

Coleman was not exempt. And so it was his season long numbers. If you look at like stuffed

rates success rate, some of those stats, Coleman's not going to look very good relative to, you know,

Jeremiah Love and some of these prospects here. But overall, Coleman does have some pretty

encouraging signals in his rushing profile. What I've got here is the yards after contact across

the career yards after contact per rush across the career. You'll see Coleman coming in here at 14

among running backs who were drafted. Round three or higher dating back to 2017. The only

running backs from this class or ahead of him are Jeremiah Love and Jadarian Price out of Notre Dame.

And if you are watching on YouTube like man, this is a pretty dang good list. Other than Keishan Vaughan

Rashad Pinyet injuries, most of these running backs ended up being at least part-time players who

had kind of offered contributions like Ty J Spears and Daryl Henderson. But the rest of them,

we'll see on Jonathan Brooks. The rest of them were pretty dang productive NFL players.

Yards after contact is a stat that I like a lot. And Coleman does look good in this metric. So I think

for the most part, he did, I think succeed as a rusher and show us signals that he could succeed

as a pro rusher. I thought that there was there was vision, there was tempo, there was block

setting, all that showed up especially early in the season when he was able to do that when there

was a little bit more space in the offense. I also like that he got some experience as an

under center runner at Washington. That's not often the case for these college prospects.

But is really prevalent at the NFL level more and more so lately. And he did more under center

running than any other running back from this class. Okay, so a lot of reasons to be excited about

Coleman. We've got a long ways to go before the NFL draft. Obviously landing spots going to be

really important ultimately for his fantasy outlook. So I've been thinking about landing spot a lot.

And I came up with a list here of where I think would be the best spots for Coleman. I went

and looked at which NFL teams and which coaches that are coming over from last year to this year

use the inside zone running the most because that's what he really specialized that

at Washington. They did a lot of zone running. I think he has the skill set to maybe do man running

but that we would have to see that that would be a projection at this point. And then I thought

about the backfields themselves who needs a passing down's back. Where could he maybe get some

work in year one. I think Minnesota is my favorite spot here for Coleman. We'll see where

and Jones is at in his career at this point. But I think that Minnesota, I feel like the line

can be better than it was last year with better health. And he could have success there. I also see

at all, of course, you have to mention anytime you're thinking about the running back prospects.

Although I will say I feel like Coleman feels a bit redundant with Zach Sharman from his skill set

standpoint would just be kind of a worse version of that. But they do use inside zone running.

I think we'll see that with a new coordinator. They're coming over from San Francisco.

And there may be an opportunity for Coleman to play a big role right away if Sharman is health

isn't quite ready. Dallas, I think is another interesting one. They use a lot of inside zone running

last year under shot and a hammer there. And Giovante Williams, they just get resigned. But I think

that they would like to maybe take a little bit off of his plate. And potentially Coleman, if he

plays well, could work his way into a split there. And he could get the passing down work.

And he's a big guy. If he goes to some of these teams where if the starting running back isn't

doing well in short yard situations, I could see Coleman getting some of that work as well.

So Cincinnati and Kansas City, sort of similarly to Dallas, stand out to me where they do use

inside zone running. They do have a clear starter. But maybe Coleman could be part of that split.

Maybe he could succeed. Wirtage Brooks failed. Maybe he could be the passing down's back for

Kansas City, although they did sign them already in Marcato. So I don't know if they'll go after

running back in the draft. Washington, Carolina, Green Bay, and the chargers actually are the other

teams that stood out to me that do use some inside zone running that could maybe use a running

back to contribute on passing downs. We'll see where where Jonathan Brooks is for the Panthers.

I like to vote Trevor UT and showed us in year one. But this is a different skill set.

You're the much bigger player and better pass protector. Washington, they've got a lot of passing

downs backs in terms of receivers. But I do think they might value Coleman's toughness and his

pass blocking. Again, Chris Rodriguez is running back to be profiled similarly to

as a rusher. The charges have been linked to passing down backs throughout the offseason.

Haven't actually really brought in and he wanted to fill that specific role.

And then Green Bay did just lose a running back. The man, you're Wilson who played pretty well

for them. And so there are two spot is pretty much wide open. I do think Chris Brooks maybe

will be back to the team and be the passing downs back. But that's another interesting one where

if he went there with Matt Laflore, good offense. Josh Jacobs never really missed his time. But if

he were to think that we could see Coleman step in and play a big role. So he's a really interesting

name to keep an eye on. If he gets in the perfect spot, like say Seattle or whatever, I could see him

pushing up into the back end around one for dinosaur drafts. I don't think he's going to be that

expensive. I really do think he's going to be a sleeper pick for you here. And if the opportune

presents itself, I think this is the type of player who could get on the field and earn a coaching

staff's trust. And he runs hard. I really do think he could end up being a pretty dang productive

pro. And he's not going to be as flashy or as exciting as some of these faster running backs

who tested really well. So keep an eye on him. I know people are down in this class. But I think

it's there are plenty of these kind of players that might emerge as sleepers. And they're the ones

to know. They're the bets the place as we as we move into dynasty drafts. All right. I just want

to let you know if you are new here that we are rolling out lots of profiles here on fantasy

football today. Beyond the box score. We have been talking about some of the implications of the

free agency period, whether that's Luther Burton, Mike Evans, Kenneth Walker. And we're rolling out

now the the rookie profiles as well. It's going to be me and Dan Schneier talking you through our

film analysis as well as digging into all the relevant data for these rookies. So be on the look

for that. Do subscribe if you have not. We did just top 1000 subscribers. Thank you to everybody

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to 1k as we get this new channel started. This is powered by fantasy football today. CBS Sports

if you're unfamiliar. We've been doing the podcast for about a year or so full time now. I mean,

we did just start our own YouTube channel just so that all of this content is organized in one

easy to find place for you guys. After all, and girls, all you sickos who like the deep dive,

the three hour videos. Yeah, we're doing these these shorter ones as well. So be on the lookout

for that. Jonah Coleman's the first rookie, but we've got a lot, lot more coming your way.

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