Draft Possibilities: Jordan Howard
By Andre Menice
NAME: Jordan Howard
SCHOOL: Indiana
POS: RB
HT: 6’0″
WT: 230 lbs
After Dion Lewis went down against the Redskins week nine last year, the performance by the running back position as a whole left a lot to be desired. With the exception of a few huge plays by James White, the position was devoid of contribution. One could question how much the offensive line had to do with the lack of production by the running backs, and they would not be wrong, but the combination of Brandon Bolden, Joey Iosefa, and LeGarrette Blount aren’t exactly dynamic and the addition of Donald Brown won’t have defensive coordinators worrying about the run anymore than they already do.
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The run game on a scale from 1-10, in terms of success, during the AFC title game, was about a minus 2, and even though New England didn’t have success, they never gave up on it. It was like New England liked playing with one less down than the traditional four granted. Needless to say, there has to be some semblance of a back field and with the free agent well about dried up, they should be looking to add to the position in the draft.
Enter 6 foot, 230 pound running back Jordan Howard out of Indiana. Howard has a lot of strengths. He has extremely good vision, he finds the running lanes and hits them hard. He has good burst and doesn’t take him long to get up to top speed. He finishes runs with power, breaking through arm tackles and pushing the pile forward before going down and even with all that power, he still has the ability to make sharp, agile, change of direction cuts. But most importantly, from New England’s stand point, two things. One, Howard is a very good pass blocker. He picks up the blitz exceptionally well and would be well suited helping to protect Brady when he isn’t rushing the ball. Two, Howard has very good ball security, only fumbling the ball twice the past two years.
Howard, however, lacks a second gear and doesn’t outrun defenses once he hits daylight. He also doesn’t have much experience catching the ball out of the backfield as he was limited to 20 catches the past two seasons and majority of those catches were off of screen plays behind the line of scrimmage. But to his credit, he didn’t look uncomfortable catching the ball, but its safe to assume his ability to run routes past the line of scrimmage is limited at best.
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The bottom line is, Howard is a solid running back that would be able to contribute consistently on first and second down rushing the ball and could be a valuable asset in the passing game without having to catch the ball due to his ability to effectively pass block and pick up edge defenders coming off the corner or blitzing linebackers through the middle. He isn’t Ezekiel Elliot or have the cache of a Derrick Henry, but Patriots fans should feel a sense of comfort come over them if Howard is drafted by New England.
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