Running backs are ‘en vogue’ again in the NFL. Will Broncos buck tradition and pick a first-round back?

It was just about closing time, night creeping toward morning in Metairie, La., Terry Malone and the rest of the New Orleans Saints’ contingent preparing to close up their books at the facility after the first round of the 2011 NFL draft.

The building had gone into the night wanting Alabama running back Mark Ingram, the 2009 Heisman Trophy winner. Wanting him bad. They figured, sitting at pick No. 24, that they’d never get him, as then-tight ends coach Malone recalled.

As names flew off the board, he’d fallen into their lap — but so had defensive end Cameron Jordan. And this was the dawn of the passing explosion in the NFL, ushered in part by Sean Payton and QB Drew Brees, a birth that temporarily killed the idea of first-round running backs.

They took Jordan at 24. Deep breaths. First round done. So it seemed.

“We were ready to fold our tents and go home,” recalled Malone, who worked with Payton for nearly a decade in New Orleans. “And suddenly, bang. We got ourselves a running back.”

Payton wanted Ingram. This was the most important variable. He liked what he’d seen in a player workout. He trusted Nick Saban and the Alabama staff’s view of Ingram. And behind the scenes, he continued to “pull some magic,” as Malone put it, when Bill Belichick and the New England Patriots called to ask about trading back from their No. 28 pick.

“The one thing that always was in front of everybody’s mind was — no matter what draft picks Sean Payton has in his pocket, he is going to relentlessly pursue a player that that he feels fits the need of the team, and he’s not afraid to borrow from the future,” Malone said.

That was the year that “opened people’s eyes,” Malone said, to Payton’s sheer tenacity in maneuvering for skill-position talent. If he’s wanted a guy, he’s gotten him — caution chucked to the wind. He threw a third-round pick at Arizona back in 2014 to land receiver Brandin Cooks. He gave a future second-rounder to San Francisco in 2017 to land versatile back Alvin Kamara, a move that was widely questioned at the time, given the presence of Ingram and recent signee Adrian Peterson. In Payton’s first draft pick with the Broncos in 2023, he jumped up to snag receiver Marvin Mims Jr.

Throughout his career, though, there’s one conventional NFL line of thinking Payton has rarely broken: Don’t draft a running back in the first round. He’s only done it twice in his 17 years. And forgot about it, too.

“I’ve done it twice?” Payton questioned in a pre-draft presser Thursday, before being reminded of Ingram and Reggie Bush back in 2006.

This is the existential dilemma whispering beyond the Broncos’ walls in Dove Valley, a clear franchise-elevating team need and a decade of league logic colliding at Denver’s No. 20 pick Thursday in Green Bay. The Broncos have a 200-something-pound hole at running back, an ineffective room in 2024 further thinned by the departure of Javonte Williams. General manager George Paton has said, explicitly, that the Broncos will “get a back in this draft,” and analysts have linked Denver to an RB at that 20th slot for months.

But would they really swing on a name like North Carolina’s Omarion Hampton or Ohio State’s TreVeyon Henderson all the way up in the first round, when much of the NFL still sees the running back position as expendable and volatile?

“You’re gonna have some people that just don’t, simply, believe in that,” analyst and former NFL player Bucky Brooks responded when asked if he felt stigma around picking first-round RBs would persist. “Like, they just philosophically — they’re opposed to taking a running back in the first round.

“But you have others who are able to look at the player and assess the talent and the potential of the player and say, ‘No, he’s worthy of being a first-round pick.”

From the start of the 21st century through 2010, as bell-cow backs from LaDainian Tomlinson to Shaun Alexander took 20-plus carries every Sunday, multiple RBs were taken in the first round every year. As the league shifted overwhelmingly pass-heavy in the 2010s, though, and teams got just a few productive years out of a slew of high first-round backs from C.J. Spiller (No. 9 in 2010) to Trent Richardson (No. 3 in 2012), the prevalence of first-round backs fell off a cliff.

The reasons vary, according to evaluators across the league. There’s the short shelf life on most backs, as Malone highlighted. There’s the growth of passing-efficiency analytics, as Brooks pointed out. There’s, correspondingly, the decline of the workhorse and the increasing growth of backfield tandems, a by-committee approach Payton has long preferred.

“The value of the position has never gone down,” an NFL assistant coach who spoke with The Denver Post on condition of anonymity said. “You need that guy as much as ever. And I just think when people saw that — you can take a back, you can use two backs, you can use ‘em in the second and third round, why go and get ‘em in the first round?”

The age of the first-round back, though, is still clinging to life. The league underwent a noticeable course-correction in 2024 toward the old days. Twelve different NFL running backs had over 250 carries last season, the highest figure since the league shifted to a 17-game regular season in 2021 and the highest figure in general since 2012.

And 2025 could see three backs taken in the first round for just the second time since 2012: Boise State’s Ashton Jeanty, North Carolina’s Hampton and Ohio State’s Henderson.

“You get a team like Philadelphia that helps run its way to a Super Bowl,” analyst Charles Davis said, referencing the Eagles riding Saquon Barkley to a title in February, “and all of a sudden, running back’s back en vogue.”

This particular year presents a unique quandary, though, with one of the deeper classes in recent memory. ESPN analyst Jordan Reid said in a March conference call with media that he had “32 draftable grades” on backs this class, and Paton told media at the owner’s meetings that good backs were available from the second round through the sixth.

Denver would have to have a substantially higher grade on Henderson, who they hosted for an in-house visit last week, to justify swinging on him at No. 20 rather than wait until Day 2 or 3 for Tennessee’s Dylan Sampson, Iowa’s Kaleb Johnson, Kansas’s Devin Neal or a myriad of other options.

“I would say if it’s not Jeanty or Hampton, I wouldn’t do it,” ESPN analyst Matt Miller said when asked if he’d take a first-round back in 2025. “Just because, as much as I like (Quinshon) Judkins and Henderson, I think there’s just value.”

It could be worthwhile to take a first-round back, Payton indicated last week, if you had a “real clear vision for how you want to use them.” And the vision is there, for each of the options on the Broncos’ board, for a coach who’s never been afraid to swing high on talent.

Hampton could be a legitimate three-down bruiser if Payton wants a spiritual successor to Ingram. Henderson is a natural explosive complement with standout supplementary skills, if Payton wants a spiritual successor to Kamara. Jeanty is a potential Pro Bowler, if Payton wants to sell the farm and leap well up from No. 20.

“If he’s the best player on your board, he could impact your team,” Paton said last Thursday, speaking of a back similar to former Vikings great Adrian Peterson, whom he worked with for years previously in Minnesota’s front office.

“I think you take him,” Paton continued, “regardless of the position.”