Running Backs Amok

Peter King continues to cherry pick misleading stats to bolster his argument that teams should not waste high draft picks on running backs. The latest from yesterday’s Tuesday’s Edition of the Monday Morning Quarterback: “By the way, the last six Super Bowls have been won by teams without a running back picked in the top 25 of the draft.”

 

Interesting that King chose the unusual cutoff number of 25 when there are 32 picks in the first round. In any case, King is flat out wrong. Jerome Bettis was the #10 pick overall in the 1993 draft (by the St. Louis Rams). In other words, of the last two super bowl champs, one had a running back taken in the first 10 picks.

 

Of course, had King expanded his criteria by just 7 spots and included all running backs taken in the first round on super bowl winning teams, the results would look much different. Joseph Addai, taken by the Colts in the first round last year means that the past two super bowl winners have had first round running backs on their rosters. Hardly the open and shut case King makes his argument out to be.