Where Tennessee RB Jaylen Wright is ranked in ESPN's top-100 NFL Draft prospects
Tennessee Football running back Jaylen Wright is the No. 48 overall prospect in this week’s NFL Draft, according to ESPN’s ranking of the top 100 prospects. The first round of the NFL Draft begins Thursday at 8 p.m. Eastern Time (TV: ESPN, ABC, NFL Network) in Detroit with Round 2 and Round 3 set for Friday night.
Wright carried 137 times last season for 1,013 yards and had four rushing touchdowns while averaging 7.4 yards per carry. He caught six passes for 22 yards.
“In every draft there are a handful of players who beg the question: Why didn’t he get more snaps?” ESPN’s Jeff Legwold wrote in the ESPN ranking. “Wright is one of those players with ridiculous workout numbers (his 40 time, a 38-inch vertical jump and 11-2 broad jump), a career 6.2 yards per attempt average and the potential to have far more impact in the passing game. Wright has put the ball on the ground at times; he had four fumbles in 2022.”
Where ESPN’s Mel Kiper Jr. and Field Yates project Jaylen Wright to be drafted
Over the last three seasons Wright totaled 2,297 yards and 18 touchdowns on 368 attempts. He had 409 yards and four touchdowns as a freshman in 2021 and 875 yards and 10 touchdowns in 2022. He averaged 4.8 yards per carry in 2021 and 6.0 yards per carry in 2022.
Wright turned heads heads and climbed draft boards coming out of the Combine after he was clocked at 4.38 seconds in the 40, jumped 11-2 in the broad jump and had a 38-inch vertical.
ESPN’s Mel Kiper Jr. and Field Yates last week projected Wright as a third-round pick in their three-round NFL mock draft. Wright was the second running back off board in the ESPN mock draft, after Texas RB Jonathon Brooks was taken at No. 56 overall by the Dallas Cowboys.
Florida State running back Trey Benson went No. 85 overall to the Cleveland Browns, USC’s MarShawn Lloyd went No. 92 to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Michigan’s Blake Corumwent No. 97 overall to the Cincinnati Bengals.
‘So explosive and so dynamic … big-time juice’
Kiper in March listed Wright as one of his top risers coming out of the NFL Scouting Combine, writing that Wright could headline a running back group that “is a little underwhelming as a whole” and is without a clear No. 1 back in the group.
NFL Network’s Daniel Jeremiah last week also projected Wright as a third-round pick.
“Jaylen Wright’s so explosive and so dynamic,” Jeremiah said this week during a conference call previewing the draft. “In terms of finding fits for him and those guys, look, the speed play is anywhere. I always go back to Kansas City continuing to add speed. I don’t care how many running backs, how many guys they have.
“When I see guys with big-time juice like that, that’s the first team that jumps into my mind.”
