Today is the 6th installment in the series- Running Backs taken in Round 1 of the NFL Draft between 2000-2009.
| Year | Player | Pick | Starts | TDs | Pro Bowls | Wonder’s Grade |
| 2000 | Jamal Lewis | 5 | 126 | 62 | 1 | 2 |
| Thomas Jones | 7 | 107 | 65 | 1 | 2 | |
| Ron Dayne | 11 | 28 | 28 | 7 | ||
| S Alexander | 18 | 96 | 112 | 3 | 2 | |
| 2001 | T Canidate | 31 | 13 | 7 | 7 | |
| L Tomlinson | 5 | 142 | 153 | 6 | 1 | |
| D McAllister | 23 | 74 | 54 | 2 | 2 | |
| 2002 | Michael Bennett | 27 | 49 | 19 | 1 | 4 |
| William Green | 16 | 30 | 9 | 7 | ||
| 2003 | T.J. Duckett | 18 | 14 | 44 | 4 | |
| Willis McGahee | 23 | 64 | 53 | 1 | 3 | |
| 2004 | Larry Johnson | 27 | 55 | 61 | 3 | 2 |
| Steven Jackson | 24 | 72 | 49 | 2 | 1 | |
| Chris Perry | 26 | 9 | 4 | 7 | ||
| 2005 | Kevin Jones | 30 | 49 | 27 | 5 | |
| Ronnie Brown | 2 | 55 | 33 | 1 | 3 | |
| Cedric Benson | 4 | 35 | 18 | 4 | ||
| 2006 | Cadillac Williams | 5 | 48 | 21 | 4 | |
| Reggie Bush | 2 | 36 | 28 | 3 | ||
| L Maroney | 21 | 15 | 22 | 5 | ||
| DeAngelo Wms | 27 | 31 | 34 | 1 | 2 | |
| 2007 | Joseph Addai | 30 | 42 | 43 | 1 | 3 |
| Adrian Peterson | 7 | 39 | 41 | 3 | 1 | |
| Marshawn Lynch | 12 | 35 | 18 | 1 | 3 | |
| 2008 | Darren McFadden | 4 | 12 | 5 | 4 | |
| Jonathan Stewart | 13 | 3 | 21 | 2 | ||
| Felix Jones | 22 | 1 | 6 | 3 | ||
| R Mendenhall | 23 | 13 | 8 | 3 | ||
| 2009 | Chris Johnson | 24 | 30 | 26 | 2 | 1 |
| K Moreno | 12 | 9 | 9 | 4 | ||
| Donald Brown | 27 | 1 | 3 | 4 | ||
| Beanie Wells | 31 | 0 | 7 | 4 | ||
| 0.9 | 3.4 |
*as always, reminder that 2008-2009 grades are preliminary and are moving.
What was difficult about this grading process was the number of injuries wrecking very talented players. As an example, giving a guy like Cadillac Williams a ‘4’ was no joy. But his career has been mired in disappointment. The distinction there is that you have to separate a player like that from getting the bust tag because it was not a bust pick.
If Adrian Peterson could hold onto the ball, he’d be a 0.
There are a lot of RBs here that could be 2’s or 3’s. They could go either way. The overall message is that the final grade for the group is going to be fairly representative. We are not claiming that Wonder’s subjective grade for each player is pinpoint precise; his grades on balance are going to be very good for surveying larger trends.
So with 6 positions being graded, this is where we are…
| Position | PBowls | Rating |
| LB | 0.9 | 3.2 |
| CB | 0.5 | 3.3 |
| RB | 0.9 | 3.4 |
| OT | 0.5 | 3.7 |
| S | 1.4 | 3.8 |
| DT | 0.6 | 4.1 |
The general takeaway of this exercise is to recognize not that LB is a better pick than CB or RB, but that LB/CB/RB are giving some yield. Safeties have yield for Pro Bowls. Tackles have value in fewer busts because they can be converted to Guards. And finally, that DT is the weak link. There are still too many positions to grade out (G/C, DE, QB, WR, and TE) to make final conclusions. But thus far the original observation, that DT is less certain in Round 1, is holding up.
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