When the Rams trade up in the draft, it’s usually for a running back. They moved up for Darrell Henderson Jr. in 2019, Kyren Williams in 2022 and on Saturday afternoon, they traded up 37 spots to select Ole Miss running back Zach Evans.
He was still only a sixth-round pick, but Evans had a fourth-round grade at NFL.com and has the makings of an every-down back as a pro. He has good speed, a vicious stiff-arm and averaged 6.9 yards per carry in his college career at two different schools.
The Rams obviously liked his game a lot despite already having Cam Akers and Williams in the backfield, and they made sure not to miss out on this intriguing prospect on Day 3 of the draft. Even though the Rams usually prefer to trade down, Sean McVay saw Evans as an exception.
“And then there’s certain exceptions when you feel like, alright, Zach Evans is a back that has some special traits and so then you go up,” McVay said.
What intrigued the Rams about Evans was his complementary skill set alongside Akers and Williams. According to McVay, he’s a smooth runner who can “work edges on people,” also working out of the pistol a lot in college. He’s about 10 pounds lighter than Akers, but he still runs hard and knows how to break tackles. He averaged 3.56 yards after contact per carry last season and had an elusive rating of 91.3, according to PFF, both among the best at his position.
Explosive Speed 🧨@Runzekerun01 | #ProMindset pic.twitter.com/upHuZwN9Ah
— Ole Miss Football (@OleMissFB) April 26, 2023
“I think when you talk about Zach a little bit different because a player of his caliber in the latter parts of the draft, and you’re saying, OK because of the draft capital that we had where I believe we still had four picks remaining at that point, and you’re saying, ‘Alright, you’re just going to have three now instead of four.’ It made a lot of sense. And I think he has a nice skillset that complements Cam, complements Kyren Williams, Ronnie Rivers is a guy that got a little bit of action as well. And so I think you’re always still looking at complementary skillsets, whether that’s in a receiver, tight end, running back room. And that was kind of the appealing thing about Zach. And you look at it, I thought he did a great job at Ole Miss, but even some of the stuff going back to TCU where he’s taking more handoffs out of the pistol. You could really see he’s a smooth runner. He’s got a seamless ability to be able to work edges on people. And we felt like it was a good fit just based on looking at everybody that was possibly available and that was one of those spots and credit to their group for being able to kind of identify that because it was a little bit later in the process that I got exposure to him.”
Evans never rushed for 1,000 yards in college, but he did have 936 yards on only 144 carries last season, scoring 10 total touchdowns. At TCU in 2021, he gained 648 yards on only 92 carries, scoring six total touchdowns.
He won’t be the starter right away but Evans has plenty of juice and big-play ability to carve out a role as a third-down back or change-of pace runner.
