Chris Wells
Position: Running back
School: Ohio State
Size: 6’1/ 235 lbs.
Combine Results:
40 yard dash- 4.59 sec
Bench Press- 25 reps
A big runner with better decent straight line speed. Shiftier than most athletes his size, but ever since he injured his foot, he tended to resort to jukes instead of using his immense power to bulldoze opponents. Strength is running between the tackles, but he has long arms, giving him a brilliant stiff arm to stun oncoming tacklers when trying to reach the edge. Excellent north/south runner. Statistically a very productive HB in a tough power running conference in college.
Only an average receiver and blocker. Injuries hampered his production, bringing into question his desire and overall toughness. Not a vocal leader.
Late first round selection.
Wow, it’s hard to watch that video clip and not like what you see. Sure looks like he has all the tools to be a great pro back. As you touched on, injuries will naturally be somewhat of a concern, but the same was true of Adrian Peterson. It’ll be interesting to see if he has a breakout rookie year like AP or if his production will be limited more like McFadden’s was.
Beanie Wells to me is one of those boom or bust prospects. He’ll either boom and be one hell of an NFL player, or his lack of great speed will make him just another tackling dummy to the speedy and stout LBs that exist in the NFL.
Me personally I like Wells a lot I think his game speed is better than his 40-yard dash speed and his size is one of his best assets going forward.
I also think he has one thing going for that way to often is overlooked and is certainly not talked about in most scouting circles, but it’s one of the most important aspects of any RB at any level. That’s their vision to find holes and make the most out of exploiting those holes. My favorite highlite of Wells comes from the Michigan State game where he takes a hand off on a zone-isolation play that is sorta slow to develop to the right side. He is so patient, he sorta runs at almost half speed at first…then all of a sudden he sees the hole, he plants his foot and EXPLODES up the field.
As Mike Mayock likes to say it’s one of those high lights that makes me fall in love with a prospect. That’s the one that makes me swoon over Beanie Wells…it’s that one cut AND BOOM explosion of speed through the hole and into the second level. It’s like 68-yards later he gets tackled, but it was just so impressive to me how he just hits the hole so hard.
My opinion is that Knowshon has better vision than Wells, and he possesses the better athleticism to take advantage of that vision.
I do agree that vision is perhaps the most underappreciated aspect of any good runningback.
However, you make a good argument for Wells’ vision with your example. I do think that his success is highly contingent on the system he is placed into. Kind of reminds me of T.J. Duckett. And as a final note, I am a strong believer that his game speed is much better than his timed speed. His game tape confirms that, for sure.