Justice Haynes

[Twopointtry]

Out for Justice

The Rams drafted Blake Corum in the 3rd round of the 2024 draft. The very next RB taken was MarShawn Lloyd, just a few picks later. If you had asked me which of those 2 backs I would have taken, I would have been indifferent, because I liked both of them. I also would have been fine with skipping RB in that round and drafting Cody Schrader in the late rounds, because I liked him too. Instead of all 3 of these options producing the same result, the route Snead chose has clearly turned out to be the best.

Schrader was on our PS at one point. He's now on his 5th NFL team. He has one career NFL rushing attempt (for 3 yards), which came with the Rams at the very end of the 2024 season. Lloyd always been injured. He missed the entire 2025 season due to injury. He believes that the root cause of his durability problems stems from an ACL injury he had in college and that an imbalance and overcompensating for that has led to other parts of his body breaking down. He's only appeared in one NFL game and has 15 career rushing yards and 3 receiving yards. His NFL future is murky, and he wasn't impressive in his team's first preseason game this year.

The first RB drafted in 2024 was Jonathon Brooks, a 2nd round pick. Brooks had an ACL injury in college. Brooks tore his ACL again late in his rookie season and missed all of 2025. He has 22 career rushing yards and has only appeared in 3 NFL games. Corum got injured in college as well, but he's been far more productive in the pros than Lloyd, Schrader or Brooks, with nearly 1,000 career rushing yards. 40 yards combined for the other 3 RBs vs almost 1,000 for Corum. Go figure.

Justice Haynes is the top ranked RB on FirstandTen's big board, the 13th overall prospect. Prior to breaking his foot in the middle of the 2025 season, experts were projecting him as a 1st to 2nd round pick for the 2026 draft. One draft profile compares him to Darrell Henderson. After a breakout season with Michigan, Haynes has transferred to Georgia Tech. DraftBuzz is scared off by his foot injury and says that he's a potential UDFA if his medicals don't check out.

Is F&T justified in ranking Haynes as one of the best players in the entire draft? If so, will NFL teams still pass on him even if he has a productive 2026, afraid that what has happened to Brooks and Lloyd will happen to Haynes and he can't be counted on to be available to play? Could the Rams benefit by scooping up a talented RB at a steep discount?

 

[Twopointtry]

Part 1: Background

Name, Age: Justice Haynes. Turns 22 in October of 2026. True senior. Alabama 2023 and 2024, Michigan 2025, Georgia Tech 2026. Graduated with a degree in business from UM. At GT, he's a history, technology and society major.

Size, estimated speed: Listed 5'11'' tall, 210 pounds. DraftBuzz 4.49 seconds in 40. SticktotheModel 4.49 seconds in 40. Walterfootball 4.49 seconds in 40. [I guess Haynes must run exactly 4.49 seconds or everyone is copy and pasting from the same source, because I've never seen 3 different estimates for the 40 all come out to the same speed to the hundredth of a second. How about I be different just to mess with them and say that my personal estimate of his speed is 4.50 seconds. Take that, draft community!]

Son of Vernon Haynes, a RB for Georgia who was a 5th round pick by the Steelers in the 2002 draft. [Haynes was a backup for the Steelers and was part of their 2005 Super Bowl winning squad. He would have had a larger role, except that in 2004 the Steelers signed an UDFA, Willie Parker, who surprised people by becoming a good starting RB. It is an odd feeling when these dads have sons in the draft, because in my mind Vernon Haynes's draft feels like it just happened 3 years ago. How can his son already be so old?]

4-star and 5-star recruit from GA. One of the top recruits in the country. As SO in HS had 176-1,750-25 rushing. 275-2,375-29 rushing (8.6 ypc) as JR and 153-1,695-23 (11.1 ypc) his SR year. Not projected as future NFL draft pick but compared to Will Shipley. Only had 28 catches his entire HS career. Was a left-handed hitter (outfielder) and pitcher in baseball.

Upper body injury in 6th game of 2025, missed the following game. Season ending broken right foot injury in 8th game of 2025.

Michigan has a new coaching staff for 2026, which might have influenced his decision to transfer. Haynes said that he wanted to play in a pro-style offense to help prepare him for the NFL. George Godsey, a former NFL assistant, is GT's new OC. Chris Weinke, a former Rams QB coach, is the co-OC. Alberto Mendoza, the brother of Fernando Mendoza, is GT's new QB.

GMs and scouts will like Justice Haynes's personality and the fact that he's the son of a former NFL player. He's intelligent, has good football intangibles and a professional attitude.

2023 (13 games) 25-168-2 rushing (6.7 ypc)
2024 (12 games, 6 starts) 79-448-7 rushing (5.7 ypc), 17-99 receiving
2025 (7 starts) 121-857-10 rushing (7.1 ypc), 13-50 receiving, 1 fumble

One career fumble on 255 touches, an outstanding ball security rate. Career average of 6.5 yards per carry. [For comparison, Jeremiyah Love in college had a 6.7 career ypc average.]

In 2025, PFN impact score of 80.5 (36th in country), 38.8 elusive score (74th), 3.3 boom/bust (40th), 7.1 ypc (9th)

Draftwire said that he was at a minimum a 2nd round pick for the 2026 draft when he got injured, with a chance to work himself into the 1st round.
FirstandTen projected 2nd round pick, 13th overall prospect, top RB in draft.
Walterfootball projected 2nd to 4th round, 5th RB. Compared to Kaleb Johnson [3rd round 2025] and MarShawn Lloyd [3rd round 2024].
Shane Hallam mock 3rd round, 82.
SticktotheModel sim 87, 5th RB [3rd round]. Chase Brown and Darrell Henderson comps. (+) Breakaway speed, compact dense frame, routinely sheds arm tackles, decisive one-cut style, natural vision, low pad level, forced 43 missed tackles, 3.58 YAC per carry. (-) Limited route tree, restricted 3rd down value, inconsistent pass blocking technique, tends to lunge rather than establish base, durability concerns, not a pile moving short yardage back.
PFN board 98 [Late 3rd to 4th round], 8th RB. (+) Early round upside, low COG, excellent contact balance, elite explosiveness, real breakaway speed, competent vision, tenacious finishing physicality, leg churn. (-) More of press-and-go runner than true creator, lacks cutback anticipation or moves to problem solve early contact, little receiving value, unproven 3rd down value.
Drafttek board 92, mock draft 4th round, 101.
Sam Teets preliminary board 4th round tier, 101.
PFN industry consensus board 111.
NFLMDD sim 123, 9th RB [4th round].
DraftBuzz 5th round projection, 170, 12th RB. (+) Timed speed, one-cut runner, proven production. (-) Foot surgery, poor receiving, unproven durability, potential UDFA due to medicals.
PFF board not ranked top 75.
Tankathon board not ranked top 101.

 

[Twopointtry]

I'm switching the order and starting with the cons.

Part 3: Weaknesses

He's overrated. I don't think that Haynes is a particularly talented runner. Good blocking by the OL/TEs and good play designs/calling blew open large running lanes for him. Benefitted from mistakes by defenders losing leverage on the ball. The other Michigan RB, Jordan Marshall, is more explosive and a looser athlete than Haynes but I think Marshall is just okay, not an elite NFL prospect either. Marshall averaged 6.2 ypc and led the team with 932 rushing yards. Bottom line is it was easy to gain big yardage playing for Michigan in 2025. A bunch of RBs could have piled up nice stats. Very RB friendly situation. Look at my NFL comp for Haynes, then consider that when my comp was drafted, Louis Riddick (for personal bias reasons) predicted greatness from that RB, yet so far in his career that RB only has 70 rushing yards in the NFL on 3.2 ypc. His final season in college, that RB had a monster year with 1,431 rushing yards in only 11 games. I said the exact same thing about that RB at the time, that the main factor was the OL blocking, not the RB's talent. The RB in question is on his 4th NFL team after only 3 years in the pros. I feel that experts are overly influenced by the highlights of Haynes racing down the field on very long TD runs. That's not a reliable way to evaluate a RB for the draft. It might be a good way to evaluate an offensive guard or tackle for the draft.

Not elite in any department. A boring prospect without a strong selling point. Has an inefficient, grinder style reminiscent of Zamir White (4th round 2022) that doesn't translate to being an RB1 in the pros.

Foot injury raises durability questions and potential medical red flag.

Below average size, doesn't have prototypical body mass or length. Doesn't have big hands. Frame is filled out pretty well, so limited upside development to get stronger or faster. Improved his speed in 2025 vs 2024 but could be maxed out and not able to gain better burst or long-speed going forward in his career.

Below average lateral jump cut range and limited lateral explosiveness. Insufficient downhill momentum and speed to be a good power back, including for short yardage situations. Comes up short on SY runs too frequently. Not elusive or electric in space to make defenders miss. Not impressive sticking his foot in the ground on zone runs, just average speed going through the hole. Low twitch athlete relative to his size. Not shifty or quick. Loses momentum when he dodges or pulls out of tackles, not able to stack moves together. Too tightly wound. Not creative 1 vs 1 when the hole is wide enough for him to make a move, too basic of a straight-line approach. No jump cut ability to escape early penetration to erase TFLs. Mistimes some of his moves when he does try to dodge tackles.

Average long speed in the open field with no extra gear to burn pursuit angles. Has to dig hard to get to top speed. Average speed heading to the corner. Not dynamic or dangerous bouncing runs outside.

Needs to keep the ball even tighter to his chest and cover it up more consistently with 2 hands in traffic. Doesn't always carry the ball in the correct hand and doesn't transfer it quickly when he does decide to switch hands.

Average vision and instincts, wasting good opportunities. Occasionally takes wasted steps behind the LOS. Jumped forward too quickly after handoff, missing an enormous hole you could have driven nearly 3 cars through, too close to his OL, getting ankle tackled and stuffed instead of ripping off enormous chunk play. Extra steps or slight pause on cutbacks. Unnecessary lateral hop step when he should have immediately accelerated downhill.

Regularly defaults to just plowing forward instead of trying to beat defenders guarding the edge to try for bigger runs. Doesn't bounce runs outside when it is available, plays it too conservatively and plows inside.

Terrible pass blocker. Pathetic whiff trying to go low on DE. Weak chip blocks. Poor length for pass blocking. Unreliable decision making when scanning, not helping OL and recognizing danger developing for the QB. Weak and soft blocker. Was 100% blind to S blitz, causing sack. Waits too deep in the pocket for LB blitz instead of stepping forward to meet them closer to the LOS.

Too limited as a receiver. Not dangerous on RB screens. Lethargic burst after the catch. Insufficient burst releasing from the backfield, causing him to be too close to the box to be an effective target for the QB, unable to gain the proper depth in his route early enough in the play.

 

[Twopointtry]

Part 2: Strengths

Reliable intangibles. Mature, grounded, smart, personable, very religious, devout Catholic, family and community oriented. Has 3 siblings. He'll be great in the community and represent the franchise well. Shouldn't be any issues with him learning playbook, his work ethic or knowing his assignments for each game. His dad was an NFL player. I think he'll have an advantage over other prospects based on his interview, because a player who can't be trusted off the field or in the meeting room can be just as bad or worse than a player who has a leg injury. Despite being a top recruit, doesn't have a big ego, has a selfless attitude, wants to help other people, will be team oriented and buy in if NFL team has a good team culture. Has special teams experience and will do that task if asked by the coaches. Already has his degree.

Played or will play in pro-style offenses at Bama, Michigan and GT. Excellent production metrics. Almost never fumbles. Stellar career YPC. Experienced with variety of run concepts, scheme versatile with both gap and zone runs.

Strong legs, filled out upper body. None one of those midget or scat back 5'9'' RBs. He's almost 6 feet tall. If he could improve his blocking and receiving technique, he has the size to develop into a 3-down RB.

Does a great Ahmad Hardy imitation. Multiple plays where he lowers his shoulder pads, survives heavy collisions, maintains balance and keeps on trucking. If Hardy can't play football anymore after getting shot and NFL teams want a similar RB, they should check out Haynes.

Runs low to the ground and behind his pads. Good downhill runner on gap plays. Gets tough yards between the tackles. Not soft or scared of contact.

Very smooth runner. Good body control and coordination. Changes speed appropriately. Can change his track to make 2nd level defenders miss.

Good spatial awareness. Sees defenders coming as he hits the hole and finds defenders in the open field with peripheral vision. Intelligent runner. Cerebral. Subtly presses the hole on interior runs, manipulating and trapping the LB into the wrong gap. Good vision and awareness approaching the LOS if 2nd level defenders get out of position, can punish the defense for those mistakes.

Not an elite burner, but has better long speed than Kyren Williams, so plenty good enough to be a successful NFL RB.

Was RB1 in 2025 and should finish his career as an experienced starter. Limited number of carries so far in his career, so while he's had some injuries, also doesn't have the same mileage, wear and tear as some other top RB prospects.

He was a baseball pitcher and as a kid tried to play QB. Since he has some arm talent, probably could throw the ball pretty well on trick play HB passes.

 

[Twopointtry]

Part 4: Draft Grade and Pro Comp

Late round grade. Israel Abanikanda (5th round 2023, Jets, Pitt).

Despite gaudy stats at Pitt, Abanikanda hasn't had much of a career so far. In terms of Haynes's running style and traits, he's similar to a RB drafted in his dad's class, "the other Adrian Peterson", who played at Georgia Southern and was a 6th round pick by the Bears. Peterson had a solid career as a backup, spending 8 seasons with the Bears. I don't think that Haynes has a high ceiling and merits an early round pick, but if he could play 8 years in the pros like Peterson, he'd be a good Day 3 pick for a team. The number one thing he has to fix is he has to get better as a pass blocker. Even more than his foot injury, that's a big weakness that could get him cut from a roster. I don't see Haynes as a future NFL starter. To me, he's just a backup candidate.

 

[Twopointtry]

I think it is important to emphasize that while many experts ranked Haynes as a 1st or 2nd round prospect, notice that if we compare Haynes side-by-side with the "nobody" RB that I just profiled, Marty Brown, IMO Brown is the superior prospect in every single category. Brown is the better pure runner, he's more elusive, better burst, way better pass blocker, way better receiver. It isn't really close. I don't even have these 2 RBs on the same tier. Brown just didn't happen to play for Michigan in 2025.

 

[jjab360]

Um... do we really need an AI thread for every single player in college football?

 

[Twopointtry]

Um... do we really need an AI thread for every single player in college football?

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[IdleThunder]

Out for Justice

The Rams drafted Blake Corum in the 3rd round of the 2024 draft. The very next RB taken was MarShawn Lloyd, just a few picks later. If you had asked me which of those 2 backs I would have taken, I would have been indifferent, because I liked both of them. I also would have been fine with skipping RB in that round and drafting Cody Schrader in the late rounds, because I liked him too. Instead of all 3 of these options producing the same result, the route Snead chose has clearly turned out to be the best.

Schrader was on our PS at one point. He's now on his 5th NFL team. He has one career NFL rushing attempt (for 3 yards), which came with the Rams at the very end of the 2024 season. Lloyd always been injured. He missed the entire 2025 season due to injury. He believes that the root cause of his durability problems stems from an ACL injury he had in college and that an imbalance and overcompensating for that has led to other parts of his body breaking down. He's only appeared in one NFL game and has 15 career rushing yards and 3 receiving yards. His NFL future is murky, and he wasn't impressive in his team's first preseason game this year.

The first RB drafted in 2024 was Jonathon Brooks, a 2nd round pick. Brooks had an ACL injury in college. Brooks tore his ACL again late in his rookie season and missed all of 2025. He has 22 career rushing yards and has only appeared in 3 NFL games. Corum got injured in college as well, but he's been far more productive in the pros than Lloyd, Schrader or Brooks, with nearly 1,000 career rushing yards. 40 yards combined for the other 3 RBs vs almost 1,000 for Corum. Go figure.

Justice Haynes is the top ranked RB on FirstandTen's big board, the 13th overall prospect. Prior to breaking his foot in the middle of the 2025 season, experts were projecting him as a 1st to 2nd round pick for the 2026 draft. One draft profile compares him to Darrell Henderson. After a breakout season with Michigan, Haynes has transferred to Georgia Tech. DraftBuzz is scared off by his foot injury and says that he's a potential UDFA if his medicals don't check out.

Is F&T justified in ranking Haynes as one of the best players in the entire draft? If so, will NFL teams still pass on him even if he has a productive 2026, afraid that what has happened to Brooks and Lloyd will happen to Haynes and he can't be counted on to be available to play? Could the Rams benefit by scooping up a talented RB at a steep discount?

I think 13th overall is pretty aggressive for Haynes, but I get the argument behind it. The talent is obvious, and Corum is a good reminder that an injury history doesn’t automatically mean a back is going to be unavailable in the NFL.


At the same time, Brooks and Lloyd are exactly why teams get nervous. If Haynes stays healthy all year at Georgia Tech and looks like the same explosive runner he was at Michigan, I think a lot of the concern will fade, but the medicals are going to matter more than another 1,000-yard season.


From the Rams’ point of view, that’s where it gets interesting. I wouldn’t want them forcing a RB high just because they like him, but if the foot injury pushes a genuinely early-round talent down a round or two, that’s exactly the kind of discount worth considering.


So I’m probably not at #13 overall, but I can absolutely see the case for the Rams taking advantage if the league is more scared of the medical history than the tape says it should be.