Predicting what Jaydon Blue’s rookie season could look like requires a look back at history.
One of the more fun and interesting players the Dallas Cowboys selected in the NFL draft last week was University of Texas running back Jaydon Blue. He is also one of the only real offensive toys the team spent a draft pick on.
Understanding what is going to come of the Cowboys running back room is difficult at best as the team has really remodeled it this offseason. Blue was drafted alongside Clemson runner Phil Mafah, but not before the Cowboys signed Javonte Williams and Miles Sanders in free agency. Malik Davis and Deuce Vaughn lurk as other would-be options as well.
It goes without saying that Blue’s dynamic abilities as an outright running back, and in the passing game as well, will find their way into Brian Schottenheimer’s offense. For a bit of fun we are doing our best today to try and predict what his rookie season could look like.
The “word” predict is a bit tough, though.
Understanding Jaydon Blue rookie projections through the lens of history
First and foremost, let us identify that Jaydon is indeed a pass-catching weapon. The best season we have seen from a Cowboys running back in recent history was Tony Pollard in 2022 and he figured well into the passing game that year. His 371 yards and three touchdowns were both career highs for him in the receiving department.
Before we look back at Dallas Cowboys history let us look back at what Jaydon Blue just accomplished nearby in Austin.
Across the 2024 college football season there were only nine players who met the minimum thresholds of 130 rushing attempts, 700 rushing yards, 40 receptions and 350 receiving yards. Jaydon was one of them.
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It is important to understand that we are referencing Tony Pollard for more reason than just his 2022 campaign with the Cowboys. Consider that Blue was taken at 149 overall in the fifth round of the draft. He marked the first running back who the Cowboys selected inside of the top 150 since Pollard went at 128 in the fourth round back in 2019. Obviously prior to Pollard it was Ezekiel Elliott in 2016 at number four overall. From a draft capital standpoint, this is the highest level of investment that the team has made in some time.
Understanding that context, consider that Pollard himself only met one of the four minimum criteria that we just talked about with Blue during his own final collegiate season (Pollard had 458 receiving yards at Memphis in 2018). From a production standpoint he had less going on than Blue does, although similar to Blue’s situation at Texas there were also a lot of other talented backs who Pollard shared a backfield with during his time in school.
Pollard obviously joined a Cowboys team that had an Ezekiel Elliott with two rushing titles to his name through three seasons at that point in time. He was used sparingly as a rookie which offers a potential glimpse at what we could see from Blue in 2025.
Below is a list of every player in Dallas Cowboys franchise history who saw at least 80 carries throughout the course of their rookie season. Pollard made it onto that list and could serve as a good guideline of statistical production for Blue, even with no modern-day Zeke in the backfield to absorb the bulk of attention.
Stathead
Obviously Blue will not have a season similar to Elliott, but DeMarco Murray in 2011 is another interesting comparison to potentially draw a line towards. In Murray’s rookie season the Cowboys were also dealing with a first-time head coach who was calling the offensive plays in Jason Garrett the way they are currently with Brian Schottenheimer. That Cowboys team was also trying to re-make their offensive line in the way that the current group hopes to emulate.
That is where the similarities dry up a bit as Murray and Blue are hardly the same type of player. It is hard to see Blue jumping into the NFL and taking 164 carries right away, even if the rest of the running back room is a bit of a mystery right now.
Still though, ball-parking things a bit it seems like we can expect around 90-100 carries at minimum. Involvement in the passing game will certainly factor into that, but that is a little bit more difficult to predict as that is so often the result of circumstances on a play-to-play basis.
If we understand that some marriage of the rookie seasons Pollard and Murray put forth is where Blue will live then 100ish carries seems right for somewhere around 700 yards. That would hardly be a bad thing if the Cowboys were picking up the slack somewhere else.
Where is that else? In Javonte Williams, Miles Sanders or Phil Mafah? That is unknown. There are a lot of answers to be found.