With their third pick of the 2018 NFL Draft, the Denver Broncos drafted Pac-12 stud Royce Freeman. 

We actually saw Freeman live this year while scouting Josh Allen against Oregon. After re-watching, the tape here’s what we found. 

Strengths:

• Freeman was incredibly productive all four years at Oregon.
• He’s a good downhill runner, a classic north-and-south back, who is decisive and churns out lots of yards.
• He’ll slowly pound teams to death, gaining positive yardage regularly.
• Royce sets up defenders nicely in the passing game while running routes. He moves well laterally, showing good instincts to get open underneath.
• He shows good patience as a runner and has some deceptive wiggle to him.

• He’s strong running up the middle and can bust runs outside too. Freeman’s fast enough to win the corner over defenders in the Pac-12. 
• He uses jump cuts well and can make the first defender miss.
• Oregon’s bell cow is a willing blocker on the run in two-back sets and is a decent pass protector.
• He runs low to the ground and has the ability to break tackles and punish defenders.

• He seeks out contact and has potential to be a terrific short-yardage back. 

• Though it doesn’t show on tape, his combine numbers were really promising, showing that maybe he has more speed and quickness than we’ve seen to this point.

Weaknesses:

• Freeman isn’t a creative runner.
• He lacks speed and isn’t a home run threat.
• He’s a workhorse back who already has a lot of mileage on his tires.
• No. 21 isn’t a sudden athlete and lacks great agility.

• He struggles to read blocks and doesn’t have the athleticism to create cutback lanes.
• He was underutilized in the passing game and had very few receptions in his career.
• He comes from a spread attack and is basically only used to running out of the gun. He’ll need to be groomed in an NFL offense, adapting to read run lanes and hit the hole with more urgency. 
• His vision is just okay, not great.
• He needs to run harder and be more powerful taking advantage of his size. He doesn’t use enough stiff arms and he doesn’t truck over as many defenders as he could on tape. 

In conclusion

Freeman feels like a classic college performer who had terrific production and over-performed at the combine. He was likely over-drafted because of those two reasons and there are things on tape that are concerning about his ability to be the kind of back who carries it 20 times per game.

He reminds me some of LeGarrette Blount, but needs to be meaner imposing himself on defenses to warrant that comparison. There’s a bit of a concern that he’s a Montee Ball type prospect, who produced in a very RB-friendly offense, but might not be able to reproduce that as a pro.

Regardless, Freeman, with some coaching, should be able to be, at the very worst, a third-down runner who can fit into the Broncos rotation. If he can play up to his combine testing, and develop more as a receiver, then he certainly could become a starter in this league, but he’ll have some work to do before then.

This was a safe pick and Freeman doesn’t have the upside that other backs like Kalen Ballage, Mark Walton, or Josh Adams have, all who were still available on the board. Given the way the board fell, it’s legitimate to wonder if this was the best pick at the position the Broncos could’ve made.