Nicholas Singleton has a case for being the most interesting draft pick Titans GM Mike Borgonzi made this year. The 4-year Penn State back comes into the NFL nursing an unfortunate Senior Bowl foot fracture that he’ll return from soon, but don’t let the health setback distract you from what makes him one of the highest-upside picks any team made on Day 3.

The McShay Show hosts laid out the case this past week for why he’s a favorite selection of theirs, and referenced a fascinating statistical trend that applies here.

Titans RB Nicholas Singleton “favorite fifth round pick” but has concerns

Tennessee found a day three running back in Singleton who reminded GM Mike Borgonzi of another day three back from his days in Kansas City, in Isaiah Pacheco. 

Singleton does have several elements to his draft profile that make him exciting. He flirted with or broke most of Saquon Barkley’s weight room records at Penn State, and broke Barkley’s total touchdown record on the actual field. 

Steve Muench, co-host of the McShay Show on The Ringer, has Singleton at pick 165 as his favorite of all the fifth round picks.

“He’s coming off a disappointing season,” Muench said. “He broke his foot in the Senior Bowl. But, let’s be real about this. This is a guy that rushed for 3,461 yards and 45 touchdowns at Penn State. He was a highly productive player over the course of his career, and by all reports, this kid would have put on an absolute show if he was able to work out at the combine.”

Singleton had a Jones fracture injury in late January and surgery that followed in February. It’s the same injury former Titans running back Derrick Henry had in the 2021 season where he missed 11 weeks and returned for the playoffs. 

“I do have my concerns about (his running) vision a little bit,” Muench continued. “If you can get him right, and you can get him going in a more positive direction, getting back to the way he was playing earlier in his career, you’ve got a young, talented, big back who can help share the load with Tony Pollard, and that is critical for what they want to do.”

“(The Titans) asked too much of Cam Ward last year as a rookie. They have got to run the ball more. They’ve got to show a greater commitment to the running game. I like Tajae Spears. I think he’s more of a number three than a number two. I think you may have gotten your number two back on the cheap by drafting Singleton (in round five.”

We did see the best of Ward’s rookie season when the team had more success on the ground. Pollard saved his season by ripping off three straight 100+ yard rushing games and finished with his second 1,000 yard season with the Titans in as many seasons. 

Spears is absolutely on watch. The former third round pick is entering the final year of his rookie contract, and while he’s shown flashes of incredible ability, his consistency in play and health created the need for an insurance policy at running back. 

The Titans previous coaching staff used Spears as a third down back option due to his pass catching ability and trust in pass protection for the quarterback. Singleton shares those same qualities, but the running back pass protection jump from college to the NFL is substantial. 

Assuming health for both players, this could be an interesting battle to watch in training camp. Even more impactful is if Singleton can show that he’s not just an RB2 behind Pollard, but has RB1A or RB1B abilities as Pollard is also entering a contract year.

The data that sets Nick Singleton up to be a draft steal

Todd McShay’s two cents on the Singleton pick brought up a statistical trend that strongly applies to Singleton’s college profile.

“You’re betting on the early career stuff and you know, it’s interesting if you go back and study the trends,” McShay explained. “Running backs that had great production early in their college career, regardless of what it was late, tend to work out. Why the correlation? You can, you know, raw talent or whatever it is. But there’s a strong correlation between running backs that, like, freshman/sophomore year that have massive production in college wind up going into the NFL and either out-play their draft slot or out-play a lot of other running backs that maybe finish their career stronger.”

This is true! Analytics show a clear positive correlation between early breakout/production in college and NFL success. Let’s take a look at the specific numbers that bear this out.

The most direct and comprehensive data on this comes from an experience-adjusted analysis of backs between 2013-2019. This study looks at this problem primarily through a fantasy football lens, but for our purposes, the running back position is a pretty cut-and-dry one to cross reference in this way. Good backs get the ball more, they run for more yards and score more touchdowns, and they score more fantasy points. The correlation between good fantasy back and good real-world-football back is about as straightforward as you can get.

What we’re looking at here is TYPTP: Total Yards Per Team Play. This is just a player’s scrimmage yards per total team offensive plays. For these early producers, we’re looking at years 1 and 2 out of high school.

Successful NFL running backs in this study are defined as those with at least one top-24 PPR fantasy season in their first three years as a pro. These successful NFL backs averaged 1.21 TYPTP in their true freshman and sophomore college seasons.

Take a look at the hit rate on this definition of “successful NFL RB” by round. Here you’ll see the difference between the total hit rate vs. those who quality as early producers:

DRAFT DAY	TOTAL	EARLY PRODUCERS
1	77.78%	83.33%
2	60.00%	68.75%
3	12.37%	27.27%

The increased likelihood of hitting by betting on an early producer only increased the later you get into the draft, which is of course relevant to Singleton being a fifth round selection.

In Singleton’s 2022 Big Ten Freshman of the Year Campaign, he was just 18 years old. He averaged 1.25 TYPTP that year, and these graphs charting his production both in terms of scrimmage and specifically receiving yards by year is a fascinating way of looking at it. These can be found with additional context at this link on Jakob Sanderson’s Substack, which I recommend!

The bottom line is simple: Singleton is one of the biggest boom/bust selections in all of Day 3 this year. The likelihood he breaks out in a RB room ripe for the taking is only bolstered by his early college production. Now all that’s left to do is get back to 100% health and develop as a pro.