Prospect Profile: Alex Barnes

ALEX BARNES -- RB, KANSAS STATE

Scott Winters/Icon Sportswire

Physical Measurables & Athletic Profile

Alex Barnes is probably the most physically impressive RB in this year's class. At 226 pounds and with 3.12 pounds per inch on his frame, he's well within the size and density range we want for potential bellcow backs. He looks a lot like other tall, heavy runners like TJ Yeldon, Todd Gurley, and Arian Foster, and is certainly capable of handling a full workload as a lead RB. 

Athletically, Barnes blew everybody away at the Combine. Previously thought to be some sort of poor man's Benny Snell, he came out and established himself as the best athlete in this RB class, especially considering his size. He was a beast on the bench and very good in the jumps, displaying upper body strength and lower body explosiveness that, along with his workhorse frame, generated a 69.4 Power Score, a mark that indicates his ability to carry a heavy load and that is higher than every RB in the database outside Saquon Barkley, Jonathan Stewart, and Derrick Henry. Barnes showed more than power at the Combine though, running sub-4.6 in the 40 and posting an 85th-percentile Agility Score (according to playerprofiler.com). Barnes' physical profile is a unique one, comparable but superior to that of former South Dakota State runner Zach Zenner, and with some resemblance to those of guys like Nick Chubb and David Johnson. The size-explosiveness-agility combination that Barnes boasts is rare, and makes him a stunningly tantalizing prospect in a RB class fairly dry on exciting players. 

Production Profile

Easily the most concerning element of the Alex Barnes profile is that it took him until his senior year to become a solid contributor in a Kansas State offense very light on NFL talent (based on RBs with at least one top-24 PPR season on their resumé, that was the first year Barnes reached rushing yards market share thresholds for NFL success): 

Tool from @theDude_Z with data courtesy of @pahowdy

It's important of course that he eventually did breakout and post a successful age-adjusted season, but it would be nice to have seen him overcome the Charles Joneses and Justin Silmons that were ahead of him on the depth chart a little earlier. When he did produce as a lead back in 2018, he posted the highest Dominator Rating of any Power Five conference RB in this year's class, posting a 38.1% mark higher than the best season Ratings from draftnik darlings and fellow Big 12 runners David Montgomery and Rodney Anderson (even adjusting for games missed).

Perhaps more important to Barnes' profile in my eyes than dominating the production on a mediocre Kansas State team are his contributions as a receiver out of the backfield. Barnes doesn't profile as some sort of elite satellite back or anything, but the 10.7% target share and 20 total receptions he posted as a senior show that he's not just a two-down grinder. Considering that 77th-percentile target share figure in the context of Barnes' 86th-percentile Dominator Rating generates a 45th-percentile Satellite Score of 28.1, higher than RBs with 50+ reception seasons like Carlos Hyde, LeSean McCoy, Ezekiel Elliott, and James Conner. I doubt Barnes will ever have the nuance to be a near 80-catch guy like Elliott was this last year, but I certainly believe he has the ability to be a Carlos Hyde-level contributor in the passing game. It wouldn't be an optimal deployment of talent to have Barnes serve as the primary backfield pass-catcher like Hyde was with San Francisco in 2016 (it wasn't optimal with Hyde, either), but the edges on Barnes' square peg are rounded enough that he could fit into a circular hole if he needed to. He'll likely never be the best pass-catching RB on his team, but he'll be good enough in that area to not be a liability on third downs. 

note: target data from 2016 is not available (as far as I know -- I'd love to see it if it is), so target share is estimated using 2016 reception total and 2017-18 catch rates -- Barnes didn't catch any balls in 2016 anyway, so it doesn't matter much in this instance

Rushing Efficiency

While unspectacular, Alex Barnes was an efficient runner during his final season at Kansas State. He finished with an above-class-average True YPC rate (discounting long runs to a maximum of 10 yards) of 4.08, as well as a good score in Breakaway Rate Over Team (measuring a player's rate of 20+ yard runs vs. the rest of his team's rate of 20+ yard runs) and a low rate of runs that lost yardage that ranks 6th in the class. His efficiency numbers are actually very similar to those of 2019 classmate and former Kentucky RB Benny Snell, except, true to their respective athletic testing performances, Barnes was a much more dynamic breakaway threat. 

Barnes posted these numbers while running behind an offensive line that was significantly worse than Snell's, and pretty mediocre overall (according to Football Outsiders). He's not going to wow you with amazing long speed or crazy, Saquon Barkley-type jukes behind the line of scrimmage, but Alex Barnes is a runner with no glaring weaknesses and is going to pick up positive yardage at a consistent rate. He has the size and power to grind for tough yards as well as the agility to make plays outside the tackles. 

Similarity Scores & Overall Outlook

Even though I now know that Alex Barnes is a good athlete in addition to having produced well in his final college season, I always do a mental double-take when I look at the quality comps for this guy who three weeks ago I was sure was an un-explosive, two-down grinder: 

The craziest thing about Barnes' comps is that his Path to Success matches (generated by comparing a player to every RB in the database with at least one RB2-quality season in their career to find the successful runners a prospect most resembles) are the same guys as his overall Most Similar matches,  other than Robert Turbin's cameo on the latter list. In other words, even without limiting the available comps to only RB2-level fantasy producers, five of the six most similar players in the database to Alex Barnes are successful NFL runners. 

I don't think Barnes is ever going to have the receiving chops to be David Johnson in the NFL (few do), and perhaps not even Knowshon Moreno (a 60-reception player himself) -- and his 3-Down Profile comps (using body type, Power Score, and Satellite Score to predict the kind of carry/target split a player will see in the NFL) back that up; the five players on that list have had targets make up an average of 15.6% of their total opportunities, compared to the 10-year overall average of 23.2%. It's a good indication for his pro prospects then that even if he's not a three-down, all-purpose type of back, his Most Similar comps list includes successful two-down backs like Jay Ajayi and Nick Chubb. 

The range of outcomes for the type of player that Alex Barnes becomes is wide, but I think it's mostly made up of quality possibilities. Considering his late breakout age, his floor is probably a Zach Zenner or a Robert Turbin-level reserve or committee runner, while given the versatility he showed as a college player and the impressive athleticism he displayed at the Combine, his ceiling likely looks a bit like a healthy Jay Ajayi, an adequately talented back with decent pass-catching ability who can put together Pro Bowl-quality performances in the right situation. 

Overall, I don't want to get suckered by a great Combine into thinking that Alex Barnes is a can't-miss prospect. I have to remember what he was in my mind before I knew that he could broad jump 126 inches or bench press 225 pounds 34 times: a fine but unspectacular RB who didn't breakout at Kansas State until his senior year. I do like him -- even without the athleticism, his combination of size, receiving production, and dominance at a Power Five school made him at least a 91.4% pre-combine match to Le'Veon Bell, Jay Ajayi, Leonard Fournette, and Todd Gurley -- but I don't want to get carried away. To me, his size and versatility make him a high-floor guy that should at least stick around in the NFL for awhile, and his athleticism means he has the ceiling to be an RB1 in fantasy. Where he gets drafted will say a lot about his potential: if an NFL team loves him and takes him in the early 3rd round, the odds of his turning in Ajayi-level fantasy seasons go way up, while on the flip side, I don't think he's the sort of obvious talent that will demand playing time if he's taken as a depth RB in the 5th or 6th round. He's a borderline top-5 RB in this class and I'd be comfortable taking him in the early-to-mid 2nd round of a rookie draft if an NFL team selects him highly enough in April. 

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