Prospect Profile: Ty Johnson

TY JOHNSON -- RB, MARYLAND

Alex Chen/The Diamondback

Physical Measurables & Athletic Profile

Maryland's Ty Johnson weighed in at his pro day at 5'10 and 210 pounds, a bit small for an NFL workhorse but not to the point where his size should be a concern for his professional workload (and he told media that he cut weight for the pro day, so his playing weight is likely ~5 pounds heavier). Hitting the 210 and 3.00 pounds per inch marks means he profiles physically similar to high-volume rushers (at least 10 carries per game for their careers) like Marlon Mack, Dalvin Cook, and Sony Michel. 

Athletically, Ty Johnson is a beast, at least in a straight line. There were varying reports of his pro day 40-time -- playerprofiler.com has him at an adjusted 4.45, I saw reports of 4.26, but the most common time I came across was 4.33, which adjusts to a "Combine time" of 4.38. Whatever Johnson ran, it's clear that he's very fast. He also performed decently well in the jumps, producing a 59th-percentile Burst Score. To top it all off, he smashed in the bench, putting up 27 reps that, in combination with his size, build, and lower body explosiveness, produce a Power Score of 53.5 that measures in the 63rd-percentile and is a good indicator of his ability to handle heavy volume on the ground. While we don't know the measurable specifics of his lateral agility, Ty Johnson looks the part of a SPARQ-ed up NFL workhorse. 

Production Profile

After meeting age-adjusted rushing yards market share thresholds for success (based on RBs with at least one RB2-quality fantasy season on their resumé) in 2016 and 2017, Ty Johnson's share of the Maryland rushing game faltered this last year:

Tool from @theDude_Z with data courtesy of @pahowdy

This particular charting does not take into account the three games that Johnson missed in 2018, but even just based on the games he played, his Dominator Rating fell from 20.7% and 20.9% in 2016 and 2017, respectively, to just 12.1% in 2018. Much of that decrease is due to his conceding touches to redshirt freshman Anthony McFarland, a 4-star recruit and the 3rd ranked RB nationally in the class of 2017. Losing playing time at all is not a good sign for any draft hopeful, but if it's going to happen, you'd like it to be to a talented player. McFarland certainly is that.

Ty Johnson's workload-adjusted receiving involvement is a boon to his NFL potential. While never recording more than 16 receptions in a season in a terrible Maryland passing offense, Johnson posted Satellite Scores of 39.6 and 10.5 as a freshman and sophomore, respectively, before notching a 93rd-percentile mark of 55.4 in 2018. The 10.5 Score he posted in 2017 is the clear outlier here, as the 2.2% target share he garnered in that season is well below his other seasonal marks of 8.2% and 6.7%. While he caught just 29 passes in four seasons in college, adjusting his receiving contributions for overall offensive involvement indicates that Ty Johnson should be a high-quality receiving back in the NFL, as his final season Satellite Score is comparable to those of other workhorse-sized runners like Alvin Kamara, Arian Foster, Ronnie Brown, DeMarco Murray, Joe Mixon, and Saquon Barkley. Even if he doesn't latch on as a three-down player, his passing game acumen is good enough that it should allow him to fill a role as a big, explosive satellite back. 

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

Rushing Efficiency

While his team-adjusted efficiency numbers (Chunk Rate Over Team and Breakaway Rate Over Team, measuring a player's rate of 10+ and 20+ yard runs, respectively, compared to the rest of his team's rate) fell off a bit in 2018 -- likely due to the presence of another talented runner in the backfield in McFarland -- Ty Johnson was always as good a bet as any Maryland ballcarrier to break off a long run. His 2016 BROT would rank second only to Darrell Henderson in this year's class, and his CROT from that season is the 5th-highest mark I've charted among players in the last seven draft classes (and would rank 3rd in this class behind Henderson and Mike Weber). If the 3.80 True YPC (which limits long runs to a maximum of 10 yards) he posted in 2017 is just an outlier and not an indication of a lack of pure running ability, Johnson's top-end athleticism should put him over the top as a quality NFL rusher and big-play threat.

Pro Football Focus has not published any Ty Johnson analysis or data during this pre-draft process, but I was able to unearth some old tweets from their @PFF_College account that provide some insight into the kind of runner Johnson was early in his college career. During the 2017 offseason, PFF reported that Johnson posted a 108.6 Elusive Rating in the previous campaign, a mark that would rank between Devine Ozigbo and Josh Jacobs as the 7th-best Rating in this class. Additionally, PFF reported that Johnson averaged 5.26 yards after contact per carry in 2016, which was the then the best mark of any returning runner in the Big 10. Some basic math tells me that that rate means Johnson gained 66% of his total rushing yards after contact that year, a number that compares well to the 2018 marks of guys in this class like Ozigbo, Miles Sanders, and Darrell Henderson. That 5.26 yards after contact per carry is also a higher mark than Ozigbo, Sanders, Jacobs, David Montgomery, and Damien Harris ever posted in their college careers. Ty Johnson can run the ball. 

Similarity Scores & Overall Outlook

The 11th-percentile Dominator Rating that Ty Johnson put up during his final college season opens him up to quite a few no-name RBs making appearances on his closest comps lists:

Because I know that Johnson was an efficient runner with more productive seasons on his resumé, I'm willing to look past the Daniel Lasco and Bo Scarbrough-level matches on his Production comps list. He was never an elite producer, but he's a better player than that.

Evaluating the Ty Johnson profile is a tantalizing exercise; just imagine Chris Henry or Rashard Mendenhall from an athletic standpoint matched with the skillset and versatility of Alvin Kamara or DeMarco Murray. Spencer Ware is Johnson's closest Path to Success match (this comparison limits the player pool to just guys who've notched at least one RB2-level season), but most of their similarities are found in their almost identical production profiles. Ty Johnson is a much closer stylistic match to a guy like Murray. Murray is taller, but both carry just over 3.00 pounds per inch on their frames, and both are strong, fast athletes with an excellent versatile element to their games.

Overall, I like Ty Johnson as one of the higher ceiling prospects in this year's RB class. While elements of his profile are unknown (namely his agility and tackle-breaking ability), the data we do have on him is as exciting as it could be for a player with such an underwhelming history of college production. If you were building a RB in a lab, you'd want him to be fast, strong, densely built, and possess good skills in the passing game. Ty Johnson checks all of those boxes. He's a borderline top-10 back in this class to me, and a guy I would not be surprised to see overcome poor draft capital to eventually earn a starting role on an NFL team. Currently being drafted in the late 4th round of rookie drafts, there is not another guy available in that dart throw area who boasts as much upside as Johnson does. He's obviously not a sure thing (no 4th round rookie pick is), but if there's a David Johnson or Alvin Kamara or Arian Foster waiting in the weeds of this draft class and his name is not Devine Ozigbo, it's gotta be Ty Johnson.

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