Scouting Report: Jordan James - RB - Oregon
Sales Pitch: Productive back with above average quickness and strength. Struggles with the finer points of the position but at only freshly turned 21 years old has starter upside.
*Gold Numbers Indicate NCAA Top-25 for 2024*
*Red Numbers Indicate NCAA Bottom-25 for 2024*
Scouting Report
Jordan James is a former 4-Star recruit from Oakland, California. He made appearances in games during both of his first two seasons in Eugene, but wasn’t handed the starting role until his junior year. In 2024 he exploded for over 1,200 yards and was awarded 2nd Team All-Big 10 honors for his efforts.
James possesses average size and weight for the position but is a good athlete with solid play strength. He is a slippery back who is adept at finding narrow creases in traffic to slip through. He displays the agility to make defenders miss one on one in the hole and in space. James has above average burst to beat defenders to the edge and uses his stop start ability to freeze linebackers feet in the hole. While not the biggest back James has the upper body strength to run through arm tackles in the hole. He has a flexible frame with good balance that allows him absorb contact and spin out of tackles. James put up respectable receiving numbers due to competent ball skills as a checkdown option and the movement skills to make linebackers miss in space.
2024 was James first year as a starting RB and it showed. He struggles with the finer points of the position, particularly with reading and anticipating blocks. He is an impatient runner that will step on the heals of his blockers disrupting the timing of plays. When the initial play is muddied up, he panics and will look to over create. Despite his burst and quickness, James struggled on zone concepts due to an inability to set up blocks. He is overly quick to attack space, often missing cutback lanes that appear later in the play. His struggles finding cutback lanes limited the amount of big plays he was able to make, an ability already hampered by average long speed. Despite his generally solid play strength, James fails to consistently win in short yardage situations. When linebackers are able to square him up in the hole, they can stop all his momentum as he lacks the leg drive to continue his forward push James put up good pass catching production in 2024 but had a major concentration drop problem. His 5 drops was tied for the most among qualified back in 2024. He is also a massive negative in pass protection. He struggles to identify blitzing defenders and is left guessing a lot. His poor technique and limited lower body strength allows linebackers to bounce off his initial attempt and continue on their path to the quarterback.
James profiles as a rotational back with the ability to grow into a low to mid range starter later in his career. His above average quickness and strength create a nice physical package but at 20 years old he struggles with the finer details of the position. A surprising declare given the strength of the RB class James projects as an early Day-3 pick as a project with starter upside.