Nicholas Singleton

Although a broken foot denied him the opportunity to participate in pre-draft testing, the unequivocal assumption is that Singleton would have been among the most athletic running backs in the draft, probably only testing worse than Jeremiyah Love. Not even Love is necessarily a better pure athlete than Singleton, though -- Singleton is a former five-star recruit and track standout whose production at Penn State repeatedly tells the tale of a player too big and fast for the defense to contain. Despite falling to the fifth round of the 2026 draft, there's zero ambiguity about the fact that Singleton was one of the most dangerous big-play running backs of the past four years. Even with some ups and downs along the way -- most recently and perhaps concerningly losing work to sixth-round pick Kaytron Allen -- no one can deny the impressiveness of Singleton's cumulative rushing average and touchdown rate over the volume he demonstrated. Singleton's touchdown rate of 45 on 622 carries (7.2 percent) at 5.6 yards per carry is a portrait of a big-play machine -- normally a touchdown rate so high would be a downward pressure on the YPC figure, because the closer you are to the end zone the less yardage you can accumulate on the play in question. Singleton lacks breadth as a runner and probably works best on outside-oriented power concepts, and for that reason he would probably work best as the 1A or 1B in an offense rather than a true three-down running back. Singleton's pass-catching ability is otherwise notable or compelling -- Singleton shows hands, body control and even some route-running acumen as a running back, catching 91 receptions for 902 yards and eight touchdowns on 118 targets (77.2-percent catch rate, 7.6 YPT). Tony Pollard is the clear starter in Tennessee and Tyjae Spears is the clear RB2, but Spears has one of the league's worst injury histories and Pollard is not a classic workhorse either. Singleton only needs a bit role to get his foot in the door, and if he can earn the RB3 distinction in Tennessee he should be closer to the field than most other RB3 types. Read Past Outlooks