5 LA Rams players who could be 2020 surprise starters

Running back

In every season, a player emerges in training camp far better than anyone expected or even imagined. Despite the draft profiles and analysis that convinced everyone that the ceiling for a particular player is too low to truly make an NFL player. And yet, that challenge seems to motivate the player to break through that ceiling pretty quickly.  Running back Xavier Jones seems to fit that sort of player.

The ultimate goal of a running back is to run the ball into the end zone. And for 2019, Xavier Jones was absolutely the most successful running back in all of college football at that goal.  He has decent enough size for the running back position, standing 5-foot-11 and weighing 208 pounds. He can put up the yards too, averaging 5.2 yards-per-carry  (YPC) on his way to a massive 3,434 yards over his college career. But where he shines is his scoring production. 48 touchdowns over 50 games, and 25 touchdowns in his final 13 college games

All he does is score touchdowns

Sometimes we make things too complex. If Jones ran 20 yards to daylight for a touchdown, he would only be awarded 20 yards on that play. If he ran one yard for a score, the same thing would occur, and he would find one yard added to his season total.  Running or catching a pass for a touchdown is the best a player can do on an offensive play. So when a player racks up 25 touchdowns and holds the NCAA scoring title for a single season at 11.9 points per game, that should carry a lot of weight.

Jones was not invited to the NFL Scouting Combine, despite his stellar 2019 performance. And despite a rock-solid career at Southern Methodist University, he did not attract much NFL attention either.  But he did catch the attention of the LA Rams, who signed him up.  But does he have a chance for touches with the LA Rams running back depth chart?   Yes.  The Rams veteran running back only had 108 carries for the entire season in 2019. And while they chose running back Cam Akers with their first available draft pick, he is just a rookie as well. In the end, running backs score. And Xavier Jones scored more touchdowns in 2019 than the rest of the LA Rams running backs combined.