Kevin R. Wexler-NorthJersey.com / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images
The Jets backfield has plenty of potential but little certainty.
Let’s continue our position by position look at the Jets roster by taking a look at the running back position.
The Would Be Star
Breece Hall
It was less than three years ago that it seemed like the Jets had a budding superstar in their backfield. Rookie Breece Hall became the driving force on offense during a four game winning streak. During that four game stretch, Hall ran 59 times for 351 yards and 4 touchdowns. That would be a 5.9 yard average per carry and a 1,492 yard pace if extrapolated over a full 17 game season. Hall also chipped in 6 catches for 117 yards, a 497 yard pace over 17 games.
Of course it was logical to assume those stats would cool a bit. No running back can average 6 yards per carry in the NFL over the long haul. (Maybe in college, but not in the pros.) Still, a back who performs at a 2,000 yards from scrimmage pace over a full month is flashing the potential to be something special. The Jets won four games despite Zach Wilson eclipsing 210 passing yards in only one of them. They didn’t need a passing game to win. That’s how dominant Hall was.
Unfortunately, in the final game of that stretch Hall suffered a torn ACL. A season that seemed destined for a Rookie of the Year Award was cut short less than halfway through. In many ways the Jets hopes for that season were also. The team was able to scratch out a few wins after Breece’s injury, but the warts on the offense, particularly quarterback couldn’t be overcome. The team didn’t have another winning streak that season and ended the year losing six in a row.
Since his injury, Hall has shown flashes of explosiveness, but he hasn’t fully recaptured the 2022 magic.
The 2023 season was a mess for the Jets on many levels. Hall was a bright spot. Despite having a revolving door offensive line of players who weren’t all that talented, he came within 6 rushing yards of 1,000 on a solid 4.5 average. He also showed explosion, breaking 7 runs for 20+ yards, tied for sixth most in the league. His 3 touchdown runs of 20+ yards tied for second most in the NFL.
Still, there was a lack of consistency. After posting a league average 50% success rate (percentage of runs that end in success for the offense) in 2022, Hall’s success rate plummeted to 39.5% in 2023. Admittedly, you could make a case the offensive line contributed to that.
Then came 2024. Hall got off to a dismal start. Through the first five games of the season, Hall averaged only 3 yards per rush on 65 carries.
I have come to believe that first impressions matter in the way people view the NFL. After Hall’s poor first month and a quarter in 2024, many Jets fans were down on him. There were calls for him to lose carries to Braelon Allen.
From that point, things changed. Over his final 11 games, Hall quietly averaged a robust 4.7 yards per carry. His production during that stretch extrapolated over a full 17 game season would come to 1,500 scrimmage yards.
All of this kind of flew under the radar. In addition to posting an excellent average, he was consistent on a play to play basis. His success rate over those final eleven games was 51%, better than the league average. Around Week 6, Hall found something and quietly put together an excellent end to the season.
One thing was missing, however. Hall’s ability to produce breakaway runs diminished. After producing 7 runs of 20+ yards in 2023, he had only 3 in 2024. He had 3 alone in that spectacular rookie season of 2022 when he played only 7 games and had 80 carries.
What was behind this? One possible explanation is that Hall was playing hurt.
#Jets RB Breece Hall revealed that the knee injury he was dealing with last season was ‘pretty serious.’
Hall said he feels fine now & said he didn’t have to have any procedure/operation on it.
Great news! Hall didn’t look like himself last season. Bounce back season coming!…
pic.twitter.com/qYo5Timv13
— Paul Andrew Esden Jr (@BoyGreen25)
June 11, 2025
I’m normally a bit of a skeptic when a player mentions an injury after the fact. It’s frequently a convenient excuse. However, in this case it would make sense. Hall was playing well in every phase of the game except hitting the homerun. It would make some sense if he was able to produce but lacked that extra gear to rip off monster gains.
Hall suffered that knee injury in a November game against the Colts. All 3 of his big runs came before that game.
All of this sets up a pivotal season in Breece Hall’s career. Three years into his Jets tenure, we can’t say for sure exactly what he is.
Is he the type of guy who can dominate for stretches but not consistent enough to sustain it over the long haul? He wouldn’t be the first such player. Admittedly, his reads on blocks can be inconsistent and sometimes lead to too much hesitancy hitting holes.
But it’s also possible the guy we saw dominate in early 2022 is the real Breece Hall. Maybe bad blocking in 2023 made it impossible for him to be consistent. But when the play was blocked well that year, he was able to break off big runs. Maybe the first month of 2024 was just a slump. And what followed was the real Breece Hall. Just the injury prevented him from breaking off big runs.
Only time will tell which of the two is the real story. Just know this. If Hall breaks out in 2025, the signs were always there.
The Sophomore Understudies
Braelon Allen
Isaiah Davis
The Jets took the unusual step of drafting not one but two running backs on the final day of the 2024 NFL Draft, Braelon Allen and Isaiah Davis.
New head coach Aaron Glenn has suggested that the Jets will employ a three man rotation in the backfield with Hall, Allen, and Davis. This is likely the approach the Jets will take to start the season. I’m not totally convinced it is the approach they will employ all year long. There are only so many carries to go around, and it stands to reason the three backs won’t all produce at an equal level.
There’s plenty of logic to split carries early. It’s a long season and a three headed rotation can make sure nobody gets worn down in the first stage. Still, at some point you probably want to give a higher share of the workload to the best backs.
It’s likely Hall will establish himself as the top man in the backfield and will eventually take the bulk of the carries. There will probably only be enough leftovers for one other back to receive an appreciable workload. My guess is that the early stage of the season will be something akin to an extended training camp position battle for the number two back role.
Braelon Allen’s 2024 season was in many ways the reverse of Hall’s campaign. The rookie spent the first month looking like a legitimate number one NFL back. Then in London against the Minnesota Vikings Week 5, he ran for only 13 yards on 5 carries and never really bounced back.
The difference in output between his first four games and final 13 is striking.
Allen averaged 4 yards per rush in just one of the final 13 games.
In many ways Allen’s rookie season mirrored his college career at Wisconsin. As a 17 year old freshman in 2021, Allen dominated the Big Ten, averaging a ridiculous 6.8 yards per carry despite facing loaded boxes at as high of a rate as any back in the country. You don’t see many high school aged players dominating players years older in one of the top conferences in the country.
This set expectations sky high for Allen. His final two years in college were...good...but still a clear step down from his standout freshman campaign. In his final college season, Wisconsin switched to a spread offense. This meant the end of loaded defensive fronts. Allen seemed primed to have a field day bulldozing light boxes. I don’t think anybody could say the results were terrible, but he didn’t recapture that freshman year magic and fell to the fourth round of the NFL Draft.
Allen enters year two as something of an enigma. Clearly there is formidable talent somewhere within him. You can’t make Big Ten defenders look foolish as a 17 year old without having a lot of skill. And that first month of 2024 showed that Allen can play. Despite being the league’s youngest player, he flashed all of the tools you want in a quality starter.
Can Allen find his best form with some degree of consistency? If so, he will likely carve out a big role with the Jets going forward. If not, fellow sophomore Isaiah Davis will have a shot at supplanting him.
Davis didn’t play a big role for the Jets in the season’s first three months. Late in 2024, he started getting opportunities, and his hard running style produced results. Davis ended the season with a robust 5.8 yard per carry average on 30 attempts and chipped in 9 catches for 75 yards and a touchdown.
When a team picks a small school prospect in the NFL Draft, there are always questions about whether the player can produce at a higher level. I think that if a lower level player gets drafted, he has to look like a man amongst boys on his college film. If you watch Davis at South Dakota State, you probably will come away with the impression that he was indeed at a different level from the guys he was competing against. In limited NFL action as a rookie, he certainly looked like he belonged.
I’ll leave this segment on our sophomore backs on another positive note. After years of the Jets spending money on big name running backs who were past their prime, it seems like the team has finally figured out that it’s better to go young at the position. Both Allen and Davis have real promise. I wouldn’t be surprised if between the two, the Jets have at least one future lead NFL back.
The UDFA Specialist
Donovan Edwards
It’s rare an undrafted free agent has a list of pros and cons that almost everybody agrees with. The consensus on Edwards is that he has great breakaway speed and is a real pass catching threat out of the backfield but lacks vision and a feel for the flow of the play as a rusher.
Because of Edwards’ receiving skill, there has been some speculation about him potentially making a move to wide receiver. I understand the arguments for this, but I’m not sure a move like this would be well-advised. You can be an above average pass catcher for a running back and still have nowhere near the skills necessary to succeed at wide receiver. Just as significantly, I would rather get a quality pass catcher covered by linebackers than cornerbacks if I had the choice.
I don’t think the odds are very good that Edwards will ever be a lead back in the NFL. I think his best shot is to become a receiving specialist out of the backfield in the mold of a Darren Sproles or a Shane Vereen. In the current NFL, there will always be a demand for running backs who can make plays in the passing game.
The odds are against any undrafted free agent, but it helps to have a specific skillset that teams wants.
The Longshot
Zach Evans
Anything is possible. There certainly have been a fair share of running backs who came from nowhere to turn into quality players. Still, the deck is stacked against Zach Evans. He spent his entire second season on practice squads. Even if the Jets were decimated by injury in training camp at running back, I think they might go outside the organization for a solution rather than give Evans a big role.
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