College: Washington

Height: 5’9”

Weight: 209

Positives

Agility: Sankey shows great ability to cut on a dime and avoid a defender both in the open field and when in the hole. When he takes an outside run, he can cause the first defender to miss giving him the ability to be a homerun threat. Sankey also has a very nice jump-cut that he uses to make defenders miss in the hole when he is in traffic.

Passing Game: Sankey is running back who will be very good on third downs. He runs good routes out of the backfield and has shown very soft hands while at Washington. When he is in the game it could be a run or a pass play, making it more difficult on the opposing defense. He shows great agility in the passing game as well making him a homerun threat every time he touches the ball. As well as catching the ball well out of the backfield, Sankey is good in pass protection despite not having elite size.

Burst: Sankey shows great burst when he is carrying the ball. He doesn’t have elite top end speed, but when he is running outside he shows good burst to get by the initial defender. Sankey also shows good burst when hitting the hole. When he identifies the hole, he will generally hit the hole quick.

Negatives

Size: Sankey doesn’t have the elite size to be a “bell cow” running back in the NFL. He isn’t built to carry the ball 25 times a game, despite what he has been doing at Washington. Sankey will be best served getting 15-18 touches a game and making the most out of those. He will need a bigger counterpart to take some of the carries from him.

Wear: Sankey has been used an awful lot at Washington over the past two seasons. Sankey has touched the ball 677 times the past two seasons at Washington. You have to worry about what kind of effect that workload will have on him, especially with running backs already having such a short career length. It will be something teams have to look at.

NFL Comparison

Ray Rice: Sankey has a lot of the same characteristics as Ray Rice had coming out of college. Both lack elite top end speed, but show good burst through the hole. Both are good in the passing game and can make big plays in a number of ways. Neither are power backs, but show decent power. Like Rice, Sankey doesn’t have great size, though Rice is built a little thicker than Sankey is.

Draft Outlook

Sankey has the possibility to be a late second rounder, but I’d put him more of a late third or early fourth-round pick. He shows a lot of versatility that teams will like, but his size and usage over the past two years will turn some teams away. If a team has a big, bruising back that they like already on the team, Sankey would be a good compliment to them.

Best Fit

Miami Dolphins: The Dolphins thought they had their running back of the future in Lamar Miller, but he wasn’t what they hoped he would be last year. Daniel Thomas hasn’t lived up to expectations either and they could use some talent at the running back position. Sankey would also give Ryan Tannehill another weapon in the passing game as well as a safety valve when he is getting ready to get sacked, which happened a lot last season.