Current and Past Fullbacks Who Should Have Been Starting Power Backs in the NFL

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So Fullback atm is on of 5 positions the others being QB, Punter, Kicker, TE that are majority white. What interests me is that most fullbacks it's obvious they can / could break tackles from their blocking skills but which one would make the best ball carriers.

Zach lines college stats are crazy for some one with 53 career NFL rushing yards. Who else would make a beast running back who is unlikely to be given a shot TE or Qb's included ?
 
Brian Leonard never had a chance to be a feature back.....He was forced to be a true fullback at Rutgers (for Ray Rice).....At last it wasn’t for some semi talent, but they could’ve shared the backfield for Leonard’s senior season.....Zach Line is a perfect example....A few guys who didn’t get a chance a few years ago were Mark Weisman and Zach Zwinack......Two fullback type guys that had good Big 10 careers.....100% could’ve made a roster and contributed.....Let’s hope Ryan Nall gets his chance....
 
Rob Konrad (Syracuse) and Heath Evans (Auburn) are two names that come immediately to mind. Both were blessed with running back speed and agility in big bodies ... but with that dreaded “fullback” skin tone.

RJ Bowers (Grove City) was another power back (formerly the All-Division NCAA rushing record holder) who had a cup of coffee in the NFL, impressing during the preseason, but destined to be avoided by League personnel at all costs.

another player was Brad Hoover (Western Carolina), who was undrafted out of college but earned a start at tailback on Monday Night Football after the “real” tailback got injured. Hoover went on to rush for over a hundred yards in the game (vs Green Bay), the second-ever rookie to do that for the Panthers. he made two starts at tailback as a rookie before moving to his “natural” position and bulking up substantially. despite his obvious talent, Hoover was never considered as a legitimate candidate for the tailback job.
 
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Center, long snapper, and perhaps guard are also majority White. Guard hovers around 50/50. Long snapper is 100% White.
 
Jacob Hestor could’ve been a decent back, but had to take his seat on the bus.
Payton Hillis had his awesome year, but otherwise took his seat in college and the NFL

As a Steeler fan, I remember Bowers getting nearly 100 yards one game late in the year when the starters were resting or whatever reason......Played baseball for 4-6 years and went to small Grove City College......
 
Some good names. Bob Christian was another. Kicked around the league for 11 years on three different teams. In '01 with Atlanta, the year he had the most carries, he had 44 rushes for 284 yards, a 6.5 ypc average. For his career his average carry was 4.3 yards, well above the league average despite many of them being short yardage carries up the gut with of course no FB blocking for him.

Scott Greene was an excellent running back at Michigan State but was turned into a fullback by the NFL and had a short and forgettable career in that grossly miscast role.
 
Brad Muster from Stanford played a few years for the Bears. I think he was a first round draft choice, but I could be wrong on that.
 

Merril Hoge

Owen Schmitt



Hokie Gajan who averaged 6+ ypc one year from the fullback spot

Tommy Vardell
his highlights come later in that video

and of course Tim Tebow, who everyone insisted convert to either fullback or tight end. Why couldn't they have used him as a powerback?
 
booth said:
Brad Muster from Stanford played a few years for the Bears. I think he was a first-round draft choice, but I could be wrong on that.
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Tommy "Touchdown Tommy" Vardell also from Stanford. He was selected 9th overall all in 1992 by Cleveland. Interestingly, BB was the head coach at the time. His first two years were productive but suffered knee injuries. He was intially a RB, but after the injuries played fullback. Retired in 1999. Was the starting fullback when Barry Sanders played.
 
La France Blanche said:
Center, long snapper, and perhaps guard are also majority White. Guard hovers around 50/50. Long snapper is 100% White.
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Left them out sorry. Center is 80% white I think which is interesting. OT would be close to being mostly white as well
 
booth said:
Brad Muster from Stanford played a few years for the Bears. I think he was a first round draft choice, but I could be wrong on that.
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Muster was a first round pick. Back when the Bears were drafting white players and winning.
 
Tim Tindale was an undersized fullback in the mid 90's who could have played tailback. But to be honest I don't know if he would have had as long a career as he did at fullback as he looked like a guy who would have been battling for a roster spot every year at tailback.
 
La France Blanche said:
Center, long snapper, and perhaps guard are also majority White. Guard hovers around 50/50. Long snapper is 100% White.
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The only black long-snapper I can ever remember was Rob Davis, who played for the Bears and Packers from the mid-1990's to mid-2000's...

2008+Green+Bay+Packers+Rob+Davis+2006+10+03.JPG
 
Good thread. I would add John Kuhn to the list. He was an all-conference RB in college and could of easily been a starting RB in the NFL.
 
Nebraska and San Francisco Forty -49er, Tom Rathman was an excellent all round athlete winning a high school football state championship and also winning the high jump.(6'7), In track and field.
Rathman was a Nebraska Fullback rushing for 881 yards on 118 carries for a 7.5 average during his senior season and 6.4 for his career. Rathman was known for breaking long runs, including an 84 yard TD run his senior season. However he was regulated to being mostly a blocking back for San Francisco. He was listed as a RB his rookie year where he averaged 4.2 yards/carry. Rathman rushed for 2,020 yards and had 2,684 yards receiving.
Probably would have been great RB in the John Riggins mold, but was never given the chance.
 
Thrashen said:
The only black long-snapper I can ever remember was Rob Davis, who played for the Bears and Packers from the mid-1990's to mid-2000's...

2008+Green+Bay+Packers+Rob+Davis+2006+10+03.JPG
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Heh. Growing up a Packers fan, he immediatley came to mind. I was thinking about posting "What about Rob Davis?" and then I saw your post. Good stuff. Great minds.

Leonardfan said:
Good thread. I would add John Kuhn to the list. He was an all-conference RB in college and could of easily been a starting RB in the NFL.
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Agreed completely. He was thrown into a strange hybrid type role in 2010, when Ryan Grant was injured. He wasn't listed as FB that season, either. Pack had Quinn Johnson as FB (and Korey Hall, another viable RB) but he got maybe 1/4 the action that Brandon Jackson got. Showed great speed, agility, cutting. Just was relegated to backup RB to an inferior Jackson. Jackson would bolt after that season and was out of the league the next. John Kuhn, while not signed, is an active player and eligible FA to date.
 
Here are some Daryl Johnston highlights going all the way back to highschool! He was a real powerhouse who no doubt could have ran for multiple 1k seasons.
 
I've always had mostly negative feelings about Moose Johnston, mainly because he played the role of blocking fullback/selfless Caste solider so well that he more or less became the template of the White blocking fullback and made it easy to effortlessly shift other big and capable White running backs into that role from then on. A great example is Rob Konrad, who followed Johnston at Syracuse several years later. Konrad was so good as a record setting high school running back that Syracuse offered him their hallowed #44 jersey to play there. But unlike the previous 44s at Syracuse going back to Jim Brown, Konrad was used as a hybrid fullback/running back and wasn't allowed to be the feature back.

Then Konrad's fate was sealed when Jimmy Johnson took him in the second round, the same round Johnston was drafted in and again to a Jimmy Johnson coached team. Johnson is one of true godfathers of the Caste System, successfully taking his "formula" at the University of Miami and then implementing it with the blackest teams to ever win the Super Bowl at that time, but still with key pieces like Aikman, Novacek and Johnston. Eager wiggerish acolytes like Bill Cowher soon followed.

I'm sure Johnston could have been a successful NFL RB, but Konrad could have been a superstar, a Hall of Famer. He was big and fast with wiggle and shiftiness, he had it all. But of course like Johnston he too played the good soldier, and never got a chance to show what he could do with the Dolphins.
 
So Konrad had apparently already accepted that he was going to be a fullback since he showed up for the Combine (or his pro day, whichever that's from) at 251 pounds, yet still ran a 4.62, which was given a "great" grade for speed. Just think if he had shown up at say 230 pounds, he would have run in the 4.4 range, maybe low 4.4s or even 4.3s.

He should have at least been calling himself a running back, much like mild-mannered Matt Jones insisted he was a wide receiver and not a tight end, though Jones could have been the best running QB ever in the NFL. White athletes can stand up for themselves without delving into race, just insist they want to play the position they excelled at in college.
 
Don Wassall said:
So Konrad had apparently already accepted that he was going to be a fullback since he showed up for the Combine (or his pro day, whichever that's from) at 251 pounds, yet still ran a 4.62, which was given a "great" grade for speed. Just think if he had shown up at say 230 pounds, he would have run in the 4.4 range, maybe low 4.4s or even 4.3s.

He should have at least been calling himself a running back, much like mild-mannered Matt Jones insisted he was a wide receiver and not a tight end, though Jones could have been the best running QB ever in the NFL. White athletes can stand up for themselves without delving into race, just insist they want to play the position they excelled at in college.
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Excellent points Don. Rob Konrad should have been a Power Running Back in the Mode of Larry Cszonka and John Riggins. The league
has decided that they don't want that to be allowed anymore as you know. Such a shame as he would have been amazing i.m.o.
 
Ben Mason from Michigan is stuck on the Ravens practice squad until Patrick Ricard retires. He was underused in college.



Not as zippy as Konrad, who is a superlative, but he acquitted himself well during workouts. His nickname was "Bench Mason," and I'm sure he could add or subtract 15 lbs of body mass pretty quickly on demand (he moonlighted as a DT during MIchigan's time of need).
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