It's a warm spring day at the lake. You're watching as a friend skips stones across the lake. They're smooth. Bouncing effortlessly from hop to hop to skate across the surface of the water. Jonathon Brooks runs like a rock skipping across water.
Trey Benson is the RB1 in the class, but Brooks has as good an argument as any. His best attribute is his ability to make one man miss. Brooks has a clear favorite move, which is fine because it's borderline unstoppable. He head fakes left, puts his foot in the ground hard, and goes right. With the amount he does it you'd think defenders would catch on, but he's a glitch in the matrix as he's running, and seemingly phases out of existence at first contact.
Luckily his ACL tear is on his right leg not his left, because the amount of pressure he puts on his knee to make cuts like this will not be kind to an injury. It's his trump card, and it's a pretty good one but it's not all he brings to the game.
The reason he looks so smooth in space is because he's never rushing. While Benson is bouncing from collision to collision looking for contact, Brooks is patiently waiting for his blockers to do the dirty work for him.
With all the finesse he brings to the game, you'd think he's incapable of driving defenders. At the goal line, he's capable of putting the mud tires on, and using his glitch is able to make the first man miss (as always).
Where Brooks can really make his money is as a three-down back. If he is given the chance, he can make some pretty impressive catches. The fluidity carries over to his receiving game, and he is firmly in the "can" catch category.
In order to get on the field on third downs, Brooks must improve as a pass catcher. He'll likely be picked on day two and fight for ownership of a backfield in 2025, but time and time again he lunges and throws his shoulder into blitzing defenders. This time it went well and he met the contact and redirected the defender up the field.
And this time it went, let's say differently. Some days you're the windshield. Some days you're the bug.
Jonathon Brooks is a glitch in the matrix who will likely be a day two pick, and his best comp is a nerfed LeSean McCoy. He's the RB2 in the class before the landing spot and draft capital shake it all out, but is the most likely to be a "safe" pick because no matter what happens as a rookie, the ACL recovery is an easy explanation.
