The last time a running back was selected with the top overall pick in the N.F.L. draft, it was 1995, and the Cincinnati Bengals took Ki-Jana Carter, a 6-foot, 230-odd-pound dynamo rumbling out of Penn State.
The Bengals even traded up to get him.
“Not all running backs have breakaway speed,” said John Garrett, a Bengals offensive assistant that year who is now the head coach at Lafayette. Carter “was a guy who could finish runs and score, rather than have vision and elusiveness or power to get free but then get caught.”
“On the surface,” Garrett added, “it was a no-brainer.