The Passing Game
At the combine, Rivera spoke about how they wanted to find a running back who could do a lot of the same things as McCaffrey, and while it’s completely unrealistic to expect to find somebody who can offer the same range of receiving ability as CMC can, it’s hard to really say that Scarlett offers anything close to the same skillset as a receiver right now. Yes, he did run one nice vertical route in college:
But this is really just vertical speed with a slight hesitation against zone, with the vast majority of his limited receiving workload coming on checkdowns:
This isn’t a massive cross against his name, as the majority of college running backs weren’t asked to do much more than this as receivers, but it also isn’t a positive either from a route-running point of view. The other issue with his receiving game is that, while he did show some nice hands at times, there were too many drops given his limited number of targets. Most of these weren’t absolute clangers, but rather seemed to be a response to the imminent contact – but he really needs to be better than this to merit seeing the field on passing plays with any frequency:
As a blocker, he certainly doesn’t lack enthusiasm:
And there are a couple of examples of at least the basic elements of pass protection:
But there is still a long way to go from a technical point of view:
In summation, there are reasons why Scarlett can be successful, but the running back room in Carolina behind CMC is still very crowded, and while as a fifth round pick Scarlett might be the favorite to earn the #2 running back spot, it will be up to him to earn that spot in training camp over the likes of Elijahs Hood and Holyfield, Cameron Artis-Payne and Reggie Bonnafon.
