Isiah Pacheco was the 251st pick in 2022, a seventh-round afterthought out of Rutgers. Two Super Bowls later, he is the blueprint every Day 3 running back wants to trace: a late pick who walked into a thin room and never gave the job back.
PFSN’s Football Debate Club asked which Day 3 back from this class has the best shot at that arc. Ian Cummings took Kaytron Allen to Washington. Jacob Infante took Demond Claiborne to Minnesota. Both are talented late picks. The separator is the room each one landed in.
Why Demond Claiborne Has the Cleaner Isiah Pacheco Path
Infante built his pick around the situation, not just the player.
“If I’m comparing the Isiah Pacheco situation, I’m looking at who’s a late-round pick in a weak running back room,” Infante said.
“So I’m going to Demond Claiborne with the Vikings. Out of Wake Forest, he’s somebody I had 107th on my board, and he went 198th. I’m not sold on that Vikings running back room. Aaron Jones is going to be 32 years old by the end of the season. Jordan Mason’s been a good rotational back. None of them are high-impact players, though. Both of them finished outside the top 25 in RB impact scoring. Claiborne’s agility, his vision, his potential as a receiver, I think he’s got a chance to become the starter, which is saying a lot for a sixth-round pick.”
The Vikings room backs him up. Jones turns 32 in December, Mason is a complementary piece, and Minnesota had no young back on the depth chart before it traded up for Claiborne.
The 198th pick brings 2,599 college yards, 26 touchdowns and a 4.37 40 that ranked third among running backs at the combine. Late pick, aging room, open door. That is the Pacheco template. The PFSN impact grades Infante cited are proprietary, so treat them as the show’s internal numbers, but the thin depth around him is plain on the roster.
Kaytron Allen’s Value Is Real, but Washington Crowded His Room
Cummings leaned on the value, and the value is hard to argue. “I’m going to go with Kaytron Allen from Penn State,” Cummings said.
“He went in the sixth round, which is far below where I expected. He was a top-100 guy on my board. Over 4,000 career yards at the collegiate level, 39 touchdowns on the ground, an 89.8 PFSN CFB RB impact in 2025. He had 2.4 yards before contact, 3.7 after contact. So what you see is the vision, the creative instincts, but also the finishing physicality. And what was Pacheco at the end of the day? He was a volume back who took advantage of his opportunity. Jacory Croskey-Merritt is their highest-rated returner, at a 61 RB impact. I think the situation is right for Allen to take advantage.”
The value is genuine. Allen is Penn State’s all-time leading rusher, and getting him at No. 187 is a steal on talent alone. The problem is the room. The “thin” framing was true at the start of free agency, when Croskey-Merritt was the only back on the roster, but Washington spent the offseason rebuilding it.
The Commanders signed Rachaad White, added Jerome Ford, re-signed Jeremy McNichols, then drafted Allen. That is a crowded depth chart, not an open lane. Croskey-Merritt, himself a 2025 seventh-round find with eight rookie touchdowns, already ran the Pacheco play in Washington.
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Both bets are reasonable, and the talent edge belongs to Allen. But the Pacheco arc is about opportunity as much as ability, and Minnesota left the door open in a way Washington closed. Host Cam Mellor scored the round a 3-3 tie. If the question is which back is likeliest to seize a starting job out of nowhere, take Claiborne and the emptier room.
