What follows is Thor Nystrom's Kaleb Johnson 2025 NFL Draft Scouting Report, full of play style analysis, strengths, weaknesses, and what he brings to the NFL.

Kaleb Johnson 2025 NFL Draft Profile

  • Iowa | 6-0/225
  • Comp: Larry Johnson
  • Rank: RB2

Coming off years of offensive futility, Iowa forced out OC Brian Ferentz in late-October 2023. At the time, sophomore RB Kaleb Johnson was having a very frustrating season. A three-star recruit out of Ohio, Johnson’s 779 rushing yards in 2022 had broken Iowa’s single-season freshman record.

But in Week 2 of 2023, against Iowa State, Johnson suffered an ankle injury. He missed the next three games. Johnson went off in his return, gaining 147 yards on 18 touches with a TD against Purdue. But the next two weeks, Johnson was far quieter, rushing for a total of 53 yards combined.

Something odd happened the game following Brian Ferentz’s ouster: Kaleb Johnson, despite being healthy, did not touch the ball one single time against Northwestern. The Hawkeyes survived an ugly 10-7 win, gaining only 169 yards of offense.

Johnson re-entered the RB rotation the following week, but had a subdued final five games of the season, averaging only 37.0 rushing yards per game. The Hawkeyes hired Tim Lester to replace Brian Ferentz as OC for the 2024 season.

On August 26, Lester told reporters that redshirt freshman Kamari Moulton had won Iowa’s RB1 job. Lester spoke glowingly of Moulton, comparing him to Aaron Jones, with whom he had spent the previous year while on Green Bay’s staff.

The morning of the opener against FCS Illinois State, on August 31, it was reported that Johnson and fellow RB Jaziun Patterson were suspended for the first half due to a violation of team rules. Iowa only led 6-0 at halftime. The Hawkeye offense looked as stale and uninspiring as ever.

But a different Iowa Hawkeye offense emerged from the locker room for the second half, led by a Kaleb Johnson we had never seen before. Johnson ran like a man possessed, with 127 yards and two TDs on 12 touches in the second half (Moulton finished with 65 yards on 19 touches with no TDs).

There was no debate about RB1 after that. Johnson went on to earn consensus first-team All-American honors, finishing with 1,715 total yards and 23 TDs. He had the fourth-most touches of any FBS RB who did not fumble in 2024.

“He’s smooth,” Minnesota HC P.J. Fleck told The Athletic. “A lot of times he doesn’t look like he’s moving very fast, but he’s running away from everybody. He runs behind his pads really well. He can play the speed game. He can play the power game. He’s got great balance, great vision.”

Make sure to check out Thor Nystrom's latest QB rankings going into the NFL Draft.

Iowa’s offense in 2024 improved from 15.4 points per game to 27.7, and 234.5 yards per game to 328.8—while Johnson averaged 143.8 all-purpose yards per game. Lester leaned into HC Kirk Ferentz’s philosophies of a ground-heavy 12-personnel zone-run offense, while adding pre-snap motion to a playbook that had previously been devoid of it.

The old Iowa rushing offense toggled between inside-zone and outside-zone concepts. Lester, a disciple of the Shanahan offense, added the mid-zone. Iowa’s run game, schematically, was similar to what is run by the 49ers, Rams, and Packers in the NFL.

Whereas wide-zone concepts require supreme patience as blocks develop, the mid-zone speeds things up. It allows offensive linemen to be more aggressive off the snap coming forward to attack their marks.

The melding of a complete tapestry of zone-run concepts, along with a bellcow RB1 workload, allowed Kaleb Johnson to display his full skillset. After the campaign, Johnson declared early for the NFL Draft. He is amongst a small group competing to be RB2 behind Ashton Jeanty in April.

Kaleb Johnson Scouting Report: What Does He Bring To The NFL Draft?

Johnson is a big back at 6-foot, 225 pounds, and he runs extremely hard. He doesn’t go down on first contact, and he has very good feet.

Johnson is bouncy and light in tight quarters on inside-zone concepts. Last season, between the left guard and right guard, he had 131 carries for 839 yards, good for 6.4 yards per carry. Johnson finished with an identical 6.4 YPC over 240 total carries.

Mid-zone concepts allowed Johnson to take his hard-charging fight to the defense. On outside-zone runs, Johnson displays admirable patience picking down the line and waiting for his opportunity.

These are the runs where he looks like Le’Veon Bell … waiting, waiting, waiting, and then exploding upfield suddenly. Johnson baits and switches second-level defenders, forcing them to declare first, sucking them into a muck of bodies as he escapes into space.

I’ve seen speculation that Kaleb Johnson will run in the 4.6s. Bologna. There’s a better chance he runs in the 4.4s. Johnson is deceivingly fast— he is a threat to take it to the house when he gets into the third level. He did this plenty in 2024, finishing 90th percentile in breakaway rate. Johnson has hit 22 mph on Iowa’s GPS tracking system.

Johnson assumes an upright sprinter’s stance with open grass in front of him, his legs close together. He doesn’t pump his arms much, and there is zero wasted movement. Johnson could balance a tea kettle on his helmet for the final 30 yards of his long touchdown runs.

Johnson accesses these opportunities because he’s very difficult to tackle in space. Johnson’s one-cut direction changes have teeth, and he shrugs away off-angle tackle attempts. Johnson has filthy contact balance, particularly for his angular running style. It’s difficult to impede his momentum, even amid a tackle attempt. He’s a light pole caked in grease. 

Per PFF, Johnson was 94th percentile in yards after contact per attempt. When Johnson has a head of steam, he’s a speed-to-power locomotive, and his legs will keep churning until they’ve been chopped out from under him. The end of runs are violent, with Johnson using his big shoulder pads as weapons.

Prior to 2024, Johnson had never done much in the passing game. This past season, he showed some flashes as a receiver on a team that badly struggled to throw the ball. Johnson caught 22-of-25 targets (2 drops) for 190 yards and two TDs last season. Basically all of those yards were of Johnson’s creation.

He was a checkdown option, and he was used on screens—not much else. Johnson had an aDOT of -3.0—which is why Johnson averaged 8.6 yards per reception, but had 11.9 yards after the catch. Johnson made his own opportunities with 12 forced missed tackles on those 22 catches. Johnson was 97th-percentile in missed tackles forced per reception.

Johnson didn’t run many true routes, but he’s got strong hands, and he’s impossible to tackle one-on-one. Johnson showed more as a receiver last year than Leonard Fournette did in three seasons at LSU—and Fournette caught 69 or more balls in all three NFL seasons where he played at least 14 games.

One area where Johnson struggles is pass-pro. To be fair, Iowa rarely asked him to stay back and block on passes. Johnson only logged 54 career pass-pro reps. But in his only two seasons with more than 10 pass-pro snaps, Johnson posted ugly PFF pass-pro grades of 21.3 (2022) and  29.9 PFF (2024). It’s probably best to continue giving Johnson his breathers on downs where you want to keep your RB back to block.

Johnson will appeal to zone-run offenses looking for a bellcow. I expect Johnson to be exactly that for his new NFL team immediately.