The New York Jets recently signed former Michigan running back Donovan Edwards as an undrafted free agent. Today we break Edwards down in detail.

The 22-year old Edwards is listed at 6’1” and 212 pounds. He is best known for scoring on two long rushing touchdowns in the first half of the 2023 national title game to spark Michigan’s win. He rushed for 2,251 yards and caught 86 passes in his college career, scoring 23 touchdowns, and was an all-Big Ten honorable mention in 2024.

Background

Edwards was ranked as at least a four-star recruit with every major high school scouting service, including 247-Sports, who had him as a five-star prospect, the number two running back in the nation and the top overall prospect in the state of Michigan.

Having been recruited to Michigan, he had some success in a rotational role in his freshman season, as he rushed for 174 yards and three touchdowns and caught 20 passes for 265 yards and a score.

Despite not being the number one back in 2022, Edwards started three games and rushed for a career high 991 yards at over seven yards per carry. This included five 100-yard games. He also caught 18 passes and scored a career-best nine total touchdowns.

2023 was a tough year for Edwards, as he averaged a career-low 4.2 yards per carry and ended up with under 500 rushing yards. He did catch a career-high 30 passes and scored five touchdowns though.

The season ended on a high, as Edwards had 41 and 46-yard rushing touchdowns in the first half of the national title game against Washington. He ended up with 104 yards on just six carries.

At the end of the 2023 season, he opted to stay in school and expectations were heightened when he was featured on the cover of an EA Sports video game. However, his 2024 season again saw him splitting carries as that national title game performance would ultimately be his only 100-yard game in his final two seasons.

He still produced 589 rushing yards, 18 catches and five total touchdowns, while earning an all-Big Ten honorable mention. However, instead of being a potential first round pick, as many had anticipated, he went into the draft widely regarded as a late round pick at best.

After Edwards went undrafted, the Jets signed him to an undrafted free agent deal with $170K of guaranteed money.

Let’s move on to some more in-depth analysis of what Edwards brings to the table as a player, based on extensive research and film study.

Measurables/Athleticism

Edwards is listed at 6’1” and 212 by the Jets, but he actually measured less than 5’11½” and weighed in at 205 at his pro day. He had previously been listed at 190 when he arrived at Michigan and bulked up from 203 to 215 in 2023.

His combine numbers were very good, as he ran a 4.44, posted a 38.5-inch vertical and registered 23 bench press reps. He didn’t do the agility drills or broad jump, though.

Usage

Edwards has been a conventional tailback, but also shows signs of being able to produce when he lines up in the slot or motions out wide.

During his career, he had some success on running back options, as he completed all four of his passes for 131 yards and two touchdowns. That included a 75-yard bomb, on which he hit the receiver in stride despite being hit as he threw.

Running ability

Edwards is more of a speed back than a power back, with the ability to break long runs. Over 53 percent of his rushing yardage in 2022 came via breakaway yardage, placing him ninth in the nation and fourth among power five backs in that category.

He’s less effective as a power back or when called upon to grind out the tough yardage, but he will battle for yardage at the end of a run.

Edwards has the ability to break tackles, but he’s more of a direct runner than someone who is creative or will dance around in the backfield.

He carried 22 or more times on three occasions in 2022 but never had more than 17 carries in a game otherwise, so he doesn’t have a great deal of experience with handling a big workload. He was banged up a lot in that 2022 season too.

Ball security is a bit of a concern, as he had two fumbles as a receiver and six as a ball carrier during his four seasons. These tended to happen at the end of a run.

Short yardage

Although he had 23 career touchdowns, most of these came on long plays, as the short yardage reps went to Blake Corum for most of Edwards’ career. Whether this is because Corum was good at that, or Edwards was not, is debatable.

When called upon, Edwards did score a couple of times on carries from the opposing team’s goal line.

Pass catching

Edwards’ pass catching abilities are advanced for a running back prospect, with his receiver coach having said he could have been a top-10 receiver in the nation and that he could start in the slot for most FBS teams.

This first showed up when he had a school record 170 yards on 10 catches in a 2022 game. This was not all on dump-offs though, as he has shown the ability to make plays down the field.

He has had success when motioning out wide and getting picked up by a linebacker. This can be a mismatch, even against NFL-level linebacker talent, and his route running stands out.

Edwards catches the ball pretty effortlessly, with an 83 percent catch rate in his career, including a few contested catches.

Although he did drop four passes in his career, Edwards didn’t have drop any passes in either 2022 or 2024.

Blocking

Pass protection is one area that Edwards needs to work at, although he did show some progress in 2024 as he posted the best pass blocking efficiency number of his career with no sacks allowed. He gave up two sacks in the previous season.

He looked technically more comfortable within that role, too, although he did give up a couple of pressures.

Special Teams

Special teams is somewhere Edwards never really contributed at the college level, but he will need to show he can handle these duties if he’s going to compete for a roster spot.

He played just nine snaps on special teams in college. Eight were on the return unit and one was in kick coverage.

Instincts

There’s been plenty of debate online about whether Edwards has good vision, or if it’s actually his biggest weakness. Some analysts praised his vision after the national title game, but many others see plays like this another way.

It’s probably more accurate to praise his natural feel for how the play was developing than his vision on that play because he initially made what appears to be a bad read.

Michigan fans became increasingly frustrated with his lack of vision, citing it as the main reason for his underwhelming production and the fact other backs were getting reps ahead of him. They would point to plays like this one to illustrate that.

Having said that, there were plays where he did display the ability to cut back into the open field or follow his blockers with patience, so perhaps it’s more accurate to describe his vision as inconsistent rather than bad. As a general rule, he is spotty in terms of picking the right hole at the line of scrimmage, but he seems to have good instincts once he breaks into the open field. Is the former fixable, though? Whether or not it is may decide his long-term future at the NFL level.

In addition to his inconsistency in the running game, Edwards’ instincts in pass protection can be shaky at times too.

He was called for a pre-snap penalty when he had a false start in 2023.

Attitude

Edwards, who is a devout Christian, had to grow up fast when his mother passed away after a battle with cancer when he was just two years old, forcing his father and older brother to bring him up.

Even so, as a team captain in high school, Edwards admits he still had some maturing to do, as he would yell at teammates and be critical in an effort to improve their performance. He said he learned a lot from that experience and developed into a much more effective leader at the college level.

Named a team captain in 2024, Edwards was lauded by his coaches for his team-first attitude, especially as he remained supportive even when he was losing reps to some of the other backs he was mentoring. He has a great work ethic, toughness and competitiveness and brings good energy on and off the field.

He was always very confident in himself, stating on a podcast a few years ago that he hoped to revolutionize the running back position and emulate Barry Sanders and Walter Payton. However, he has since been humbled and hardened by adversity, including battling some mental health issues during a tough 2023 season.

An example of his team-first attitude was that he vowed to step out of bounds at the one-yard line to help Corum break the team’s touchdown record, rather than score himself.

The only off-field red flag against Edwards, whose on-field discipline was good with just one penalty in his college career, came when he was criticized for sharing a controversial Kanye West tweet. He apologized twice, learned from it, and wasn’t punished by the team, who accepted it was a mistake.

Injuries

Edwards showed toughness in the 2022 season as he almost rushed for a thousand yards despite playing with a partially torn meniscus and a broken thumb.

However, that may have impacted his disappointing 2023 season, as it affected his preparation. He also had an Achilles injury ahead of that season.

Edwards’ college career came to an end when he was knocked out of his final regular season game due to a chest injury.

He also missed time in 2021 with an undisclosed injury and suffered a minor injury to his ankle last year.

Scheme Fit

While Jim Harbaugh has a reputation as someone who leans on a power running system, the Wolverines combined both zone and man/gap schemes in their running game. With some of his inconsistencies, it’s worth considering if this wasn’t an ideal fit for Edwards and if he’d fare better as a one-read, one-cut runner.

Alternatively, could the Jets look to build on his potential as a receiver and groom him for a third down back role where carrying the ball isn’t the main part of his role anyway?

Edwards was a teammate of current Jets edge defender Braiden McGregor at Michigan.

Conclusions

Edwards has struggled to live up to expectations on a number of occasions in his career. Harbaugh called him “a generational player” but his 2023 season didn’t live up to his 2022 production. However, his big performance in the national title game and the video game cover rebuilt the hype heading into 2024 only for his numbers to once again underwhelm.

This happened again to a degree when the Jets picked Edwards up as an undrafted free agent. He’s easily the highest profile undrafted free agent they brought in, and the biggest name, so he initially attracted a lot of attention. However, when such players are available because they failed to meet expectations, there’s often a good reason for this.

Edwards’ production as a ball carrier is obviously the reason he wasn’t drafted, because he’s a good athlete with excellent pass-catching abilities and a tremendous attitude.

He’ll compete hard in camp, but with Breece Hall and two 2024 draft picks ahead of him, it seems like a long shot for him to crack the rotation in 2025 unless there are injuries. Edwards’ best shot to stick might be if he can get onto the practice squad and encourage the team to give him a shot at a role that gives him a chance to get involved in the passing game.