Top 15 running backs entering final stretch of 2025 NFL season

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A lot has happened at the running back position over the first three quarters of the 2025 NFL season, so there was a lot to unpack when assembling this ranking of the league’s best ball-carriers. I’ve seen some great things from this year’s rookie class, but you won’t find any first-year pros on this updated list, with many top players (Cam Skattebo and Omarion Hampton) missing time to injury or (Ashton Jeanty and Quinshon Judkins) being stuck on poor-performing teams.

Who did make my top 15? Let’s jump into it, with up/down arrows reflecting movement from my rankings back in October:

Taylor is having one of the best seasons of his career — which is saying a lot, considering he’s already had a handful of great ones. He currently leads the NFL in rush yards, rush TDs, rush yards per game (104.3), scrimmage TDs (18) and, perhaps most impressively, rush yards after contact, generating an astonishing 1,046 in that category, per Next Gen Stats. Taylor is on track to run for both 100-plus rush yards per game and at least 10 rush TDs in the same season for the third time in his career; the only players in NFL history with more such seasons are      Derrick Henry      and Hall of Famers Jim Brown and Eric Dickerson (all with four). Taylor and the Colts now must navigate the stretch run without         Daniel Jones         (Achilles). If anyone is built to carry a team being quarterbacked by sixth-round rookie         Riley Leonard         (or Grandpa Rivers?) in 2025, it’s the two-time Pro Bowl running back, who also logged the NFL’s two longest runs of the season so far.

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