School: Tennessee
Year: Jr
Position: RB

Physical Attributes

• Height: 5-8
• Weight: 201
• RAS: 6.6
• 40 Time: 4.42

Rankings

• Joe’s Ranking: 6.2
• Consensus Position Rank: 7
• My Position Ranking: 10
• Difference in Ranking: -3
• Tier: 5
• Projected Round: 4

Games Watched

• Alabama ’24
• Florida ’24

Ryan’s Notes

Positives

• I really like how he presses gaps and displays patience despite being in an awful RPO scheme that only gives him a single gap to manipulate into openings.
• This scheme is about as far as you can go away from pro style but you can see the fit as he is able to get skinny before using his adequate speed to make the most of the opportunity.
• He gets in and out of his breaks smoothly with an ability to get up to his full speed after cutting laterally when out in space.
• I really like his ability to control the tempo when running perpendicular to the sideline, he has a good feeling of when and how to feel out creases but still keeps the burners on to hit the sideline when he reaches contain players being in conflict.
• He has a nice jump cut which can get him to reverse momentum out of a tackle to good effect.

Negatives

• Sampson is an interesting physical build as he looks far smaller than his listed size (turns out he was 3 inches shorter than Tennessee said he was) and his lack of mass unfortunately does not stack up with his excellent gap scheme footwork and vision.
• Despite being 200 lbs he often gets slammed to the ground on big hits, he seems to shake them off easily enough but this might not be the same at the next level.
• The issue I have is that whilst he has good acceleration it’s not close to explosive so I doubt he can be a three down back who can move the chains as he doesn’t have the size and he isn’t a change of pace back due to his lack of explosion.
• I think this limits his potential as a high RB2 but I do like his vision and lateral agility to win on secondary phase blocks should he get the chance in an NFL system.
• Another element that gives me pause is that his burst off of his backfoot isn’t elite and patience can only be properly rewarded if RBs can escape the backside pressure in time with sudden pace.

Ryan’s Summary

Dylan knows everything you need to know to be a brilliant gap scheme runner but his body limitations let him down, he has neither the power/mass to break tackles nor the explosive athleticism to make the most of the space he can create for himself with his excellent vision and patience. I think his ceiling is as a change of pace back to give the #1 a break whilst still effectively moving the chains as without the size I doubt he can be a true water carrier at the next level.