Top Four Young NFL Running Backs: Ravens' Ray Rice

Baltimore Ravens running back Ray Rice joins three other players at his position to make up the best young running backs in the NFL. A story at NFL.com breaks down the four players and then nine of the site's analysts pick the one they would want if starting a team today.

Rice is mentioned as the pick by two of the analysts, Adita Kinkhabwala and Chad Reuter. Kinkhabwala cites Rice's durability (missed just three games in NFL career), his pass catching ability (250 receptions in his career), but admits her bias, as she covered Rice when he was the star in college at Rutgers.

Reuter also picked Rice, saying his compact build allows him to hide behind those huge offensive linemen and echoed other comments by Adita in that he had the best fumble ratio among all the backs in the discussion. To be fair, however, of the nine analysts, Houston Texans RB Arian Foster was picked four times, Philadelphia Eagles RB LeSean McCoy was selected the same as Rice, with two nods, and Chicago Bears RB Matt Forte was only mentioned once as the best young back in the league.