Darrynton
Evans.
Darrynton
Evans.
Appalachian State· 5'10"· 203 lb· 4.41s 40
"A 4.41 back who scored 23 touchdowns in the Sun Belt and looked like the perfect complement to a bell-cow, if the frame and the medical file could survive an NFL season."Pre-draft read
Evans is a 5-10, 203-pound one-cut runner whose game is built on pure acceleration. He ran 4.41 at the combine and plays to it: press, plant once, full speed by the second step, which is why so much of his production came in chunks. He reads zone tracks well instead of bouncing everything outside.
The second element is his value in space. He caught 21 passes as a junior at 9.4 a catch, is comfortable on wheels and screens, and returned kicks throughout his career. The frame is slight and he does not break tackles inside, so pass protection and interior work are projections. The signature is the long run: 18 rushing touchdowns and an 87-yard burst in his final season.
An outside and mid zone running scheme that gives him a single read and a defined track, paired with a passing game that splits him out and a full-time kick return job.
Year 1 change-of-pace back and kick returner behind a workhorse, with a ceiling as a 1A in a committee handling 12 to 15 touches a game.
A gap-and-power scheme that asks him to grind between the tackles on early downs and stay in to block interior pressure.
App State RB Darrynton Evans 2019 Highlights
The Sun Belt Offensive Player of the Year season that made him a third-round pick.
Darrynton Evans vs South Carolina (2019)
Full-game cutups against an SEC defense, the tape that answered the competition question.
2019 New Orleans Bowl MVP: Darrynton Evans
His bowl MVP performance, the last college game before the draft.
Evans is from New Smyrna Beach, Florida, and arrived at Appalachian State as a true freshman contributor in 2016, rushing for 217 yards on 48 carries while returning 25 kicks for 563 yards and a touchdown. He then lost the entire 2017 season to injury and redshirted, a gap that would matter to teams reading his medical file.
He came back in 2018 as the backup to Jalin Moore, took the job when Moore went down and never gave it back, finishing with 1,187 yards on 179 carries at 6.6 a pop with seven touchdowns. The junior year was the full workload: 255 carries for 1,480 yards and eighteen touchdowns, plus 21 catches for 198 yards and five more scores, 23 total touchdowns in fourteen games. He was named Sun Belt Offensive Player of the Year, was a two-time first-team all-conference pick and was MVP of the New Orleans Bowl.
The evaluation was speed and production against a level of competition that required discounting, even though his best tape came against North Carolina and South Carolina. He measured 5-10 and 203 pounds and ran 4.41, and the questions were durability, pass protection and whether the burst would still separate against NFL speed. Tennessee, needing a change-of-pace complement to Derrick Henry, took him at 93.
- 01
Explosive acceleration
A 4.41 forty that shows on tape, hitting top speed within two steps of his plant and turning creases into long runs.
- 02
Decisive one-cut vision
Presses the line, reads the zone track and commits without the wasted lateral movement that kills small backs.
- 03
Receiving value
21 catches for 198 yards and five touchdowns as a junior, comfortable on wheels, screens and checkdowns out of the backfield.
- 04
Proven return ability
Brought back 25 kicks for 563 yards and a score as a freshman, giving him an immediate third-phase role.
- 05
Elite scoring production
23 total touchdowns in his final season on the way to Sun Belt Offensive Player of the Year honors.
- 01
Slight frame for volume
At 203 pounds he is not built to carry 250 NFL touches, which caps him as a complementary back.
- 02
Lost season on the medical file
He missed all of 2017 to injury, and durability was the first question teams asked about the workload.
- 03
Minimal tackle-breaking
He goes down on first contact between the tackles and does not create yardage after the initial hit.
- 04
Unproven in pass protection
Rarely asked to block NFL-caliber blitzers at Appalachian State, leaving a real gap for a third-down role.
Relative Athletic Score (Kent Lee Platte) benchmarks combine/pro-day numbers against every measured prospect at the position since 1987. 10.00 is elite; 5.00 is average.
— — — positional median (p50)
- 40 yd
- 4.41sp50
- Vertical
- 37inp50
- Broad jump
- 125inp50
- Three-cone
- —s
- Shuttle
- —s
- Bench
- 20repp50
| Yr | Team | G | Att | Yds | TD | Rec | RecYds |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2016 | Appalachian State | 12 | 48 | 217 | 0 | 6 | 34 |
| 2018 | Appalachian State | 13 | 179 | 1187 | 7 | 12 | 87 |
| 2019 | Appalachian State | 14 | 255 | 1480 | 18 | 21 | 198 |
| Career | — | 39 | 482 | 2884 | 25 | 39 | 319 |
He missed the entire 2017 season with an injury and redshirted, so no line exists for that year. Season figures from Sports-Reference include bowl games and sum exactly to the 39-game, 482-carry, 2,884-yard career totals also listed by USA Today. Kick-return yardage is documented separately in his school and Wikipedia biographies and is not included in these rushing and receiving keys.
A dash means the figure is not published by a source we trust — never a zero we invented.
A speed complement who carves out a long career as a third-down back and special-teams contributor.
The ceiling: a straight-line burner in a zone scheme who becomes the most explosive back on a contender.
Explosive college back whose injuries eliminate the rookie window and end the career before a role exists.
Everything above is the pre-draft evaluation. This section is what actually happened — updated year over year.
He never got healthy in Tennessee. A hamstring injury cost him most of training camp as a rookie, and he played five games behind Derrick Henry with fourteen carries, though he did catch a touchdown. A knee injury in the 2021 opener ended that season after one appearance, and the Titans released him the following August.
The rest is a practice-squad tour. He played six games for Chicago in 2022, then spent 2023 shuttling between Indianapolis, Buffalo, Miami and Chicago, appearing in seven games and posting his only NFL rushing touchdown. Five more appearances for the Bears in 2024 produced three carries for three yards, and he was on Buffalo's offseason roster in 2025. The final ledger is 24 games, 65 carries, 249 yards and two total touchdowns across five seasons. In hindsight this is a straightforward injury story rather than an evaluation failure: the burst that made him a Day 2 pick was real, but the hamstring and the knee took his rookie window and he never had a healthy runway to earn a role.
Data note: Imported from Wikipedia 2020 NFL draft player selections table.