Chase
Brown.
Chase
Brown.
Illinois· 5'10"· 209 lb· 4.43s 40
"A one-cut zone runner whose second gear is genuinely rare for the position, Brown is betting that Power Five volume and 4.43 speed outrun the frame and the protection questions that hold smaller backs to Day 3."Pre-draft read
Single-back workhorse who lived on inside and outside zone in Illinois' downhill pro-style attack, with enough snaps in the slot to matter. Everything starts with acceleration through the crease: he presses the line at a patient tempo, takes one decisive cut and hits top speed inside two steps, which is how four-yard creases became twelve-yard gains all through 2022.
The secondary trait is contact balance rather than raw power. At 209 pounds he runs behind his pads and stays upright through arm tackles instead of bulldozing bodies. He is a cleaner zone runner than gap runner, and his passing-down value climbed late from checkdown outlet toward real route work. The 4.43 speed shows up on tape, and that second gear is what separates him.
Outside-zone-based rushing attack with a heavy shotgun passing game
Year 1: change-of-pace zone runner and outlet receiver, 8-12 touches a game while the protection catches up. Ceiling: three-down lead back carrying 250-plus touches with 60-catch receiving volume.
A downhill gap/power run game that asks him to read pullers on counter and duo behind a mauling line, paired with a protection-first third-down role he was not ready for as a rookie.
His value climbs with every wide-zone rep and every snap where the offense can flex him out of the backfield.
Chase Brown | Illinois Fighting Illini Running Back | 2022 Senior Highlights
Full senior-season cutup from the 1,643-yard campaign: zone presses, one-cut acceleration and the long speed at the second level.
Illini Football | Chase Brown - Doak Walker Award Finalist
Illinois' official feature on his Doak Walker finalist season, with the workload and signature runs that drove the Power Five rushing title.
Chase Brown: Every Touch of the 2025 Season | Full Film Compilation
Every carry and target from his 1,019-yard, 69-catch 2025 season with Cincinnati - the NFL version of the profile as a three-down back.
A one-cut zone back with rare closing speed for the position, Brown came out of London, Ontario by way of a freshman season at Western Michigan and four years at Illinois. He is a compact 5-foot-9, 209-pound runner whose football identity is tempo: read, plant, go, and let the second gear finish the play. Nothing about his game is wasted motion.
The production arrived all at once. He was a rotational piece through 2020, moved into a lead role in 2021 with 1,005 yards on 170 carries, then carried Bret Bielema's offense in 2022 with 328 attempts for 1,643 yards and 10 touchdowns, the most rushing yards of any Power Five back that season and a Doak Walker finalist campaign. The flags were the flip side of that workload: a huge single-season touch count on a smaller frame, pass protection that was willing but inconsistent against blitzers, and a receiving profile that was still developing rather than proven.
Boards had him as a Day 3 back with starter traits, generally the seventh-to-tenth runner in the class and a fourth-to-fifth round projection, with the combine testing pushing him up boards late. Cincinnati taking him at 163 was a value swing on speed and volume in a room that needed a long-term complement to Joe Mixon.
- 01
Long speed
4.43 timed speed that shows on tape; once he clears the second level, angles from safeties stop working and short creases become explosive plays.
- 02
One-cut decisiveness
presses the line patiently in zone, plants once and goes downhill without dancing, which keeps his line's blocks intact and his pads square.
- 03
Contact balance
plays bigger than 209 pounds through arm tackles and glancing hits, staying upright to churn hidden yards after first contact.
- 04
Proven volume
handled 328 carries in 2022 and never lost tempo late in games, answering the durability question that usually follows smaller backs.
- 05
Explosive testing base
a 40-inch vertical and 10-foot-7 broad jump confirm the lower-body power behind his jump cuts and his ability to finish through wraps.
- 01
Gap-scheme fit
far more natural pressing zone than reading pullers on power and counter; his vision gets cloudy when the crease is manufactured rather than read.
- 02
Pass protection
willing and physical in his approach but inconsistent with identification and hand placement, which will cap early third-down usage.
- 03
Route tree
used mostly on checkdowns and flares in college; the receiving toolkit needed real development before he could be trusted as a route-runner.
- 04
Creation in tight quarters
not a back who breaks tackles by force, so muddied fronts and negative-yardage plays turn into stalemates rather than escapes.
— — — positional median (p50)
- 40 yd
- 4.43sp50
- Vertical
- 40inp50
- Broad jump
- 127inp50
- Three-cone
- —s
- Shuttle
- —s
- Bench
- —rep
| Yr | Team | G | Att | Yds | TD | Rec | RecYds |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2018 | Western Michigan | — | 0 | 337 | 0 | 7 | 62 |
| 2019 | Illinois | — | 0 | 18 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2020 | Illinois | 8 | 0 | 540 | 3 | 7 | 64 |
| 2021 | Illinois | 10 | 0 | 1005 | 5 | 14 | 142 |
| 2022 | Illinois | 12 | 0 | 1643 | 10 | 27 | 240 |
| Career | — | 30 | 0 | 3543 | 18 | 55 | 508 |
2020-2022 lines verified against cfbstats.com Illinois player pages and cross-checked with ESPN season splits (exact match). 2018 (Western Michigan) and 2019 (Illinois) predate cfbstats.com archive coverage and come from ESPN season splits; games played for those two seasons could not be verified and are left null rather than zero-filled, as are 2019 receiving figures. Season sums (672 att / 3,543 rush yds / 18 rush TD) differ from StatMuse's career line (676 / 3,566 / 18); the season-by-season total is used here.
A dash means the figure is not published by a source we trust — never a zero we invented.
The projection most boards landed on in 2023 - a quick, undersized complement whose value came in the passing game and on special teams.
The realized version of the profile: a compact one-cut zone runner whose speed and receiving growth made him a lead back rather than a rotational piece.
The floor if the receiving work never arrived: elite testing and real speed inside a career as a change-of-pace back and core special-teamer.
Everything above is the pre-draft evaluation. This section is what actually happened — updated year over year.
Rotational rookie behind Joe Mixon in 2023, then the Bengals lead back from 2024 on, clearing 1,000 rushing yards and posting a 69-catch season in 2025 while playing out his rookie contract.
Cincinnati brought him along slowly. As a rookie in 2023 he was a change-of-pace piece behind Joe Mixon, playing 12 games for 44 carries, 179 yards and 14 catches, mostly on returns and situational snaps. When Mixon was traded, the job opened, and Brown took it: 2024 gave him 229 carries for 990 yards and seven scores plus 54 receptions for 360 yards and four more touchdowns, the sort of dual-role usage that had been speculative in his evaluation. In 2025 he was the unquestioned lead back, playing all 17 games for 232 carries, 1,019 rushing yards, six rushing touchdowns and 69 catches for 437 yards and five scores, roughly 1,456 yards from scrimmage and 11 total touchdowns.
The honest read is that the board undersold him. The speed and the zone vision were priced correctly; the receiving development was not, and it is the part of his game that turned him from a rotational runner into a three-down starter. Pass protection remains the softest spot, but Cincinnati found ways around it. For a pick at 163, a back who has cleared 1,000 rushing yards and posted a 69-catch season is a clean win, and heading into 2026 he is playing out a rookie contract while his representation negotiates an extension.