Los Angeles Rams: Sixth-round pick John Kelly is a diamond in the rough

An emotional John Kelly took a phone call from Los Angeles Rams running backs coach Skip Peete on Saturday afternoon. L.A. just selected the 5’9”, 205lb former Tennessee Volunteer with the second selection in round six (174 overall).

Sixth-Round draft picks don’t get feature stories after the draft. Los Angeles Rams selection John Kelly is worth some hype.

Straight Outta Nowhere

I’m a Vols guy. In the past 30 seasons, I’ve seen over 80% of their games. I’m also a graduate, it’s in my blood. When I was there, future NFL players Tracy Hayworth and Alvin Harper lived in my dorm. Cut me, I bleed orange.

Although Tennessee high school football, isn’t the same religious event it is in Texas, people take it very seriously. My son Austin played at Gallatin High School. One of the teams in his conference had running back named Jalen Hurd who set a state record with 3,357 yards as a Junior. Hurd committed to Tennessee.

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I was ecstatic this kid was headed to my school. Hurd was a star at Tennessee as a true freshman in 2014. The next season, 2015, the Vols brought in JUCO running back, Alvin Kamara and that was an all-star backfield. As the season progressed, a true freshman, John Kelly started getting carries. By the 2016 season, Tennessee had a “three-headed monster” at tailback.

I understood why Kamera was in the mix, he had great hands and was electric in the open field. Kelly was another story, after all, Jalen Hurd was still there and productive. The longer the season went, the more carries Kelly got. He earned it. Kelly just leveled would be tacklers with his strong running style.

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By the end of October, Hurd announced he was leaving the team. His departure made Kelly the Vols number one back. The upstart kid from Detroit had beat out the in-state hero. In the process, Kelly became a VolNation fan favorite. Here are some of Kelly’s 2016 highlights:

2017 was a down year at Tennessee. The Vols virtually imploded after the first game. Their offensive line was torn apart by injuries. The coach was under fire all season. Most importantly for Kelly, he was suspended for the Kentucky game due to a marijuana citation. He still pulled out 1,077 combined rushing and receiving yards for the season.

Going Pro

Here we are in the spring of 2018 and the rising senior declared for the NFL draft. He didn’t exactly wow ’em at the combine when he declined to run the 40-yard dash. At Tennessee’s Pro Day, Kelly ran a 4.5, but that was his second attempt. His first clocked time was 4.65.

One of the knocks on Kelly from scouts is that he lacks breakaway speed. They also said the same thing about Jerry Rice, after he was clocked 4.71. That’s not exactly Kelly’s game.

He runs hard and smart with the ball. Kelly breaks tackles and makes people miss. It takes more than one defender to bring him down. He’ll run between the tackles but he can also bounce a play outside. To sum it up, John Kelly is the type of back a team uses to get the tough yards but has the ability to break any play for a big gain. Watch the following video to see Kelly slide of tackles and take off in the open field.

Next: Goodbye Tavon Austin

Los Angeles Rams fans are going to like what they see from their sixth-round pick. The last unheralded Volunteer running back to take the NFL by storm was Arian Foster. Kelly was better than Foster during his time at the University of Tennessee.

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