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Jacory Croskey-Merritt Looks Like the Steal of the 2025 NFL Draft

Originally posted on Athlon Sports | By Luke Easterling | Last updated Oct 5, 2025 7:47 PM ET

Washington Commanders rookie running back Jacory-Croskey Merritt had 150 total yards and two touchdowns in Sunday's road win over the Los Angeles Chargers.
Croskey-Merritt was a seventh-round pick in the 2025 NFL Draft out of Arizona.
Despite missing most of the 2024 college football season, Croskey-Merritt is making an immediate impact in the NFL.

The 2025 NFL Draft was loaded with big names at running back, from multiple first-round picks like Ashton Jeanty and Omarion Hampton, to another pair of top-40 picks in Quinshon Judkins and TreVeyon Henderson.

In all, 26 running backs were selected across all seven rounds of this year's draft. The last one to come off the board was a little-known prospect who missed all but one game of the 2024 college football season.

The Washington Commanders spent the 245th overall selection in the seventh round on Arizona's Jacory Croskey-Merritt, and five weeks into his rookie season, he might just be the best bargain in this entire draft class.

Croskey-Merritt, who prefers to go by his nickname, "Bill," emerged so quickly during training camp and throughout the preseason that Washington traded away incumbent starter Brian Robinson Jr. to the San Francisco 49ers before the start of the regular season. The rookie was expected to have a significant role in the offense, and that was before veteran Austin Ekeler went down with a season-ending Achilles injury.

Through the first four weeks of the season, Croskey-Merritt averaged nearly six yards per carry, finding the end zone twice. That was just the appetizer for his breakout performance Sunday on the road against a 3-1 Los Angeles Chargers team.

Croskey-Merritt's dual-threat skill set was on full display in Week 5, as he flashed his big-play ability all day long in a huge victory away from home.

Down 10-0 late in the first half, Croskey-Merritt got the Commanders on the board with his first touchdown run of the day:

UNTOUCHED

#WASvsLAC FOX pic.twitter.com/rJ4nhRT2gY
— Washington Commanders (@Commanders) October 5, 2025

Early in the third quarter, he showed off his versatility as a pass-catcher out of the backfield, taking this check-down throw from Jayden Daniels and turning it into a huge play:

mooooooovin'

#WASvsLAC FOX pic.twitter.com/AKLsDA8LOm
— Washington Commanders (@Commanders) October 5, 2025

Croskey-Merritt would finish that drive himself, with a well-deserved second touchdown run to put the Commanders out in front for the first time in the game:

so nice he did it twice

#WASvsLAC FOX pic.twitter.com/3YX48DgLcC
— Washington Commanders (@Commanders) October 5, 2025

Croskey-Merritt wasn't done picking up big chunks of yardage, showing off his ability to break tackles and create tons of yards after contact on the ground with this big run:

Bill Croskey-Merritt keeps getting yards

WASvsLAC on FOX/FOX Onehttps://t.co/HkKw7uXVnt pic.twitter.com/j0gXwwNO6n
— NFL (@NFL) October 5, 2025

He finished the day with 150 yards of total offense, needing just 14 carries to rack up 111 yards rushing (7.9 yards per attempt), and adding 39 yards on his two receptions, spearheading a 27-10 victory for Washington.

After starting his college career at Alabama State, Croskey-Merritt transferred to New Mexico for the 2023 season, rushing for nearly 1,200 yards and 17 touchdowns. After transferring yet again to Arizona for the 2024 campaign, eligibility issues cost Croskey-Merritt all but the first game of the season, costing him the opportunity to further impress NFL scouts with more film against Power 4 competition. That heavily contributed to him still being on the board in the seventh round of this year's draft.

We've seen flashes of brilliance from many of the rookie running backs out of this year's draft class, with Jeanty and Hampton both living up to their draft slots over the past couple of weeks in particular, and some other early-round backs proving worthy of where they came off the board back in April.

But if we're talking about value, it's impossible to look at the bottom of that list and find the last running back taken, and not think Croskey-Merritt looks like the biggest steal of the bunch, and perhaps the best value pick in the entire draft up to this point.

For an offense that already has a superstar quarterback in second-year phenom Jayden Daniels, and a legit No. 1 receiver in Terry McLaurin, the future is bright for the Commanders with Croskey-Merritt taking over the RB1 spot.