With James Conner out for the season with a foot injury, the Arizona Cardinals need running back Trey Benson to step up and carry the bulk of their running game. Benson is in his second season with the Cardinals after being selected in the third round of the 2024 NFL Draft following a successful college career with the Florida State Seminoles.
In 2024, he was mainly Conner’s backup, which meant he had little chance of carrying the ball as a rookie. Regardless of his lack of experience at the professional level, the Cardinals have signaled that they are “fully confident” in Benson’s ability to pick up from their injured starting running back.
Head coach Jonathan Gannon recently said:
“I’m fully confident in Trey, I really am,” Gannon said, via Tyler Drake of ArizonaSports.com. “I think the more he plays, the more comfortable you see him getting and the better he’s going to be.”
Trey Benson’s Projected Production
Through two seasons with the Seminoles at the college level, Benson ran for 1918 yards with 24 touchdowns. He also had a significant number of receiving yards, with 371. He never managed to break into the 1,000-yard season club, but in both seasons, he proved to be a reliable contributor for Florida State.
In his first season with the Arizona Cardinals, he ran for 291 yards while only rushing for one touchdown in 63 carries. It’s a sign of improvement that this season he has run for almost half of the rushing yards he ran last season, with 125 yards, in 21 carries, which is 33.3% of the carries he had last season.
Expect him to run for between 600 and 800 yards this season, while getting somewhere between 7 and 10 touchdowns. Despite the performance improvement, the season is long and it could take a toll. There could be diminishing returns.
Trey Benson’s Role In The Arizona Cardinals
As mentioned before, with James Conner’s season-ending foot injury, Benson will be called upon to be the Arizona Cardinals’ RB1 for the rest of the year. The team might also try to give some of the load to quarterback Kyler Murray, who’s an accomplished runner himself.
However, expect Benson to run the tougher, more dangerous plays in the book. Especially for short yardage.
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