Kellen Jessup carries a stronger power grade than any starting running back in this league, and at the Snowplows he ran twenty-one times for minus seven yards. He caught three passes that gained nothing. The Millwrights lost 7-20, and the one touchdown they scored was carried by the other back, Boomer Eastwick, whose six attempts gained two.
Three rookies have run for a thousand yards this season, and through six weeks Jessup was keeping their pace — 620 yards, second in the class behind only Jamarcus Iverson. The nine games since have paid him 286, and the last month reads fifty-five carries for fifty-nine yards, with a hamstring on the report in week fourteen. He plays for $1.1 million, against a median of $1.3 million for a starting back, and the contract ends in the spring.
Asked what kept going wrong in front of him, he said: “That's a good front we played. The looks were there. I feel strong, and we'll be better at the Toboggans.”
The rookie thousand sits ninety-four yards away, and the season gives him two weeks to find them, at the Toboggans and then the Copperheads. Twenty-one carries says the club still calls him the plan; the yards have spent a month answering otherwise.