Tyrone
Tracy Jr..
Tyrone
Tracy Jr..
Purdue· 5'11"· 209 lb· 4.48s 40
"A four-year wide receiver who spent one season as a running back and looked like he had been doing it his whole life — the rare conversion where the tape, not the projection, does the arguing."Pre-draft read
Tracy is a converted wide receiver who spent one season as a primary ball-carrier and still ran like a back who had done it for years. He works from single-back and pistol looks with real patience, pressing the front side of zone before snapping the ball back across the tackle's hip. The footwork is the trait: choppy steps at the line, then one hard plant and a full-speed exit.
The second trait is what he does with a defender in his lap. Contact balance lets him survive glancing hits and keep the run alive, and the receiver background shows up on angle routes and swings where he separates like a slot rather than a checkdown. He is also a live return man. The ceiling is a three-down back whose passing-down value was never a projection.
Outside and mid zone offense that asks the back to press, cut once, and win on the perimeter, paired with a passing game that treats him as a route runner rather than a checkdown.
Year 1 as a passing-down back and returner who earns early-down carries by midseason; ceiling is a legitimate three-down starter carrying 200-plus touches with real receiving volume.
Gap and power scheme that asks him to take a pulling guard's tracks downhill into a loaded box on first down, or an offense that keeps the back in as a sixth protector on obvious passing downs.
The receiver background is the whole edge here — he is more valuable in an offense that motions him out and makes a linebacker cover him than in one that hands off 20 times and sits him on third down.
Tyrone Tracy Jr | Running Back | Purdue | 2023 Highlights
Full 2023 Purdue reel showing the one-cut zone runs and the receiving work out of the backfield.
Tyrone Tracy Jr. Purdue/Iowa Career Highlights
Career cut spanning the Iowa receiver years and the Purdue position switch.
Tracy Jr. 19-YD TD Run vs. Wisconsin | Purdue Football
Press-and-cut touchdown run against Wisconsin that shows the plant-and-go burst.
Tracy arrived in the 2024 class as one of the least conventional backs on the board: four years at Iowa as a wide receiver, a transfer to Purdue, another season in the slot, and then a full-time move to running back as a sixth-year senior. Evaluators were not grading a long body of work at the position — they were grading whether one year of it was real.
Most of the tape said it was. In 2023 he carried 113 times for 716 yards and eight scores in 11 games, a 6.3 average behind an offensive line that was not winning many games for him, and he added 19 catches out of the backfield. He earned Big Ten return recognition the same year. The flags were obvious and honest: a single season of volume, ball security that wobbled in traffic, and an age profile that meant whoever took him was buying a finished product rather than a developmental one.
The board treated him as a Day 3 flier with special-teams insurance — a fifth-round consensus, top-ten among backs on some sheets, a rotational tag on most. The Giants took him at 166 as a passing-down complement. The call was not that he would start; it was that the receiver history gave him a floor even if the runs never came.
- 01
Zone vision
Presses the front side with genuine patience, reads the second-level fit, and cuts back through the tackle's hip without a gather step.
- 02
Contact balance
Absorbs glancing hits from linebackers and defensive backs and keeps churning, turning stops into three or four extra yards on a regular basis.
- 03
Receiving foundation
Four college seasons as a wide receiver, so routes out of the backfield, tracking, and hands are established skills rather than projections.
- 04
Burst through the crease
Hits full speed in one plant, and the 4.48 forty at 209 pounds matches the acceleration the tape shows on outside zone.
- 05
Return value
Third-team All-Big Ten returner in 2023, which gives a Day 3 back a real special-teams path onto a game-day roster.
- 01
One year of volume
Only 113 career carries as a primary back, so the sample behind the vision and the tempo is thin by any starting-back standard.
- 02
Ball security
Put the ball on the ground in traffic more than a converted back can afford, and the issue followed him into the league.
- 03
Pass protection
Late to the position, so recognition of blitz pictures and the anchor against bigger rushers both lagged the rest of his game.
- 04
Age profile
A sixth-year senior entering the league at 24, meaning the team drafting him was buying the finished player, not the developmental curve.
— — — positional median (p50)
- 40 yd
- 4.48sp50
- Vertical
- 40inp50
- Broad jump
- 124inp50
- Three-cone
- 6.81sp50
- Shuttle
- 4.06sp50
- Bench
- —rep
| Yr | Team | G | Att | Yds | TD | Rec | RecYds |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2018 | Iowa | 4 | 1 | -1 | 0 | 1 | 22 |
| 2019 | Iowa | 13 | 6 | 39 | 1 | 36 | 589 |
| 2020 | Iowa | 8 | 2 | 22 | 0 | 14 | 154 |
| 2021 | Iowa | 13 | 7 | 33 | 1 | 15 | 106 |
| 2022 | Purdue | 14 | 17 | 133 | 0 | 22 | 165 |
| 2023 | Purdue | 11 | 113 | 716 | 8 | 19 | 132 |
| Career | — | 63 | 146 | 942 | 10 | 107 | 1168 |
A dash means the figure is not published by a source we trust — never a zero we invented.
Honors
- Third-team All-Big Ten return specialist (2023)
- Purdue rushing leader (2023)
Athletic complementary back with real passing-down value and rotational early-down carries.
Undersized back whose receiving skill forced defenses to treat him as a coverage problem, not a runner.
The other converted receiver — useful in a package, but never trusted with a full backfield workload.
Everything above is the pre-draft evaluation. This section is what actually happened — updated year over year.
Fifth-round pick who started as a rookie: 895 rushing yards and 38 catches in 2024, 740 rushing yards in a 2025 season split with Cam Skattebo, and a co-starter role entering 2026.
The Giants got a starter in the fifth round almost immediately. Tracy played all 17 games as a rookie in 2024 with 12 starts, took over the backfield from Devin Singletary, and finished with team-high totals of 192 carries for 895 yards and five touchdowns plus 38 catches for 284 yards — a PFWA All-Rookie selection with 1,123 scrimmage yards, second-most by a Giants rookie back behind Saquon Barkley. The signature game was 145 yards at Pittsburgh in Week 8. Fumbles were the one line on the ledger that matched the pre-draft flag. In 2025 rookie Cam Skattebo pushed him down the rotation, but Skattebo's season ended with a leg injury in November and Tracy closed as the lead back at 176 carries for 740 yards and two scores. He entered 2026 listed as a co-starter with Skattebo on the Giants' first depth chart under new head coach John Harbaugh.
In hindsight this is one of the better value picks of the round. A converted receiver with one year of carries went 166th and produced a near-900-yard rookie season, more than most second-round backs from that class managed. The evaluation was right about the receiving floor and right about the burst; it undersold how quickly the vision would translate to NFL fronts. Ball security and the durability of a real workload are still the honest caveats, and the backfield is no longer his alone — but the pick was correct, and it was correct early.