Which first- or second-year running back would you build an NFL team around?

An effective young tailback can be the cost-effective foundation for playoff team. Ezekiel Elliott’s dynamite rookie campaign made the Dallas Cowboys the NFC’s top team in 2016. Arian Foster’s league-leading 1,616 yards in 2010 set the tone for the Texans to earn the franchise’s first-ever postseason bids in 2011 and 2012.

These fresh-out-of-college backs can energize an offense with electric playmaking skills and create the salary cap savings that allow teams to surround them with veteran talent. The league’s seemingly endless supply of emerging runners has helped usher in an era of platoons and made running back the league’s least-expensive non-special teams position. Several of 2018’s prospective playoff teams, including the Patriots (Sony Michel), Steelers (James Conner), Seahawks (Chris Carson), and Saints (Alvin Kamara) are built around talented first- or second-year tailbacks.

So if you were building a team, which young tailback would you cast as your offensive foundation? For the sake of argument, let’s limit the discussion to tailbacks in their first two seasons as a pro — that way your team will likely have at least one more year of these players on their inexpensive rookie contracts before a lucrative extension or free agency comes due. If you’re starting an offense from scratch, which young runner would you attach to your quarterback like a binary planet destined to orbit around the Super Bowl each winter?

There are so many good young tailbacks to choose from in 2018 that there’s almost no wrong answer to this question. Conner has proven himself as an effectively replacement for an All-Pro back in Pittsburgh and is still getting better. Christian McCaffrey has an opportunity to be the third player in league history to gain 1,000 rushing yards and 1,000 receiving yards in the same season.

Phillip Lindsay has gone from undrafted free agent to the league’s most efficient runner (6.1 yards per carry). Tarik Cohen is capable of scoring touchdowns no matter where you put him in the lineup.

But just edging that group out is Kamara, 2017’s offensive rookie of the year and the gold standard in multi-tool tailbacks. He broke out last fall with a league-high 6.1 yards per carry, proving he could run the ball effectively as a change-of-pace option next to Mark Ingram. Where he really shined, however was in Drew Brees’ passing attack. Kamara has been responsible for 5.2 receptions per game in his pro career, a higher rate than high profile targets like Mike Evans, A.J. Green, Doug Baldwin, Rob Gronkowski, and Stefon Diggs in the same span.

That’s made him an essential safety valve for a passing offense that’s just Michael Thomas and a bunch of scarecrows painted black and gold. Kamara can take short passes and explode upfield. He’s also an effective medium-range target who can embarrass linebackers in coverage. In the NFL’s ever-evolving offensive spectrum, having a viable receiver out of the backfield is a major asset. Kamara, with 146 catches since 2017, has more than any other running back but Christian McCaffrey.

And we haven’t seen the full extent of his running skills yet, thanks to the presence of Ingram. The 215-pound Kamara has the frame to handle 15+ carries per game; when Ingram was suspended for the first four games of 2018, he responded with 56 carries for 275 yards as the team’s primary back — an 1,100-yard pace over the course of a full season.

Kamara’s able to fill any need his offense throws at him, and he’s still improving as a player. With apologies to a stacked field, he’s my guy for 2019 and beyond. — Christian D’Andrea

There are plenty of reasons to doubt whether or not Saquon Barkley was the right choice for the New York Giants with the second overall pick in the 2018 NFL Draft, but there is no denying that Barkley is already one of the best running backs in the NFL. Barkley has been remarkable on the ground and through the air — through 12 games Barkley has already amassed 1,556 total yards and 12 touchdowns.

Barkley ranks third in rushing yards, 13th in yards per attempt, and 42nd in receiving yards — he’s been huge for the Giants offense. Barkley has accounted for 37 percent of the Giants total yards this season. This is a team that doesn’t even have strong offensive line or quarterback play.

If the Giants can manage to find a legitimate successor to Eli Manning in the next few years, they’ll have a strong trio at quarterback, running, and wide receiver to lead them into the next era of Giants football. — Charles McDonald

Can you guess which player is the only one in NFL history to put together a five-game streak of at least 50 rushing yards and 50 receiving yards?

Or do you know which player has more scrimmage yards (859) than anyone else in the past five weeks?

Well it would be weird if the answer were someone other than Christian McCaffrey. I’m not trying to trick you here.

It’s still kinda surprising, huh? And it really shouldn’t be. McCaffrey was so electric as a sophomore at Stanford when he was a Heisman runner-up. He set an NCAA record for all-purpose yards (more than Barry Sanders!). He then followed that up by setting a Rose Bowl record for all-purpose yards.

Injuries slowed him down a little as a junior, but he still led the nation with 211.6 all-purpose yards per game. Months later, the Panthers selected him with the No. 8 pick in the draft.

As a rookie, he flashed, but the Panthers didn’t seem sure how to use him. Though he finished with a team-high 1,086 yards from scrimmage and set a franchise rookie record for catches (80), McCaffrey still finished third on the team in rushing yards and in attempts, behind Cam Newton and veteran running back Jonathan Stewart.

In the offseason, Stewart was released and Carolina brought in Norv Turner as the new offensive coordinator. That helped unleash the CMC we saw at Stanford — and that’s the version of McCaffrey who can be called the best all-purpose weapon in the NFL.

As just a reminder of what that McCaffrey can do:

With about 70 more carries than Newton, McCaffrey has more than doubled up the quarterback’s rushing total. McCaffrey has 863 yards on 163 carries, and he’s still the team’s leading receiver with 80 catches for 663 yards and six touchdowns, with a catch rate that’s slightly better than Michael Thomas’ (87 percent to 86.7 percent).

At this pace, McCaffrey can become the first player since 1999 — Marshall Faulk in the Rams’ Greatest Show on Turf offense — to finish a season with 1,000 yards rushing and 1,000 yards receiving. He also only needs 23 more catches to break Matt Forte’s single-season record for receptions by a running back.

Before the draft, some were skeptical of McCaffrey’s size — he’s just 5’11 and 205 pounds. But he’s been durable in his NFL career, never missing a game. He’s also shown the kind of versatility that any team in the modern NFL would give its right kidney for, if NFL teams had right kidneys (or kidneys period).

Good thing the Panthers finally figured out how to use him. — Sarah Hardy