Fantasy: Who will emerge as the next great running back?

Get ready for your season with theScore's 2017 Fantasy Football Draft Kit.

David Johnson and Le'Veon Bell (not necessarily in that order) will be the first two running backs drafted in almost every fantasy football league this summer. But who will be first off the board next summer?

Identifying the next great fantasy RB is an exercise in more than just identifying running talent - though that's obviously the most important part. We must also consider the offense a running back plays in and the market share of carries he can expect.

Let's take a closer look at the candidates:

Derrick Henry

Rushing skills: ★★★★☆
Receiving skills: ★★☆☆☆
Offensive line: ★★★★☆
Market share: ★★☆☆☆

The Heisman Trophy winner in 2015, Henry is a freakish human who at nearly 250 pounds and with legitimate 4.54 speed is essentially without athletic equal among NFL running backs.

We know Henry is a dominant runner and we know he can handle a huge workload - he carried the ball a staggering 395 times in 15 games during his Heisman campaign at Alabama. We also know the Titans have one of the best offensive lines in football and a potential superstar quarterback. The situation looks as good as it gets for a tailback.

There's just one roadblock. His name is DeMarco Murray.

Entering this season, Henry is blocked on the depth chart by Murray, who at age 29 has shown some signs of breaking down but is much more durable than his reputation suggests. There's no reason to believe Henry can expect better than a 50-50 split unless Murray gets hurt or he moves on.

The Titans can get out of Murray's contract after this season and they probably will; they didn't spend a second-round pick on Henry for him to remain a backup. Whether Henry is considered a top-three fantasy pick by then will likely depend on how he plays in a limited role this year.

Joe Mixon

Rushing skills: ★★★☆☆
Receiving skills: ★★★★☆
Offensive line: ★☆☆☆☆
Market share: ★★☆☆☆

The Bengals didn't invest a second-round pick in Mixon and take the PR hit that came with doing so, because they consider him a committee back. They see him as an elite talent, someone with the patience and vision of Le'Veon Bell and the burst and receiving ability of David Johnson. Watch his college tape and it's hard not to see the same thing.

Mixon will have to contend with Giovani Bernard and Jeremy Hill this summer, but he has ample ability to pass both of them on the depth chart and take on a feature back role in an offense loaded with playmakers but has major questions on the offensive line.

It's likely only a matter of time before Mixon is the man in Cincinnati. After it happens, whether Mixon becomes a fantasy asset worthy of consideration early in the first round of fantasy drafts next year will depend on whether his skills are so special that he can feast despite the likelihood he will see subpar blocking.

Leonard Fournette

Rushing skills: ★★★★☆
Receiving skills: ★★☆☆☆
Offensive line: ★★☆☆☆
Market share: ★★★★☆

The fourth overall pick in the 2016 draft, Ezekiel Elliott, led the NFL in rushing as a rookie. The Jaguars hope the fourth overall pick in 2017 can do the same.

Fournette looked like a man among boys when he was healthy at LSU, and also sometimes when he wasn't healthy. But the NFL is a league of big, bad men and it won't be quite as easy to bowl over defenders on the way to highlight-reel runs.

The biggest impediment for Fournette will be his surrounding cast. In Dallas, Elliott runs behind what is likely the NFL's best offensive line. The Jaguars might rank in the bottom 10. Elliott also had a Rookie of the Year playing quarterback. The Jaguars have Blake Bortles.

Fournette is a special player and may be able to overcome these deficits, but it's more likely his climb to fantasy superstardom, if it ever happens, will be at least a few years away.

Todd Gurley

Rushing skills: ★★★★☆
Receiving skills: ★★☆☆☆
Offensive line: ★★☆☆☆
Market share: ★★★★☆

Once hyped as the best running back prospect since Adrian Peterson, Gurley turned in a tremendous rookie campaign (coming off ACL surgery, no less) and was in the mix to be the first overall pick in fantasy drafts last summer.

Then the 2016 season happened.

It was a nightmarish campaign for Gurley, whose yards per carry plunged from 4.8 in 2015 to a paltry 3.2. Stunningly, Gurley produced only two runs all season of more than 20 yards - and the longest was 24 yards. Some of that is owing to the Rams' putrid offensive line, but Gurley had a run of at least 48 yards in each of the first four games he started as a rookie and his blocking wasn't much better then, indisputably getting worse as a sophomore.

Can Gurley find his mojo again? It's certainly possible his struggles are firmly behind him and he's ready to beast again. A new coaching staff will probably help with that.

But if you're banking on Gurley ever becoming the player he was sold as prior to his draft, you're probably going to be disappointed.

Jay Ajayi

Rushing skills: ★★★★☆
Receiving skills: ★★★☆☆
Offensive line: ★★★☆☆
Market share: ★★★★☆

Only four running backs in NFL history have rushed for 200-plus yards three times in a season. Ajayi is one of them.

Yes, these games came when the Dolphins' offensive line was healthy. And yes, Ajayi performed significantly worse when he didn't have the same starting five blockers in front of him.

But it's not like anyone could have rushed for 200 yards in Ajayi's place. He was powerful, elusive, and he broke tackles - no player in the NFL had more yards per attempt after contact in 2016.

Uncertainly in the Dolphins' offense with Ryan Tannehill hurt and Jay Cutler in town, plus Ajayi's own injury history, have pushed him down fantasy draft boards a little. But, when everything is clicking for Ajayi, his ceiling is as high as any runner in football.