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The Washington Redskins selected Stanford Cardinal running back Bryce Love with the 112th overall pick of the 2019 NFL draft Saturday.
Mike Clay @MikeClayNFL
Redskins RB depth chart:
1. Derrius Guice
2. Chris Thompson
3. Adrian Peterson
4. Bryce Love
5. Samaje Perine
6. Byron Marshall
Tom Pelissero @TomPelissero
#Redskins took Montez Sweat in Round 1 and now Stanford RB Bryce Love in Round 4 — two of the biggest health-related question marks in the draft. Putting faith in their medical and athletic training staffs.
Adam Schefter @AdamSchefter
In the fourth round at pick 112, Washington drafted Stanford RB Bryce Love. Redskins now have Love and Derrius Guice coming off torn ACLs. Love is a PUP candidate who could be ready this season.
Ralph D. Russo @ralphDrussoAP
Good for Bryce Love.
But remember, with or without football, he’ll be just fine.
Tom Fornelli @TomFornelli
Bryce Love can be great when the blocking’s there, but I’m not a big fan of his when he has to find his own.
Love ran for 2,118 yards and 19 touchdowns as a junior in 2017 en route to finishing runner-up in the Heisman Trophy voting. If he had entered the 2018 draft, Love would have had a strong case to be a first-round pick.
Instead, he returned to Stanford for his senior year and proceeded to have a disappointing final season with the Cardinal. Love ran for 739 yards and six touchdowns in 10 appearances. His yards-per-carry average fell from 8.1 in 2017 to 4.5.
Compounding matters, Love confirmed he tore his ACL in Stanford’s final regular-season game, a 23-13 win over California.
Love’s brother Chris told the Mercury News‘ Elliott Almond his choice to come back to Stanford was about more than football. Therefore, Love was less concerned with his tumbling draft stock.
“Bryce does not think he made a wrong decision coming back and getting that degree,” Chris said. “Sometimes you have to face some adversity and take a couple tests and see what you’re built like.”
Still, Love’s fall down draft boards was undeniable. Bleacher Report’s Matt Miller ranked him as the 15th-best running back and gave him a fourth-round grade.
Keeping things in perspective is important when evaluating Love’s NFL potential, though. His monster 2017 was no fluke. He possesses great vision to see the best running lanes and the straight-line speed to break free for long runs.
Love’s numbers from 2018 also look bad in part because Stanford experienced problems with its offensive line.
According to Football Outsiders, Stanford’s offensive line ranked 124th in stuff rate, which measures how many rushing attempts fail to break the line of scrimmage. A whopping 24.3 percent of the team’s carries ended at or before the line of scrimmage. The Cardinal were 105th (21.8 percent) in 2017.
Any running back—no matter how good—will struggle when his blockers aren’t getting a sustained push at the point of attack.
One fair question of Love is how much he’ll be able to contribute in the passing game. In four years at Stanford, he had 49 receptions for 465 yards and two touchdowns. At a time when running backs are seemingly asked more and more to be pass-catchers out of the backfield, Love’s one-dimensional nature could be an issue.
Love now joins a crowded Washington backfield that includes Derrius Guice, Chris Thompson and Adrian Peterson.
Guice, a second-round pick in the 2018 draft, suffered a torn ACL in the preseason and missed the entire year. Washington head coach Jay Gruden told reporters on March 26 that he believes Guice will be back for training camp, but Adam Schefter of ESPN (h/t Rotoworld) reported on Saturday that the ex-LSU star is “coming along a little slower than expected.”
Peterson gained 1,250 yards from scrimmage and scored eight touchdowns and figures to receive many reps once again.
Thompson, a stellar pass-catching back, has snagged 80 passes in his past 20 games.
In general, Love slipped to the fourth round for obvious reasons, which isn’t to say he won’t provide great value for Washington. In a year or two, he could look like a huge steal for the Redskins, although it’s hard seeing Love carving out much playing time in 2019.
from Update News Topic http://bit.ly/2ZF61pL
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