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The Washington Redskins are in the middle of a pretty serious re-brand and face-lift as an organization.
That has included firing GM Bruce Allen and hiring head coach Ron Rivera. Rivera has been given a lot of control (a lot more than previous Washington head coaches). With that control, he's trying to get the Redskins back to some winning ways.
To fix the roster, Rivera and the Redskins have both the NFL Draft and free agency to make some moves. And you should definitely expect Washington to use bring in players using both strategies.
Will they go after any stars though? It wouldn't be surprising to see Washington throw their hat in the ring for a few big time players.
With that in mind, should the Redskins consider pursuing star running back Melvin Gordon in free agency?
The first thing you have to is look at the current running backs on the roster.
Washington has five running backs on the roster that have a chance of being their next year.
Derrius Guice is obviously going to be on the team. Through two seasons, he hasn't gotten to play much due to injury. When he has played, the running back has been absolutely phenomenal though.
Then there's Adrian Peterson. Like Guice, he's still under contract. However, there's a chance Washington decides to let the veteran go, and pursue a different avenue at the position.
Bryce Love will likely be there too. Washington drafted him in 2019 and he has a lot of potential. He spent last season healing from injuries though and didn't get to play.
Chris Thompson is another back that has injury issues. He's an elite receiving back and offers a lot. Washington might decide to move on though as they might not want to keep too many RBs with extensive injury histories.
Finally, there is Wendell Smallwood. He joined the team right before the start of the 2019 regular season, and was more of an emergency back. Smallwood is very talented though so it's not impossible to think that Washington would bring him back. Out of the five running backs, he is the least likely though.
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So the two guarantees seem to be Guice and Love. Everyone else is kind of up in the air. That's all you need to know though.
The Redskins have Guice and Love. Yes, both have dealt with injuries that have kept them out of almost all of the potential 48 NFL games the two could have appeared in combined.
However, they are both uber talented and expected to be a great duo. So do you really want to pay someone like Gordon?
Gordon is a great running back. He is also coming off his worst season since his rookie year. And he's going to be expecting a lot of money, I mean that's why he was holding out to start 2019 in the first place.
Do the Redskins really want to pursue that? Do they want to pay someone a lot of money who they'd be expecting to split time? And would Gordon even want to be on a team with two other running backs that would be handling so much of the workload?
Why go after that and spend all that money when you could keep Peterson for much cheaper and know he's fine with the role? Or just bring back Thompson?
The Redskins have options. Not only options, but options they know will work in Washington and will come a lot cheaper.
There's no reason to dive into your bag for a big contract when you can spend that money elsewhere on positions of much bigger need.
