The Washington Redskins selected Derrius Guice in the second-round of the 2018 NFL Draft. Their hope was that the running back would be a star for them – and many outside the organization felt it could happen. However, year one never happened as he tore his ACL in his first preseason game.
Now, Guice is participating in training camp for 2019, but the Redskins are clearly being cautious – and you can't blame them.
According to Billy Embody of 247Sports.com, the Washington Redskins will build up Derrius Guice's workload as training camp progresses.
“Yeah, for sure, and we’re going to continue to build on Derrius’ reps, for sure,” Gruden told reporters after practice. “We just don’t want to give him 50 reps on the second day back from his injury, so we’re going to continue to build up his rep count and while he’s doing that, we get Samaje more looks, Craig Reynolds some more looks, you know, Byron Marshall some more looks and it’s a benefit for everybody.”
This makes a lot of sense. Guice is extremely talented and clearly the running back of the future in Washington. However, he's coming off a serious injury. Working him too early in training camp would make absolutely no sense. It wouldn't be hard to build him up to be ready for Week 1 without having him go all-out this early.
I don't agree with anyone that says he's an injury prone player. However, that doesn't mean the Redskins should be reckless with him. Especially considering the help he has. Washington has Adrian Peterson and Chris Thompson at the position as well. That means even when the season does start, Guice won't exactly be taking 30 carries per game.
The Redskins have every right to be excited about a healthy Derrius Guice in 2019. They need to make sure he makes it to the regular season that way though, and a slow workload build in training camp is a great start.
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