Everyone has believed it to be the case since before the season began, but Todd Gurley will be leaving Georgia after this season. The running back was a leading Heisman candidate for much of this season, and he will hope to hear his name called on the first day of the draft in 2015.
Gurley has been regarded as a superstar for nearly his entire career at Georgia, and rightfully so. He has been amazing when he was on the field, and 2014 was expected to be the year that Georgia finally unleashed Gurley on the nation and that he would join the Heisman conversation.
For much of the season, those things were true. Gurley had a monster season opener and kept rolling, only failing to pile up numbers when Richt and the coaching staff curiously avoided giving him touches. Midway through the season, however, Gurley was suspended for four games by the NCAA for receiving improper benefits, and then he tore his ACL after returning to the field.
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According to media reports, Richt said on his radio show on Monday night that the running back has played his last down for the Bulldogs. Before the injury, Gurley was regarded as a surefire first-rounder, and probably a top-15 pick. But what about now?
Coach Richt said on his radio show that Todd Gurley will enter the NFL draft...No shocker...
— Anthony Dasher (@AnthonyDasher1) December 2, 2014
The NFL has learned recently that running back is the most fungible position in the league. At a time when running backs are asked to do increasingly less for their teams, many organizations believe that there are plenty of players who can provide quality production at running back available in the later rounds of the draft. 2013 and 2014 were the first back-to-back drafts in NFL history that did not feature a running back selected in the first round.
So does the injury affect Gurley? Recovery from an ACL tear is a far safer bet than it was even a decade ago, but it is still a major injury, and teams will be wary about overspending on a tailback in the draft.
If Gurley seemed to be playing his way into the top 10 picks, he almost certainly runs the risk of falling out of the top 20 now. Teams that would have been interested before will probably wait until he is deep in the recovery process before they are willing to move him back up their draft boards, and even then, they may try to trade down and take him later in the draft.
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