Tag: Bryce Love

Report: Bryce Love will remain on IR after suffering setback with knee injury

Washington won’t be activating RB Bryce Love from the IR after the former fourth-round pick was unable to get healthy in the 21-day window.

This was an assumed move for the Washington Football Team, but RB Bryce Love will not be activated from the injured reserve after suffering yet another setback with his knee injury that has now kept him out of action for the past two years.

Love, the former fourth-round pick out of Stanford, was brought back to practice several weeks ago with hopes that he could eventually be activated to the 53-man roster in the 21-day window, but it’s clear that the team will be unable to make that work after the former Heisman runner-up dealt with some initial soreness in his knee after returning to practice.

It is likely that we won’t see any more of or hear from Love until next summer, when he can hopefully make it through training camp and contribute to the team that drafted him in 2018.

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Bryce Love suffers injury setback; return from IR in doubt for 2020 season

There was hope that Bryce Love would make his return soon after practicing last week, but he will now be held out for longer going forward.

There was hope on the injury front for the Washington Football Team a week ago when it was reported that second-year running back Bryce Love had begun practicing again, and there was some hope that he could eventually be activated from the injured reserve and be placed on the active roster.

That hope has seemingly gone out the window now, with coach Ron Rivera saying that Love experienced some soreness in his knee after practicing last week, and the team is planning to hold him out a bit going forward. According to the IR rules this year, Washington had 21 days to activate him to the roster once Love returned to practice last week, or else he will be placed on the IR for the rest of the season. They now have 14 days to do so.

Love has been a frustrating storyline in Washington over the past year. The young RB had a tremendous college career at Stanford, where he finished second in Heisman voting in 2018, but a knee injury caused him to drop in the NFL Draft, where Washington got him in the fourth round, hoping that he could eventually return to the level of play that we saw at Stanford. As of yet, he has been unable to get his knee injury under control, and we are still waiting for him to take his first snap in the NFL.

As of now, it is not looking like that elusive first snap will come in 2020, though things could change.

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Bryce Loves returns to practice in Washington, taking step towards return to field

Washington now has 21 days to decide if they will activate Bryce Love to the active roster, adding him to an encouraging backfield.

We got news from Washington coach Ron Rivera last week that there were some expectations that second-year RB Bryce Love could return to the field at some point in the near future, and that’s what we’re hearing on Wednesday morning.

According to The Washington Post‘s Nicki Jhabvala, Love is returning to practice today, starting the 21-day period where the team can decide if they want to activate him from the injured reserve or not.

Love, who was drafted in the fourth round in 2019 after a stellar career at Stanford that saw him finish as the runner-up for the Heisman Trophy Award, has yet to play a single snap in the NFL after dealing with a nagging knee injury that started in college. There was some hope that he could play a role on this offense during training camp, but his injury persisted, and the team decided to sit him out for an extended period of time and try to get him back to full health.

Now we will get a chance to see if that worked and if the young RB can provide a spark to Washington’s backfield.

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Washington hopeful RB Bryce Love will return to the field soon for first NFL action

Bryce Love has yet to take the field since being drafted in 2019, but Rivera is hopeful the former Heisman runner-up is close to a return.

The young running back who has gotten all of the attention this season, and rightfully so, is Antonio Gibson, but Washington still has a versatile player who could be a potential game-changer up their sleeves. Bryce Love has yet to take the field since being drafted out of Stanford in the fourth round of the 2019 draft.

Due to a knee injury suffered in college that has been nagging ever since Love was sent to the IR earlier this season and has been there ever since. However, there is some belief in Washington that the young RB could make a return to the field sometime soon.

In college, Love was a revelation at Stanford, finishing second in the voting for the 2018 Heisman Trophy Award. It is expected that he can have a nice NFL career, but we won’t know much until we finally get a chance to see him in action.

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Washington signs former 5th-round pick RB Jonathan Williams to practice squad

Washington signed RB Jonathan Williams to the practice squad on Friday after Jared Norris was elevated to the active roster.

A few roster moves were made by Washington on Friday after RB Bryce Love was moved to the short-term IR to deal with a knee injury that has him temporarily unavailable to play. The move left an open spot on the 53-man roster, which has been filled by LB Jared Norris.

Washington has now filled their open spot on the practice squad, signing RB Jonathan Williams, a player who was drafted by the Buffalo Bills in the fifth round of the 2016 NFL Draft. Williams has bounced around the league a bit since being drafted, last spending time with the Detroit Lions earlier this season, and the Indianapolis Colts last season.

Williams appeared in nine games and recorded 49 carries for 235 rushing yards and one rushing touchdown on the 2019 season.

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What does Adrian Peterson’s release mean for your fantasy football team?

With Antonio Gibson now assuming the starting RB role in Washington, there are some major fantasy football implications to be had.

While the Washington Football Team is working to make their actual roster on the field work after the surprise release of veteran RB Adrian Peterson, there are a number of fantasy football managers around the world who may be wondering something similar.

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With the NFL season just a week from being kicked off, many teams have already been drafted, and it wouldn’t be a surprise if you rostered Peterson with hopes of him being the starting RB in Washington. So now that he’s gone, what do you do? Here are some tips.

Pick up Antonio Gibson Immediately

If you can do so, you need to be rushing to your waiver wire and looking to pick up rookie Antonio Gibson immediately if he is available, which may not be the case. Gibson has already been one of the young players picking up ‘sleeper buzz’ this season, so there’s a good chance that he is already rostered by someone who just won the lottery on Friday morning, but you at least need to check.

Even as the RB2 in Washington, many expected Gibson to have a nice rookie season where he could help win you a couple of games. Now that he is stepping into the starting role, though, his value just went through the roof. When you consider that the release of AP was primarily to give these young players more of a chance, namely Gibson, it’s exciting to think of the possibilities that he will have in Scott Turner’s offense. We could be dealing with a young superstar on our hands, and you’ll want to do everything you can to get a piece of it.

Hold on to Adrian Peterson

Just because AP is no longer a member of the Washington Football Team doesn’t mean his value has plummeted. In fact, depending on where he ends up landing, it could potentially help him down the road if he goes to a contending team that has an easier path to scoring points than Washington typically does.

I would hang onto AP for the time being and watch to see what happens. We saw two years ago in Washington that he doesn’t need much ramp-up time to get going, and he can definitely go to a new system and start to provide an impact right away.

Be open to fliers in Washington

This move seemingly caused all of the other backs in Washington to take a step forward in the value chart. While players like Bryce Love, J.D. McKissic, or Peyton Barber were unlikely to be rostered a couple of days ago, you can now look at potentially adding and stashing them for future use. If it were me, I would try to pick up McKissic first, and maybe Love if he is unavailable. We haven’t yet seen enough from Barber to make me think that he is going to have a legitimate impact on the offense in Washington, but it’s something to keep your eye on.

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Bryce Love says he reached out to Christian McCaffrey for tips on playing for Scott Turner

Love and McCaffrey know each other from Stanford, and now Love is looking to his former teammate for tricks in Scott Turner’s system.

There have been a few occasions this offseason where fans of the Washington Football Team have taken the opportunity to look at some of their players, and imagine what they might play like under a new coaching staff and system.

One of the main comparisons, lofty as it may be, is hoping that one of the running backs in Washington can fill the role that Christian McCaffrey held with the Carolina Panthers, playing under Scott Turner and Ron Rivera, both of whom are in Washington now. When RB Antonio Gibson was drafted, many said that he had the skill-set to be a CMC-lite, and now that RB Bryce Love is healthy, some are hoping that he can become a dynamic player out of the backfield and be plugged into that pass-catching RB as well.

On Thursday, when talking to the media, Love said that he went as far as to reach out to McCaffrey earlier this offseason to try and get some tips and tricks on how to use his skillset in Washington’s new offense.

It’s way too much to ask Love to become the next Christian McCaffrey, who finished the 2019 season as the undisputed top rusher in the NFL. However, there is no reason why Love can’t have a breakout season of his own and become a dominant player in Washington’s offense. We saw what he could do when given the chance at Stanford, and he finished as a Heisman Trophy finalist in 2017, two years after McCaffrey did the same thing, at the same school.

Is there now a chance that Love can follow in his old teammate’s footsteps and become a rushing mastermind under Scott Turner? I don’t see why not.

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5 takeaways from day two of padded practice in Washington

Energy continued to be high for players and coaches in Washington as players got into the groove of cracking pads on day two of camp.

If day one of padded training camp practices in Washington was the pinnacle of excitement, day two was more of the same, with slightly worse weather conditions. It was cloudy and a bit wet on Wednesday morning, but players were still flying around and playing with energy.

The crack of pads is once again becoming more normal, and positional hierarchies are starting to form in certain areas, though it’s tough to make any major calls as of yet. Regardless, here are some major takeaways from the second day of padded practices in Washington:

Bryce Love can be legitimate offensive threat

(Photo by Ezra Shaw/Getty Images)

With Adrian Peterson taking a veteran’s day off on Wednesday, the RB1 role was Love’s to work with for the day, and he did not disappoint. Being allowed to work as an every-down back, Love was able to show a lot of versatility out of the backfield both in the running and passing game, and he impressed the coaches along the way.

Washington has had to deal with the unfortunate situation surrounding Derrius Guice, who on Wednesday morning was reportedly accused of raping two women during his time at LSU, but the depth at running back has seemingly been able to hold up despite that loss. If Love can keep up this production once the games get going, Washington should be just fine in the backfield.

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Fantasy football best-ball gambles: Wagers of the week

A four-pack of fantasy football best-ball buys for the upcoming week.

Fantasy football best-ball drafts are a blast. My preferred league platforms for these drafts are RTSports.com and SportsHub’s “Best-Ball 10s” services. Neither company sponsored this article … I just like what they do in the space. Check ’em out, or look around the web to find competitors.

Let’s dive right into my four favorite gambles for this upcoming week’s drafting action:

QB Gardner Minshew, Jacksonville Jaguars: Not going in the top 25 quarterbacks, on average, Minshew is the perfect flier in best-ball drafts. He goes later than guys with way less upside (Kirk Cousins, Philip Rivers, Jimmy Garoppolo), and the second-year passer is had with picks later than 14:09, per ADP trends. The Jaguars have a capable receiving crew, led by 2019 breakout DJ Chark Jr., and the 2020 draft added Laviska Shenault Jr. Toss in stable veterans wideouts Chris Conley and Dede Westbrook, in addition to incoming tight end Tyler Eifert, this offense could be dangerous under Jay Gruden’s play-calling. As a No. 2 behind an elite starter, or (better yet) a third QB, Minshew is pure upside with essentially no risk to speak of.

RB Bryce Love, Washington Football Team: In this space a week ago, Love’s rookie backfield mate, Antonio Gibson, received a thumbs up. This time, Love is the late-round gamble worthy of attention. Why both? This backfield is that wide open. Love emerging is two-fold: Either Adrian Peterson has to finally fall off of the fantasy map, or Gibson doesn’t meet expectations as a rookie trying to feel his way through the pandemic. Ten games into his 2018 season, Love blew out his knee after rushing for 2,118 yards and 19 touchdowns the prior year, ultimately red-shirting as an NFL rookie in 2019. Gibson is more of a receiving threat than AD or Love, suggesting gamers are better off chancing it on Love and his nearly 14th-round ADP in hopes Father Time finally catches up to Peterson.

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WR Chris Hogan, New York Jets: Remember him? On the receiving end of a whopping 15 targets, leading to eight grabs, in 2019 with the Carolina Panthers, Hogan returns to the AFC East as a Jet. The New York passing game isn’t going to light it up, and Hogan won’t be the savior, but he’s a final-round flier in best-ball drafts. The Jets are starving for someone to step up after Jamison Crowder, and it’s tough to have any more confidence in rookie Denzel Mims and journeyman Breshad Perriman than the well-traveled Hogan. Perhaps the 32-year-old still has a few deep plays left in the old gas tank.

TE Jace Sternberger, Green Bay Packers: It’s a tad bit curious to see the player likeliest to see the second-most targets in this passing game go undrafted, on average. Fantasy owners may be concerned by his placement on the COVID-19 list, or enough people are holding out hope another player develops into a viable weapon behind Davante Adams. At any rate, the tight end position is prominently featured in this offense, and Sternberger has tremendous potential to fill the obvious void in the aerial attack. His fantasy football needle aimed due north.

Derrius Guice is gone in Washington, so what happens now?

Guice was rightfully released from Washington on Friday after turning himself into the police, so it will be next man up in Washington.

The competition for starting running back on the Washington Football Team just got a bit more interesting.

Groundbreaking news dropped late on Friday afternoon, as it was announced that RB Derrius Guice had turned himself in to the police for an alleged domestic violence incident, and minutes later the team released him altogether. Despite what happens for Guice and his future in football, which might be a bit dicey considering his lengthy injury history to go along with a potential legal timeline, it’s clear that he is not in the cards for the future in Washington.

So where does that leave them? Not in a terrible position, to be honest. Thankfully, running back is one of the deeper positions on the team in Washington, where five players now stand to compete for a spot on the roster. We have speculated in the past that Washington might choose to carry four backs on the 53-man roster, but now it could stand to reason that they will keep all five — Adrian Peterson, Bryce Love, Antonio Gibson, Peyton Barber, and J.D. McKissic — and protect against depth or lack of production down the road.

It would be easy to believe that the RB1 job is Peterson’s to lose at this point, as he’s held that role for much of the past two seasons, and doesn’t show any signs of slowing down. There are also high hopes for both Love and Gibson, who fans in Washington have yet to see outside of some impressive college careers. Both Barber and McKissic, who might have struggled to find a spot on the roster before Guice’s release, will now likely be members of the team going forward, and they can add some crucial depth when called upon.

So is the news about Guice unfortunate? Absolutely. Any domestic violence issue is abhorrent and shameful, and should not be taken lightly. Credit to Ron Rivera and the team for releasing him immediately, showing that this type of behavior absolutely has no place in Washington. Will the team be able to make due going forward? Again, absolutely. It will be the next man up for the Washington Football Team, and luckily there are a lot of men waiting in line for that RB spot.

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