When Washington drafted running back Keith Marshall in the seventh round of last year’s draft, the team thought it was getting a big-play threat on offense, as Marshall ran the fastest 40-yard dash time at the 2016 Scouting Combine. Now there are doubts about whether Marshall can ever get back to full speed.
For the second consecutive year, Marshall will miss the entire season, as he tore the patellar tendon in his right knee and won’t be able to play this year. Last year, Marshall missed the entire season with an elbow injury suffered in the third preseason game.
Marshall also tore his ACL in the same knee while in college at Georgia. He made a full recovery from that injury, but patellar tendon tears are notoriously hard to come back from, and it’s hard for any player to miss two full years and then come back and play.
Just before Marshall suffered the injury, Washington coach Jay Gruden had been saying that Marshall had a good chance of being a contributor on the offense this year. Now that won’t be the case, and Marshall will just hope he can get healthy and play in 2018.