Chris Thompson has signed a one-year contract with the Jacksonville Jaguars. The monetary details of the deal are unknown at this time.
RB Chris Thompson is signing a one-year deal with the Jaguars, per source. Good pass-catching option out of the backfield for Gardner Minshew.
— Jeremy Fowler (@JFowlerESPN) May 1, 2020
Chris Thompson Signs Deal With Jacksonville Jaguars
Thompson has spent his entire NFL career up to this point with the Washington Redskins. Washington drafted the Florida State product in the fifth round of the 2013 NFL draft. While he served as depth during his first few years, Thompson ended up settling into the third-down-running back role for Washington in 2015, a season in which he was targeted nearly 50 times in just 13 games. He continued in this role for the next few years, the most successful of those coming in 2017. Thompson played in just 10 games, but he racked over over 800 yards from scrimmage on 103 total touches. He scored six total touchdowns that year as well.
While Thompson has proven he can be effective, the biggest knock on his game has been injuries. He has played just one 16-game season in his career(2016), and has played under 13 games in every season but two. Over the last three years, Thompson has played 10, 10 and 11 games. The writing has been on the wall that Thompson’s time in Washington was coming to an end. The Redskins selected Bryce Love out of Stanford in the fifth round of the 2019 NFL draft. Love put up spectacular numbers in college, but concerns about his size and durability caused him to slip on draft day. His build is very similar to Thompson, and it was clear that Washington was drafting his successor.
The injury concerns aside, Thompson is still a very capable player. He averages 6.4 yards per touch and has nearly 75 catches in his career. At 29, he is close to the expiration date of the running back shelf life, but his pass-catching role can be useful in today’s pass happy NFL.
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