On Sunday, the rookie running back from Washington scored his first touchdowns in the NFL.
Adam Schefter of ESPN reports that rookie running back Chris Rodriguez has been placed on injured reserve by the Washington Commanders, so terminating his season.
The former Kentucky standout scored his first touchdown of the season on Sunday, and the announcement was made just a few days later.
In the Commanders’ 30-28 loss to the New York Jets in Week 16, Rodriguez ran ten times for a career-high 58 yards and two touchdowns.
Halfway through the second quarter, he scored Washington’s first touchdown of the game from a distance of 12 yards. Later in the fourth quarter, he scored again from 1 yard out. Pro Football Focus gave Rodriguez the best grade of any running back in the NFL during Week 16 (84.9).
Since Artose Pinner in 2006, Rodriguez is the only running back from Kentucky to have multiple touchdowns in an NFL regular season game.
Rodriguez averaged 4.8 yards per carry over 51 carries for 247 yards and two TDs throughout the season. With just quarterback Sam Howell and running back Brian Robinson ahead of him in the Commanders’ rushing rankings, he comes in third.
In the sixth round of the 2023 NFL Draft, Washington chose Rodriguez with the 193rd overall choice. In May, Rodriguez committed to a one-year contract with the Commanders. The terms of the agreement were not made public, but SpoTrac reports that Rodriguez agreed to a $4.01 million, four-year contract that included a $177, 688 signing bonus.
He already has a big fan in first-year Washington offensive coordinator Eric Bieniemv.
“This is a guy that Eric was very high on,” head coach Ron Rivera said. “He’s a guy that Eric thinks will most certainly have a role for us on the offensive side. Adding a physical player in Christopher is a guy that, talking to Eric and what Eric wants to do and how he wants to use him, in Eric’s mind, this is a guy that will fit what he wants,” Rivera said. “And so we’re pretty excited about being able to pick him. We had a higher grade on him too as well. So we thought we got a lot of value here.”
Rodriguez, a 5-foot-11, 204-pound native of McDonough, Georgia, finished his stellar collegiate career ranked third on UK’s all-time rushing list with 3,644 yards and became just the fourth player in program history to eclipse the 3,000-yard rushing mark. He also had 32 career rushing touchdowns, the second-most in school history, and his 35 career total touchdowns were the third-most in school history. He also averaged 6.2 career yards per carry, which ranks third in program history and charted a school-best 20 100-yard games.
As a senior in 2022, Rodriguez 904 yards and six touchdowns despite playing in just eight games. Rodriguez averaged 113 yards per game and 5.2 yards per carry. In Kentucky’s 27-17 win over No. 16 Mississippi State on Oct. 15, Rodriguez carried the ball 31 times for 197 yards and two scores, one of five 100-yard rushing games on the season.
After missing the first four games of the season due to suspension, Rodriguez opted out of the Wildcats’ Music City Bowl loss to Iowa.
His 1,379 yards rushing in 2021 ranks fifth on the UK’s single-season list. That season, he became the 10th player in school history to rush for 1,000 yards in a season and it marked just the 14th time in school history a Wildcat accomplished that feat. His nine 100-yard games as a junior also set a single-season record. Rodriguez’ 207 rushing yards in a win over Missouri was a career-high and ranked just outside the top-10 single game rushing performances in school history.
The two-time team captain earned a degree in community and leadership development in May 2022.
Rodriguez chose the Wildcats over Ole Miss and Mississippi State among other schools after graduating from Ola High School in McDonough, Georgia. Rodriguez was graded as a three-star prospect and placed as the No. 64 running back in the 2018 class by the industry average 247Sports Composite.
