Was it a Reach? – Keylan Rutledge

Was it a Reach

Many years ago, I created Why the Slide and Why Undrafted in response to questions about why certain well-known prospects were selected lower or not drafted at all in the NFL Draft. This year, I thought to expand to see if a player was a reach. The answer to whether a player was a reach is as simple as the player was valued at that spot by the team that drafted him. However, other teams may not agree with that grade, so I thought I would check if certain players were actual reaches in the NFL Draft.

For these articles, I reach out to sources with NFL teams to find out where their teams valued this player. The positive response to “Why Undrafted” and questions from readers about why prospects were drafted lower than the media’s expectations led us to create the parallel series “Why the Slide?” and now, “Was it a Reach?”

The trio of series is back this year. Feel free to email me requests at [email protected]. I can’t promise to get to all of them, but I will do my best and definitely will respond to the email.

Throughout the pre-draft process, Georgia Tech guard Keylan Rutledge was viewed as a likely second-day pick who could get selected as high as the middle portion of the second round. Some team sources said they had Rutledge lower as a mid-round pick, but other teams had him higher on day two. The Houston Texans surprised many when they selected Rutledge in the first round with the 26th-overall pick.

Overall, sources at other teams say that Rutledge was a slight reach for Houston. They had Rutledge projected to the second night, but a lot of the players being drafted at the end of the first round were players that had second-round grades. Thus, it was not a massive reach for Rutledge to get picked in the back half of the 20s.

Rutledge will step in to help settle the interior of the Texans’ line and he looks like a plug-and-play starter at guard or center. The Texans have veteran guards Wyatt Teller and Ed Ingram in place, so Rutledge could be starting at center depending on how he practices in training camp. Rutledge will compete with the likes of Jake Andrews and Evan Brown. Rutledge should be a starter right away as long as he shows a good ability to snap the ball and make the move to center.