Wisconsin Badgers in the NFL: Melvin Gordon

In an upcoming Summer series, we will be taking a look at Wisconsin Badgers in the NFL and today we start with running back, Melvin Gordon.

After an incredibly successful career with the University of Wisconsin Badgers, Melvin Gordon was selected as the 15th overall pick in the 2015 NFL Draft by the now, Los Angeles Chargers. And while during his rookie season he would struggle to find the end zone, he has since become a top running back in the league.

In 2016, Gordon would fall just three yards short of rushing for over 1,000 yards, then in 2017, he would total 1,105. And once again, in 2018 Gordon was on pace for over 1,000 yards on the ground but a knee injury would cause him to miss four games.

However, overall it was still a successful season for both Melvin Gordon and the L.A. Chargers.

Over Gordon’s 12 games, he would rush for 885 yards, average 5.1 yards per carry and he would haul in 50 receptions for 490 total yards.

He really is the Chargers “do it all” back and Gordon has developed a nose for the end zone. During the last three seasons, he has totaled a whopping 38 touchdowns which ranks amongst the NFL’s best over that span.

In the playoffs, the Chargers would make it all the way to the AFC Championship game before eventually losing to New England. In those two games, Gordon was slowed down as he would average only 2.12 yards per carry but of course, he did find the end zone twice.

Now, in his defense, these were two very stout defenses that he had to go up against and his knee injury from the regular season was still nagging him.

Looking ahead to 2019, the Chargers are supposed to be one of the better teams in the league while boasting a very good roster from top to bottom, and Gordon will be an integral part of their success.

This offseason, Gordon’s focus has been on his speed and agility in the open field, rather than bulking up as he has done in the past. Adam Boily, the founder of System8 training facility where Gordon works out during the offseason had this to say about his progress:

"“You know there was a couple runs where he got caught or almost got caught last year on some breakaways and that’s not going to happen this next [season].”"

We have seen the important role both in the air and on the ground that Gordon plays for the Chargers but with this training, we will hopefully see a healthier Gordon in 2019.

Through his four year career, Gordon has played in all 16 games just once. If available for a full season, Gordon could very easily put up over 1,500 all-purpose yards and 12 to 15 total touchdowns.

This is a very big year for Gordon as he is in the final year of his rookie contract and will make $5.6 million this season. His hope is to stay with the Chargers for the foreseeable future and I would imagine that Chargers feel the same way.

Since leaving the Wisconsin Badgers, Gordon has put together a very nice career up to this point and there are no indications that he will be slowing down any time soon.