Bryce Love hopes to be ready by “mid-training camp”

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Washington added another running back with a torn ACL to its roster on Saturday, drafting former Stanford tailback Bryce Love in round four.

And now the question becomes when he’ll be ready to play, given the torn ACL.

“[W]e thought when you go by the board he was ranked up there pretty high for us and he was available and we took him,” coach Jay Gruden told reporters after the draft ended. “Give him time to get better, number one. Get him in the building, get his rehab going in the right path, which it already is. The type of guy that he is, team captain. I think he’ll be ready in no time.”

So when will he be ready, specifically?

“I don’t know yet,” Gruden said. “We have to get him in here first. We’re obviously aware of the injury. As far as the length of time it will take for him to be 100 percent in football shape, we don’t know that yet.”

Love separately told reporters that he has been running on a treadmill and introducing impact drills.

“My goal is to be ready by training camp, mid-training camp,” Love said. “Being able to find a way to compete and do my thing.”

Eventually, he’ll compete with Derrius Guice, a second-round pick in 2018. Gruden disputed a report that Guice’s rehab from an August torn ACL has lagged.

“This is no reflection of anybody,” Gruden said regarding whether the draft of Love should be regarded as bad news for Guice. “We just got an opportunity to draft one heck of a player with an unbelievable production at a big-time school. But Derrius is on track to be full-go soon.”

And by “soon,” Gruden specific that it will happen before the start of training camp.

At some point before the start of the regular season, Washington will need to do something about its glut of running back. With Love and Guice and Adrian Peterson and Samaje Perine and Chris Thompson on the team, one or more will end up being not on the team as of Week One.