Could Ingram fall in the draft?

Those making their NFL football predictions at BetUs know that the NFL season is in dire straits as it doesn’t look like the lockout is going to end anytime soon, but we still have the draft in late April in New York City, for now anyway. One of the biggest stories of the draft could surround a Heisman winner, and it’s not Auburn’s Cam Newton. Instead, the focus will be on Auburn’s rival from Tuscaloosa, where health concerns could hurt Alabama running back Mark Ingram, and where he goes in the draft could be one of the toughest predictions to make.

Ingram won the Heisman two years ago while leading the Crimson Tide to the national championship, running for 1,658 yards and 17 touchdowns. But the 2010 season was a different story as he struggled with knee problems and had surgery before the campaign started, missing the first two games of the season, and finished with 875 yards and 13 scores. Alabama had Trent Richardson on the team, which allowed the Crimson Tide to take it easy on Ingram, but it was clear that he wasn’t the same all season and lacked the explosion that made him a star a year earlier. Ingram decided it would be best if he left after his junior season and declared for the NFL draft, and while he was decent at the combine, he didn’t do anything that stood out.

Reports have now surfaced that Ingram’s knee could be arthritic, and that has caused some mock drafts to drop him from a mid-first round pick all the way to the second round. Running backs have a short shelf life as it is, and Ingram isn’t a big guy at 5’9” and 215 pounds. This isn’t a good sign to Ingram’s career as a pro, and now he doesn’t look like much more than a backup because no team is going to risk a first-round pick on a player, much less a running back, who could have bad knees already. It’s a shame because Ingram, whose father Mark won the Super Bowl with the New York Giants in 1991, had the tools to be a great back. Now, no one can be sure.

It’s going to be tough for this sport to sweep any nations, but it’s still pretty frickin’ cool!