Green Bay Packers rookie running back MarShawn Lloyd’s rookie season has gotten off to a rough start. The former USC star suffered a hamstring injury in Saturday night’s preseason game against the Cleveland Browns, according to ESPN’s Adam Schefter.
According to Tom Silverstein, Lloyd said that he’s been pushing through a hamstring issue in camp and felt it pull while bouncing a run outside. “I’ve had hamstrings before, so I’ll just rehab and get back as fast as I can,” he said. He also said that he can walk on it, ‘ok’.
Lloyd played high school football at DeMatha Catholic in Hyattsville, Maryland, where he was a four-star prospect, ranked the No. 46 overall recruit and the No. 5 running back in the 2020 cycle according to the On3 Industry Ranking, a weighted average that utilizes all four major recruiting media companies.
He sat out during his first college season at South Carolina after tearing his ACL on the second day of fall camp, bouncing back as a redshirt freshman where he rushed for 228 yards on 64 carries with one touchdown and three catches for 44 yards.
In 2022, he was the Gamecocks’ leading rusher, playing in nine games with eight starts rushing for 573 yards and nine touchdowns and catching 18 passes for 176 yards with two scores through the air. He chose to transfer to USC ahead of the 2023 season, where he’d rush for a career-high 820 yards with a career-high 232 receiving yards out of the backfield as well. He scored nine touchdowns on the ground once again.
At 5-foot-9, 220 pounds Lloyd is a tough rusher who makes quick, explosive cuts and makes an impact in the passing game. Dropping just one pass in 2023 and entering the NFL with minimal tread on his tires with under 300 carries in his career following two straight seasons as his team’s leading rusher.
MarShawn Lloyd
Lloyd brings plenty of experience to the table and a skillset that NFL analyst Lance Zierlein compared to Jerick McKinnon. But Zierlein also believes that he looked like two different players during his time with two different programs in college.
“Lloyd’s flashes on tape could lead a team to envision a more expansive role for him in its offense, but based on his play, he feels more like a good complementary option with big-play potential,” Zierlein said. “Frankly, some of his South Carolina tape from 2022 felt more exciting than his 2023 USC film, despite the higher yardage-per-carry mark in 2023.”
“While he ran with improved patience and set up blockers more diligently in ’23, he ran with a greater sense of urgency the year prior and proved he could create explosive plays without as much help from his offensive line. Lloyd runs with slightly below-average vision but has the juice to play the role of ‘chunk-play slasher’ and dangerous open-field pass catcher. Lloyd is a low-mileage prospect, and the scope of his role will obviously depend on scheme fit,” Zierlein concluded.
