Had Aaron Murray not torn his left ACL in his next-to-last regular-season game last November, the Georgia quarterback might have been taken on the second day of the NFL draft. Still, he sold teams on the pace of his recovery well enough in pre-draft workouts for the Kansas City Chiefs to take him in the fifth round Saturday, with the 163rd overall pick.
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Murray is an ideal candidate to be "redshirted" by head coach Andy Reid, while his knee heals, sitting in 2014 and tapping his potential down the line, much the way former South Carolina running back Marcus Lattimore did last season after the 49ers drafted him. The Chiefs were believed to be looking for a quarterback with Alex Smith entering the final year of his contract.
Murray finished his career as one of the most prolific passers in Southeastern Conference history, with records for yards, touchdowns, completions, total offense and 3,000-yard seasons. He also gets high marks for his leadership and his maturity - he's 23, and he played his final season as a graduate student after getting his undergraduate degree.
His size (measured at 6-foot-1 and 207 pounds) and mechanics worked against him - yet, it appears, his knee injury has not. He seemed to satisfy teams with the progress of the knee at his pro day, during which he workout out with a brace. The day before the draft, he told Yahoo! Sports that his knee was "100 percent" and had "absolutely no limitations."