Craig Reynolds is heading into his eighth season in the NFL, and on Saturday. the Washington Commanders gave him another short window to prove he still belongs.
The team has announced they have elevated the 30-year-old running back from the practice squad, along with linebacker Ale Kaho, a standard weekend move that puts Reynolds in uniform for Sunday’s game against the Indianapolis Colts in London.
Reynolds has been in the league since 2019, when he signed as an undrafted free agent out of Kutztown. The Golden Bears product, listed at 5-foot-11 and about 220 pounds, came out of Abington High School in the Philadelphia suburbs and never drew a draft call.
Washington, then still the Redskins, gave him his first contract, a three-year deal worth $1.755 million. He was released, returned to the practice squad, and began the itinerant career that has defined him since.
Atlanta claimed a look later that year and brought him back on a futures contract, then let him go. Jacksonville signed him to its practice squad in September 2020. The stop that stuck was Detroit.
Reynolds joined the Lions in 2021 and remained with the club until November 2025, when he was released after seven appearances that season and only three carries for four yards.
New England added him to the practice squad two days later to finish the year. He was a free agent through the offseason before Washington signed him again on August 18.
The Commanders cut him at the end of camp on August 30 and brought him back to the practice squad the next day.
The résumé is thin by star standards and thick by journeyman ones. Across 57 regular-season games with Washington, Jacksonville, and Detroit, Reynolds has rushed 154 times for 658 yards and one touchdown, a 4.3-yard average, and has added 25 catches for 258 yards.
Most of that production came as a complementary back in Detroit, the stretch in which he was more than a roster name.
He has never been a featured runner, and nothing about Saturday’s elevation suggests that is about to change. Practice-squad call-ups are depth insurance, useful if the active backs are limited or if the game script demands an extra body who already knows the install.
What the move does confirm is that Reynolds is still available when a team needs a veteran who can carry the ball without a long runway.
He arrived in the league the same spring as players who have since signed second contracts and left it. He has cycled through five organizations, spent long stretches on practice squads, and kept getting another call.
Sunday in London is the latest of those calls, not a reinvention of the role he has played since 2019.
