The San Francisco 49ers are among several teams that have held pre-draft virtual meetings with former Michigan running back Chris Evans. The news was brought to us by Danish journalist Søren Hansen, who was the first to report the date of Justin Fields' second pro day.
"Michigan's RB Chris Evans has had zoom calls with the 49ers, Bengals, Patriots, Vikings, Giants and Chiefs," reads a translated tweet by Hansen. "Did not get much playing time in college and sat out in 2019, but is a great back and a good receiver who had a strong Pro Day. Interesting name for the bottom of the third day of the draft."
Evans (5-11, 211) carried the football 16 times for just 73 yards with a rushing touchdown while adding nine receptions for 160 yards with a receiving touchdown through six games as a senior in 2020, per Sports Reference. However, he had 1,722 rushing yards with 14 rushing touchdowns while adding 392 receiving yards and two more scores through the air in his first three seasons with the Wolverines.
The running back did not play in 2019 due to a suspension stemming from what was described as "academic issues." He was pegged to be Michigan's leading rusher that season.
Evans is from Indianapolis, Indiana. He earned a pre-draft grade of 5.84 from NFL.com, which equates to a "backup or special-teams player," per the site's 8-point grading scale.
| College Statistics | |||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Year | School | Class | G | Att | Yds | Avg | TD | ||||||||
| 2016 | Michigan | FR | 13 | 88 | 614 | 7 | 4 | ||||||||
| 2017 | Michigan | SO | 13 | 135 | 685 | 5.1 | 6 | ||||||||
| 2018 | Michigan | JR | 10 | 81 | 423 | 5.2 | 4 | ||||||||
| 2020 | Michigan | SR | 6 | 16 | 73 | 4.6 | 1 | ||||||||
| Total | Michigan | 320 | 1,795 | 5.6 | 15 | ||||||||||