ENGLEWOOD, Colo. -- Usually experience matters in the NFL draft because a full resume is easier for talent evaluators to break down for strengths and weaknesses.

Unless you’re a running back. Then experience, carries and workload can be strikes against you.

Just ask Royce Freeman, the Oregon running back whom the Broncos selected in the third round of last week’s draft. Freeman was productive at Oregon (three 1,300-yard rushing seasons), he’s fast (a 4.5-second clocking in the 40-yard dash) and he’s powerful (229 pounds).

But Freeman was the eighth running back selected, and more than one personnel evaluator cited his 947 carries in four seasons with the Ducks as the reason.

Royce Freeman had three 1,300-yard rushing seasons at Oregon. AP Photo/Thomas Boyd

“I feel like all of that durability and all of those carries just reflected my productivity throughout my four years at Oregon," Freeman said. "It is not often you get backs playing as many games or taking as many carries. I feel like the fact that I was able to do so proves I am a durable running back."

Broncos president of football operations/general manager John Elway said: "Royce has obviously carried the ball a lot at Oregon -- he had tremendous production there. He’s a big banger that we haven’t had for a while ... what it shows to us is he’s durable. He played a lot so therefore he can take that. At the end of his career, who knows how much that will shorten it, but it wasn’t a concern when we took him."

Freeman is part of a select group of collegiate backs who topped 900 carries and moved on into the NFL. Mike Hart topped 1,000 carries at Michigan before an NFL career with just 71 carries. Ron Dayne finished his career at Wisconsin with a Heisman Trophy and with 1,220 carries -- believed to be the most in major college football history -- before seven years in the NFL (he never rushed for more than 773 yards in a season).

In his one season with the Broncos, Dayne said he had been asked about the effect of all those carries before he was a pro: “Hundreds of times, like the ball was a hundred pounds."

Steve Bartalo is second on the career carries list with 1,215 during his time at Colorado State in the 1980s. He now works for Raymond James and has coached high school football in Tampa for the past 25 years.

“I thought at the time it would benefit me because it meant there wasn’t too many situations I wasn’t familiar with and it proved I could take hits," said Bartalo, who topped 40 carries in his first college game. “It was a benefit to have all of that experience, those carries. I don’t think it impacted me moving forward -- I just wasn’t good enough."

Bartalo played in nine games in the NFL, for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in a strike-shortened season. He said he believes most running backs simply want the ball.

“You want to play all of the time; you don’t ever want to come off the field," Bartalo said. “I don’t think it enters into your mind if somebody is going to say later that isn’t a good thing. But it is interesting as time goes by, it seems to be happening with running backs."

Freeman, who played in 51 games at Oregon and closed out his career with 1,475 rushing yards as a senior, has the most college carries for a Broncos draft pick since the team selected Montee Ball in the second round of the 2013 draft. Ball finished his career at Wisconsin with 924 career carries.

Ball lasted just two seasons with the Broncos, including 559 yards rushing as a rookie, but has publicly said his career was far more affected by his off-the-field struggles with substance abuse.

Elway said workload is a consideration in the draft evaluation of running backs but that the Broncos also try to gauge a player’s health coming into the draft as well as his body type and strength.

"[Freeman] was a guy we felt has a lot of football in him left to play," Elway said. "We liked he had done so much."

“I just feel like durability for a running back is very important, especially when you get to this level, and I have proven my durability," Freeman said. “... Maybe if I played another position, in the offensive line or linebacker or something, people would say all those games were good for me, but I think it was good for me. Going back for my senior year was the best decision of my life for me as a person, and I’m going to prove it was the best decision for me as a player, too."