The past two seasons haven’t been kind to the Washington Redskins.

To their once-vaunted running game, they have been downright cruel.

Washington has finished 27^th and 30^th in rushing offense in 2009 and 2010 respectively. No back has accumulated more than 742 yards in that time and there have been just five individual 100-yard rushing performances since 2009.

Gone are the days where it was commonplace seeing a 1,000-yard rusher occupying the Redskins backfield.

The ground game’s futility is a relatively new problem. Washington had a 1,000-yard rusher every season from 2004-08 and even when Clinton Portis sat out most of 2006, Ladell Betts stepped in, rushing for over 1,100 yards in just nine starts.

The Redskins no longer possess that depth. In 2009, with a concussed Portis on the bench, Betts tore his MCL and ACL a week after a 114-yard game against the Broncos. Since then, it’s been a rotating cycle of mediocrity.

It’s rare to pull a free agent off the street and expect him to be a complete back. Yet the Redskins repeatedly went to that well, hoping to snag a hidden gem who could make up for Portis’ lack of durability.

The strategy backfired and after Portis was sidelined with injuries in 2010, there wasn’t a back on the roster with the ability to grasp the finer points of the position.

It was a learning experience for these raw players—all of them virtually rookies—and they quickly discovered Mike Shanahan expected them to contribute in every aspect of the game.

Younger backs tend to forget about the importance of blocking assignments and route running, but with Shanahan, they discover their skill as ballcarriers won’t be enough to satisfy his expectations. When James Davis whiffed on a block against the Giants in December, he rarely saw the field again for the rest of the year.

That’s not to say the Davises of the world aren’t high-motor guys. It isn’t often unheralded players receive a chance to start for an NFL franchise and the open competition ensured a high caliber effort from a group eager to make a lasting impression on the coaches.

Yet none of the backs were polished enough to merit a full-time starting job. While Portis had mastered the forgotten art of pass blocking, his replacements seemed lost protecting the quarterback. Keiland Williams was reliable as a receiving option, but he wasn’t as strong on the ground as Ryan Torain. However even though Torain did provide a refreshing spark, injury concerns have tempered expectations for his continued success.

Thus the Redskins have paid for their shortsightedness by blowing through a laundry list of no-name running backs in their quest for a successor to Portis. Before his release this offseason, it had become painfully obvious Portis was no longer a viable option, leaving the Redskins with massive shoes to fill at the running back position.

And that’s where Roy Helu comes into play.

Shanahan drafted Helu in the fourth round of last month’s NFL draft and though the Nebraska product is far from a household name, he has a stronger pedigree than the other backs on Washington’s roster. By simply drafting him, Helu instantly becomes the Redskins’ most complete back whose skills mesh with Shanahan’s one-cut, zone blocking scheme.

Helu left Nebraska fourth on the school’s all-time rushing list and turned plenty of heads with a 307-yard performance against Missouri in 2010. He rushed for nearly 5.9 yards per carry in his career and quietly strung together back-to-back 1,100 campaigns.

I watched Helu play in person when the Cornhuskers visited Virginia Tech in 2009. He displayed the same knack for tearing through opposing secondaries I had seen on TV. Nebraska’s offense was anemic in the game save for Helu who rushed for 169 yards on 28 carries in 16-15 loss to the Hokies.

The Huskers never saw Zac Lee or Taylor Martinez develop into great passers while Helu was in school. That left him with an enormous responsibility as Nebraska’s primary offensive weapon.

Not only did he succeed in that role, but Helu also established himself as a vocal team leader and a high character role model for the younger players.

Throughout his career at Nebraska, players and coaches all roundly praised Helu as a selfless individual intent on the team’s success as much as his own.

“He’s an unselfish person, an unselfish player,” Nebraska offensive coordinator Shawn Watson told Husker Extra in 2010. “He understands what it means to be a teammate and do a job. He doesn’t get caught up in all the politics and all the other things that go on.”

In an interview with Hilary Winter of Big12sports.com, Helu admitted to he was once a me-first player, but now realizes the importance of staying humble on and off the field.

“I think the biggest change, and I’m not even close to being at the point where I should be, is self-worship,” he told Winter. “I was really involved in myself when I came [to Nebraska], as most recruits who come in are. [It’s] just being humble and having a good perspective of who I am, in relation to being a part of the team and community and the world. I am just a tiny person. I never [understood] that until I came here.”

I don’t know about you, but that quote gets me fired up. Helu was highly respected at Nebraska and it’s easy to see why. He was a team captain in 2010 and the offensive MVP for two consecutive seasons. But the accolades didn’t affect his team-first mentality.

The Redskins need players who can bring a mix of leadership, talent and a high character presence into the locker room. From every indication, Helu enters onto the scene with all three traits in hand. He’s a fierce competitor who should be capable of claiming the starting running back position in a wide-open contest.

And who knows? Within a few years, Helu could prove to be the shot of talent on the field—and the dose of character off of it—who can put the Redskins’ once-proud running game back into a position of prominence.