Bryant Is a Longshot Redskins Can Rely On : Football: Running back’s ability to be a deep receiver makes him a valuable addition to Washington’s backfield.

It is vexing to Kelvin Bryant when a linebacker obstructs his pass route with illicit hands, but there is a trace of a smile when he tells about it. It is recognition, most sincere.

“Best I’ve ever seen coming out of the backfield,” Washington Redskin Coach Joe Gibbs says of his star non-running back.

“They have to defense him that way,” running backs coach Don Breaux explains, “because he’s a threat beyond 15 yards. Not too many guys can go deep out of the backfield.”

Not too many guys have taken the tortuous road that has at last carried Bryant, approaching 30, to prominence and happiness as one of the National Football League’s premier third-down backs.

Or second-and-long back. In any such situation at San Francisco Sunday there will be No. 24, as a sort of one-wingback offense, or tailback in the ostensible “I” formation.

“I know I’ll be going in at some point,” Bryant said, “and I’m pretty happy about that, as long as we’re winning.”

So Bryant has finally sublimated his drive to be the featured running back, which was not easy for a kid from Tarboro, N.C., who had carried footballs thousands of yards and scored dozens of touchdowns by his 25th birthday.

There was an anniversary last week: nine years since Kelvin Bryant scored six touchdowns as North Carolina buried East Carolina, 56-0. In three years with the Philadelphia-Baltimore Stars of the U.S. Football League he gained 4,943 yards and scored 52 touchdowns.

There was a tremor of excitement in the Redskins’ camp at Carlisle, Pa., in August 1986, when the USFL folded and left the Redskins’ draft rights to Bryant operative.

But in his second game as a Redskin the Los Angeles Raiders crunched Bryant on a running play and he was out for six games. That, plus his history of injuries in college, led to his reputation as a talented player without durability.

Kelvin was the second most productive of Redskins backs in the short, successful 1987 season, but the “injury-prone” label stuck. There followed whispers that he ran tentatively, almost timidly.

In the fifth game of 1988, with Timmy Smith failing to live up to his Super Bowl celebrity, Bryant stepped in as running back and almost bailed the team out against the New York Giants. It was 24-9 Giants when Kelvin got the ball and a breathless 24-23 at the end.

For the next five games he played like a man on a mission. The Redskins won four of them, but a knee injury finished his season. The team finished 1-5 without him.

Bryant says he took over “just because the job wasn’t getting done.” But he acknowledged that he was “sick of hearing” about his frailty. “And I wanted to show him (Gibbs) that I could run the ball,” Bryant said. “I’m pretty sure he knew I could. It was just a question of staying healthy.”

That was, and is, the question. “He has everything but the durability,” Breaux said Thursday. “But he’s no decoy in there. He’s not just a good pass blocker; he’s great at it.”

Bryant impressed Breaux last year, when he couldn’t play at all. A herniated spinal disc, suffered in an auto accident, made it doubtful Bryant would ever play again.

“He came to all the meetings and watched all the films, and asked questions,” Breaux said. “A lot of guys get bored and lose interest, but I never saw him doze off once. The man loves football, and he really knows the game.”

“He’s a very valuable part of our offense,” Gibbs said. “Yes, we have plays in the book that are designed for him. You’ll see Kelvin in there a lot.”