After the big news yesterday that the Washington Redskins had waived 2013 second round pick David Amerson (who was quickly claimed by the Oakland Raiders), the Redskins lost another member of the defense as backup ILB Martrell Spaight was placed on the injured reserve list due to a concussion. Spaight is now the third of ten rookies to no longer take a snap for the Redskins this season joining WR Evan Spencer and CB Tevin Mitchel. Placing Spight on IR opened up a roster spot for the recently reinstated Chris Culliver who missed last week’s win due to a one game suspension. Although Terrance Plummer, formerly of the practice squad, will be active for Thursday’s game, head coach Jay Gruden said that if Perry Riley cannot go then Trent Murphy could serve as the emergency middle linebacker, similarly to the Packers’ Clay Matthews.
Elsewhere on the defense, Gruden said that veteran corner DeAngelo Hall is becoming more confident in his body with regular season games under his belt. Hall is coming off of two torn Achilles tendon and will turn 32 before Week 11 this season.
Offensively, Gruden and quarterback Kirk Cousins preached the same tune about having to speed up their preparation on a collapsed time table. Cousins said that thankfully since it is a night game, they can prepare all the way into Thursday morning before arriving at MetLife Stadium.
As much as many think that Cousins is at or already close to his ceiling as an NFL player, Gruden thinks that when the team caters the meetings to Cousins and get him all of the reps in practice he becomes a better player. Obviously for much of the offseason it was Robert Griffin III that was getting that attention and maybe the lack of improvement during practice was also a contributor to his eventual benching. The main improvement that all involved wanted to see was Cousins’ response to adversity. Today Cousins said that from his time starting last season, he has now learned that “when you get down and you want to get back in the game, you can’t get it all back in one play”.
Cousins also understood that you cannot take the Giants 0-2 record at face value because take two late fourth quarter collapses away and the division rival could easily be sitting on top all by themselves. The Redskins will certainly get the Giants best shot on Thursday and that could start with Cousins needing to expect constant pressure sent his way.
In a point that is no longer as relevant to the Washington Redskins as it was say a month ago, but RG3 continues to put in extra time on the practice field while not getting second team reps. Today Griffin and the offensive line were on the gridiron more than half an hour after practice was over. Griffin has to stay sharp not only for the Redskins, who are one play away from being without Cousins, but also for his own self-preservation if he were to get an opportunity to start else where this season. It would not be the strangest thing in the world as teams like the Dallas Cowboys and New Orleans Saints might be without their quarterbacks for some time while other teams like the Philadelphia Eagles are still struggling to find their offensive identity.
For now the Washington Redskins probably do not care about what Griffin does on his own time as it is probably NOT causing a distraction to the team contrary to Bleacher Report rumors that Cousins cannot be in the same room as RG3. From outside eyes, Griffin has handled his demotion with grace and continues to be a good teammate. He took to Twitter to openly deny the Bleacher Report story.
When the hate don't work they start telling lies… I guess celebrating that your team won with your teammates is isolating yourself #HTTR
— Robert Griffin III (@RGIII) September 21, 2015
At the very least, it is a positive that negative non-football related stories are only breaking sporadically as opposed to by the hour a couple of weeks ago.