The Washington Post - 28.08.2019

D10 EZ SU THE WASHINGTON POST.WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 28 , 2019

guard. When asked Tuesday

about what he plans to do at left

guard, Gruden noted that

Flowers remains No. 1 on the

depth chart before adding that

fourth-round draft pick Wes

Martin will play a lot Thursday

against Baltimore and “has done

a good job coming in as a rookie,”

leaving open the possibility that

Martin could perhaps win the

starting role.

Gruden seemed excited to

report that cornerback Fabian

Moreau will not need surgery on

an ankle sprain that has kept him

out for more than a week.

Moreau’s foot had been in a boot,

and there was worry around the

team that he might not be able to

play for the season’s first several

weeks. In fact, Gruden said he

hopes Moreau will be ready to

play next weekend’s season

opener at Philadelphia.

Tight end Jordan Reed

remains in the concussion

protocol and has not been

attending meetings or practice

after taking a helmet-to-helmet

hit in Thursday’s preseason game

at Atlanta.

The Redskins don’t have a

timetable on when Reed will

return, although Gruden has said

in recent days that he believes

Reed will not miss much time.

— Les Carpenter

and 2019 draft picks Terry

McLaurin and Kelvin Harmon.

They are also enthused about the

potential of Cam Sims and Robert

Davis, who missed either most or

all of last year with injuries.

Undrafted rookie free agent

Steven Sims has played well and

returned kicks — something the

team needs — and Jehu Chesson,

who signed as a free agent early

last season, has been an excellent

special teams player.

Gruden has said repeatedly

that special teams play might

dictate some final roster

decisions.

Many Redskins players have

said during training camp that

they think this is the deepest

group of wide receivers the team

has had in recent years. That

numbers crunch could push out

Doctson, a first-round pick in

2016 who has struggled with heel

pain and has caught only 81

passes in three seasons. Gruden

didn’t give an explanation for

why Doctson wouldn’t play

Thursday, although few

established players will see

action in the preseason finale.

Gruden was a little more

concrete about the role of

offensive lineman Ereck Flowers,

whom the team signed in free

agency with the hope of

converting him from tackle to left

Excerpted from

washingtonpost.com/redskins

Gruden noncommittal

about keeping Doctson

Given a chance Tuesday to say

that wide receiver Josh Doctson

will make the team’s 53-man

roster this weekend, Washington

Redskins Coach Jay Gruden

stopped short of saying yes —

which could be a telling sign of

how the team’s management

views Doctson right now.

Gruden is normally blunt

about a player’s standing and will

say so if it seems obvious he will

make the roster. But when

pressed about Doctson, who

won’t play against the Baltimore

Ravens in Thursday’s final

preseason game, Gruden paused.

“It means he won’t play this

week,” Gruden said, before

growing vague.

“I anticipate.. .” he said before

his voice trailed off. “We’ll see

what happens. I’m not saying

anybody’s making it or not

making it right now. We still have

another game and evaluations to

make.”

The Redskins have several

wide receivers they like,

including starters Paul

Richardson Jr. and Trey Quinn

for other teams as far as how he

finds the ball, how he gets to the

ball.”

His teammates see it, too. Penn

pushes the 22-year-old because he

thinks the kid from Stone Moun-

tain, Ga., could be “a dominant

force in this league.” Sweat has the

type of frame and build that

makes even other pro athletes en-

vious. He is long and strong in a

way that reminds Penn of Julius

Peppers, the former star edge

rusher for the Carolina Panthers.

There’s a long way to go for

Sweat to perform like Peppers. He

must start by improving the finer

points of his game — power rush,

finesse moves, run-stopping abili-

ty, developing technique to consis-

tently get his arms on linemen.

But Penn said if Sweat does that

and muscles up, he could close in

on his potential.

“He’s got to do all that, but he’s

coming to work every day,” Penn

said.

Near the end of practice, Sweat

lined up again against Penn. The

ball was snapped. Sweat used his

length to get the veteran off bal-

ance and blew by him and into the

backfield at last.

“I was mad at him,” Penn said

with a laugh. “He was like, ‘My

bad, pimp, my bad.’ I was like:

‘Don’t apologize! That’s a great

[expletive] move you did. Keep

that up. That’s going to help us.’ ”

[email protected]

strongside and weakside line-

backer roles on opposite sides of

the formation. It has helped him

understand the unit’s objectives

on each play, but he has found the

complexity challenging.

“I’m not just rushing the passer

anymore,” Sweat explained. “I got

to learn coverages, know when to

drop down, when to rush and,

when I do drop, am I in man

[coverage] or am I in zone? Just

stuff like that.”

The defense understands what

a healthy, honed-in Sweat could

mean. They saw it in his profes-

sional debut against the Cincinna-

ti Bengals in the second preseason

game. Late in the first quarter,

Sweat beat the left tackle around

the edge and seemingly lined up a

sack. He just missed quarterback

Ryan Finley, who stepped up in

the pocket and completed a pass

for a modest gain. Still, interior

defensive lineman Tim Settle said

Sweat did his job by getting the

quarterback to move off his spot.

Settle noticed Sweat’s blend of

size and speed change the Red-

skins’ approach on defense. They

can play looser with him on the

field, and it eases the strain on

defensive backs when the edge

rusher can hold his own in cover-

age in the flat or at the second level

while remaining a threat to rush.

“[Offensive lines] definitely

worry about him,” Settle said.

“He’s definitely a factor, a concern

happy NFL, because every team
needs players who can get pres-
sure on opposing quarterbacks off
the edge — not to mention ones
with Sweat’s size (6-foot-6, 262
pounds) and speed who can also
run, hit and cover. Sweat set a
record for defensive linemen by
running the 40-yard dash in 4.41
seconds at the NFL scouting com-
bine.
Still, after the combine, Sweat
took criticism for what some said
were a lack of effort and developed
technique. Some thought that, be-
cause of his size, he should have
had more than 22^1 / 2 sacks in two
seasons at Mississippi State. One
NFL assistant coach, who spoke
on the condition of anonymity,
said his team was put off by
Sweat’s combine interview, dur-
ing which he appeared unfocused.
Then a pre-draft medical evalu-
ation discovered a heart condition
that reportedly scared off some
teams but was later found to be
less dangerous than previously
believed. The Redskins, for their
part, did not believe there would
be a problem.
None of the knocks concern
Sweat anymore. He is at Redskins
Park every day learning “so much
information, so many new pro-
cesses.” His focus now is under-
standing the two positions the
Redskins expect him to play: the

REDSKINS FROM D1

BY MARK MASKE

It’s one thing to find a youth-

ful, offensive-minded head coach

with a promising résumé and

hope that he becomes the next

Sean McVay. It’s quite another for

that coach to have the right

resources and push the right

buttons to actually produce simi-

lar success.

The past two NFL hiring cy-

cles have at times resembled a

search for clones of McVay, who

was 30 when he was hired by the

Los Angeles Rams in January

2017 and proceeded to take the

team to the playoffs in his first

year and to the Super Bowl last

season.

The McVay effect was particu-

larly pronounced this offseason.

Two of his proteges — if one can

have proteges at 33 — landed

head coaching jobs: Matt

LaFleur with the Green Bay

Packers and Zac Taylor with the

Cincinnati Bengals. The Arizona

Cardinals also opted for a young,

potential offensive genius, going

to the college ranks to get Kliff

Kingsbury.

For LaFleur, Taylor and Kings-

bury, now comes the complicat-

ed part: getting results in an

impatient league. LaFleur has

inherited relatively favorable cir-

cumstances in Green Bay by

getting to work with Hall of

Fame-bound quarterback Aaron

Rodgers. The season could be

more trying for Taylor and

Kingsbury.

LaFleur, 39, coached with

McVay when they were Washing-

ton Redskins assistants, and he

was McVay’s offensive coordina-

tor for a season with the Rams.

He arrives in Green Bay with the

Packers coming off two straight

non-playoff seasons after eight

consecutive postseason appear-

ances and a Super Bowl win

under Mike McCarthy.

The relationship between

LaFleur and Rodgers has been

scrutinized, with speculation

about a rocky transition arising

after each public expression of

disagreement about, say, the val-

ue of joint training camp practic-

es. There also have been ques-

tions about whether Rodgers

will have full latitude to change

play-calls at the line of scrim-

mage.

Still, the Green Bay attack had

become stale near the end of

McCarthy’s tenure, and

LaFleur’s arrival gives Rodgers a

chance to play in an offense that

is more up to date by NFL

standards.

Rodgers’s passer rating

dipped below 100 in each of the

past two seasons. If he gets back

to being the virtually incompara-

ble playmaker who had a passer

rating above 100 seven times in

eight seasons between 2009 and

2016, that probably would mask

any of the Packers’ deficiencies

and get them back into the

playoff mix.

For now, Rodgers’s debut in

LaFleur’s offense has been on

hold; the quarterback has been

held out of all three of the

Packers’ preseason games, in-

cluding one against the Balti-

more Ravens because of a bout

with back tightness.

LaFleur said it wouldn’t be out

of the question for Rodgers to sit

out the entire preseason, and

that seems more likely with only

one preseason game remaining.

“I think we’d like to see him,”

LaFleur said after the Baltimore

game. “But you’re talking about a

veteran quarterback that’s

played a lot of football. I don’t

think it’s a necessity.”

Taylor, 36, was McVay’s quar-

terbacks coach with the Rams

before the Bengals hired him in

February to replace Marvin Lew-

is. The Bengals are coming off

three straight losing seasons.

Taylor’s tenure in Cincinnati

may be the best barometer for

how wise it is for teams to look

for coaches with ties to McVay.

Taylor was 35 when the Bengals

hired him and had never been

even an offensive coordinator in

the NFL on more than an interim

basis. Other than his association

with McVay, his credentials did

not indicate he was ready to be a

head coach.

Over the shorter term, though,

he has bigger issues. The Bengals

are a preseason afterthought in

the AFC North, behind the talk-

of-the-league Cleveland Browns

and traditional powers in the

Ravens and Pittsburgh Steelers.

After the Bengals beat the Red-

skins in a penalty-filled pre-

season game, Taylor said: “I told

those guys we’ve got to raise our

standards in every area... be-

cause this week wasn’t quite

good enough. We’ve got a lot to

improve on.”

Taylor could have a quarter-

back decision to make soon.

Andy Dalton is coming off two

straight seasons with a sub-90

passer rating, and the Bengals

used a fourth-round draft pick

on North Carolina State product

Ryan Finley.

Hall of Fame quarterback

Kurt Warner, an analyst for the

NFL Network, wrote on Twitter

this month that Finley has been

the league’s most impressive

rookie quarterback, even more

so than the first-round picks (the

Cardinals’ Kyler Murray, the

New York Giants’ Daniel Jones

and the Redskins’ Dwayne

Haskins).

Getting Murray to fulfill his

considerable promise is Kings-

bury’s job in Arizona. Never

mind that the 40-year-old had

never coached in the NFL before

being hired by the Cardinals in

January. Never mind that he was

fired in November by Texas Tech

after going 35-40 in six seasons

and had just been hired by

Southern California as its offen-

sive coordinator. Offensive con-

cepts have trickled up from the

college ranks to the NFL, and the

Cardinals wanted Kingsbury’s

version of the Air Raid in

Arizona.

When Arizona used the top

pick on Murray, the breathtaking

but undersized Heisman Trophy

winner from Oklahoma, and

traded 2018 top-10 selection Josh

Rosen, the Cardinals became the

NFL’s most intriguing offensive

experiment. Kingsbury and Mur-

ray will try to revitalize a team

that went 3-13 last season.

“It’s the perfect quarterback

for that offense, and that offense

is the way the league has gone

the last few years,” an NFL

front-office executive said. “I just

think there’s more to being a

head coach in this league than

drawing up an offense, and I

wonder about the quality of the

team you’re putting around that

young quarterback.”

There have been preseason

glimpses of Murray’s consider-

able ability. But there also have

been glitches, including false-

start penalties that prompted a

conversation between the Cardi-

nals and the NFL’s officiating

department about Murray’s

presnap hand movements. And

the real offense won’t be un-

veiled until the regular season,

Kingsbury noted.

“That’s what’s tough about

preseason — you’re trying to

keep it vanilla,” he said after a

loss to the Oakland Raiders.

“And [Murray] doesn’t have a

chance to keep going and get

himself in a rhythm.”

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Redskins rookie is sweating the details

Young coaches aim to be next McVay

JOHN MCDONNELL/THE WASHINGTON POST

Montez Sweat’s talent has never been doubted, but the No. 26 pick is learning to go hard on every play.

REDSKINS NOTES

MARK J. TERRILL/ASSOCIATED PRESS

Sean McVay’s success after being hired by the Rams at age 30

has led other teams to elevate head coaches from a similar mold.

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