5 Redskins in danger of not making the regular season roster

4. DL Phil Taylor

There were some who were very excited to see what Taylor would be able to do coming into his second season with the Redskins. Last offseason, Taylor seemed primed to take over as the starting nose tackle in Washington until a quad injury ended his season in August. This year, he was expected to fight for a backup spot. He has fought admirably, but making the roster just doesn’t seem to be in the cards.

Taylor has been buried behind two quality nose tackles in Daron Payne and Tim Settle for most of training camp and the preseason. Payne and Settle were both drafted by the Redskins, and they have shown enough to earn big roles with the squad.

Meanwhile, Taylor has been mostly relegated to third string work. While he has been solid, the fact is that the team doesn’t need a third-string nose tackle. They have a quality six-man defensive line rotation and may add a seventh when Stacy McGee comes off the PUP list. Taylor just doesn’t have an obvious role with the team and could be a roster casualty as a result.

Taylor seems likely to see action in the final preseason game and he could use it as a chance to audition for other teams. There are some teams out there that could definitely use a big-bodied run stuffer at the backup nose position, so he will have a chance of landing there. But thanks to the presence of Payne and Settle, that just doesn’t seem likely to happen with the Redskins.

For those that want to see Taylor on the roster over Ziggy Hood, I just don’t see that happening. Hood is more versatile than Taylor and has been a veteran leader for the squad in the past couple of years. Plus, Gruden loves Hood, so for the sixth D-line position, it seems that Hood definitely gets the nod over Taylor.