The Redskins are taking on the Cardinals in the first week of the NFL season. For the opener, they will have to designate seven inactives. Here’s a look at who will likely make the list.
Every week to start the NFL season, teams have to choose seven players to sit out. The unfortunate design of NFL roster rules mandates that only 46 players be active on game days. The rest are forced to miss out on the early season action.
In Week 1, it’s often difficult to predict exactly who the team will sit. Most teams have fully healthy rosters, so they need to make difficult decisions about exactly who they’re willing to sit in the opener.
For the Redskins, the decisions won’t be easy. They have a few obvious candidates, but some that are a bit less obvious. Here’s a look at the seven players that we expect them to sit in the first week of the season.
Okay, so this one is a little bit less of a prediction and more of a known quantity. Maurice Harris is still dealing with the effects of a concussion, and as a result, he will be out for the first week of the season. This is certainly unfortunate, as Harris was enjoying a solid offseason.
Harris won the fourth receiver job over Brian Quick and Trey Quinn early on in camp. He never looked back. A polished route runner with size, Harris was expected to make an impact as a rotational player. Instead, he will miss the season opener.
The role that Harris would normally play will be occupied by Quinn. This will be a good test for Mr. Irrelevant, and if he can grab a catch or two, that will go a long way to ensuring that he will be a staple of the active roster in 2018.
Harris will be missed but in all likelihood, his role wouldn’t have been that huge. Quinn will be a fine fill-in for the first week.
This may be a controversial pick, but I am firmly on the Samaje Perine hype train. While Adrian Peterson will handle the early-down work and Chris Thompson will play the passing downs, the team will probably still dress one backup to Peterson. Whether that’s Perine or Rob Kelley is unclear.
One would assume that Kelley would have the upper hand at the moment. Perine had a bad fumble in the second preseason game whereas Kelley has been sure-handed throughout his NFL career. That alone would be enough to give Kelley the nod, as Jay Gruden hates fumbles.
However, Perine was the more explosive of the two in the preseason. He had a couple of really nice runs, and there’s a good chance that he could emerge as a player that could split time with Peterson. If it wasn’t for the preseason fumble and his injury, Perine would probably be firmly entrenched as the No. 1 or No. 2 back on this squad.
For that reason, I think the sensible move would be to sit Kelley. While Kelley offers some skills on special teams and can often turn nothing into a couple of yards, he simply isn’t explosive. He doesn’t have the same vision or burst as Perine. So, he would offer little as a complement to Peterson. He would serve as more of a battering ram at the goal-line. Perine has a bit more to offer, especially as a pass catcher.
Kelley may not actually sit. He’s the player that I’m least confident in listing as a potential inactive. But, he probably should be the guy who doesn’t see action. Hopefully, Gruden and his staff will see it the same way, and Perine will get a chance to showcase his skills as the top backup.
Christian is an extremely raw player. He’s also the fourth tackle on the roster. That doesn’t bode well for his chances of being active on game day.
Generally speaking, NFL teams keep seven offensive linemen active for games. The Redskins have five firmly entrenched starters and four backups. So, they will need to sit two of the backups. It appears that Ty Nsekhe will reprise his role as the reserve tackle and that would leave Christian as the odd man out.
During the preseason, Christian didn’t show a lot to make the case that he was an NFL ready talent. His skill set was more based on his size, length, and athleticism than his actual on-field production. That said, he’s going to need more time to develop before he can be trusted, and both Jay Gruden and Bill Callahan realize this.
In an ideal scenario, Christian wouldn’t have to be active at all this season. He could stay on the bench and learn from the guys around him and treat his rookie season like a redshirt year. That may not end up happening, but that certainly seems like the primary goal for the Redskins.
Christian was always seen as a down-the-line type of player. That’s why some were concerned when the team spent a third-round pick on him. For now, he’s a potential-packed option, but if he sees the field early in the 2018 season, the Redskins could find themselves in trouble.
Casey Dunn did well to make the Redskins roster. Once considered to be a dark horse, Dunn was able to use his superb technique to lock down a place as a backup interior lineman for the squad. While he does have long-term upside, Dunn will most likely sit out early and often in the regular season.
While Dunn has excellent technique, he still has to add more strength to his frame in order to deal with stronger defensive linemen at the NFL level. He’s clearly been working on that, but he’ll need to bulk up even more to ensure that he won’t get bullied on the field.
Right now, Dunn is behind Tony Bergstrom on the depth chart as the top interior backup. While I’m not a huge fan of Bergstrom’s skill set, the fact is that he has more strength than Dunn does right now. That will give him the nod as a result.
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Much like Christian, it would probably good news for Dunn if he wasn’t pressed into action as a rookie. He’s still a developing player, and he only really had one year as a starter at Auburn after transferring from Jacksonville State.
With a year of bulking up and adding strength to his frame, Dunn could become a very solid backup center. His technique will ensure that he has a chance to do that. However, getting thrust into action before he’s ready could be detrimental to that. Early in the season, and possibly for the entire season, Dunn will be among the inactives while he tries to prove that he belongs with the squad on the practice field.
Josh Keyes was a surprise addition to the roster. He took the spot of Byron Marshall when he went on Injured Reserve, but it was never expected that the Redskins would add another linebacker to the squad. And if they did, Keyes certainly wouldn’t be the man.
Martrell Spaight, a special teams ace and run stuffer, had been among the Redskins final cuts. Many expected that he would make the squad as a depth player and that he would have a good chance to carve out a role. He didn’t get the nod, losing out to Zach Vigil, and now he sits on the free agent market as a result.
Why bring up Spaight? The answer is simple. He’s basically the same type of player as Keyes, and he might be better at his job. That raises the question: why didn’t the Redskins bring back Spaight instead of Keyes? The reason for this is unknown.
Either way, Keyes seems to be the team’s No. 6 inside linebacker. That’s not going to give him much of a chance to get on the field. Add in the fact that he’s joining his seventh team in four years in the league, and it just seems like he’s a depth body with some traits but not much production to go along with it.
Keyes could see some action as a special teams option during the season, but it seems more likely that he will be a staple of the inactives list. It’s also probable that if the Redskins need help at another position, Keyes would be the player they cut to make room for that position on the 53-man roster. For those reasons, it seems that Keyes is the most likely player to be out on Sunday (save for Harris, who has already been declared out).
Getting further down this list, you’ll continue to notice a theme. Players that have been on the roster for a shorter period of time are more likely to sit. And that’s why Alexander is my choice among the corners to sit.
Alexander was picked by the Redskins in the supplemental draft. He has been with the team since July, but a nagging hamstring injury caused him to miss time during camp. He saw action in the final two preseason games and looked good at times. Still, the team may not be ready to trust him as a primary backup.
Greg Stroman and Danny Johnson are the other candidates to sit. However, both of those players can handle return duties for the team, and it seems possible that Johnson could be one of the kick returners to start the year. That means that the battle is coming down more to Stroman and Alexander for the backup corner spot.
While Alexander offers a different skill set than Stroman and Johnson, thanks to his 6-foot-3 frame, it may be too early to trust him in a backup role. Besides, the depth corners aren’t going to see a lot of action on defense, so special teams value is going to be a major tiebreaker here. And that’s why Stroman and Johnson have the upper hand.
In the event that the Redskins secondary struggles to start the season, I could absolutely see Alexander getting a chance to play down the line. For now though, he seems like the top candidate to sit. But don’t be surprised to see him on the field in the near future.
Brantley was just signed to the active roster recently. As a post-cut addition, it’s going to be really hard for him to get on the field in the early stages of the season.
Simply put, Brantley hasn’t had much time to learn the playbook. He has the potential to be a rotational player down the line, but he’ll need a few weeks of work with Jim Tomsula to eventually win a role in the rotation. For now, Ziggy Hood is probably firmly entrenched as an option ahead of him, so Brantley sitting makes a lot of sense.
There’s a good chance that Brantley will see the field later in the season. He does have upside as an all-around player, so he could eventually overtake Hood. It’s just too early to say that he will do that at the moment, solely because he’s been with the team for less than a week.
The Redskins may not ultimately decide to sit these seven guys. But one would imagine that all of these players are at least candidates to sit. One or two surprises could happen on game day, but for now, these are the seven players that we would sit if we had to make a choice.