For Redskins, Kevin O’Connell’s time to prove himself is here

The Washington Redskins have fired Jay Gruden. And with his departure comes Kevin O’Connell’s time to prove himself.

The long-awaited firing of Jay Gruden finally happened on Monday morning. After the Redskins’ Week 5 loss to the New England Patriots, the Redskins parted with Gruden midway through his sixth season with the team. Now, they will begin to search for a new coach, and one internal candidate could be an intriguing option.

That would be Kevin O’Connell. The former third-round pick by the New England Patriots has been in the Redskins organization for three seasons. He started as a quarterbacks coach before being promoted to the pass game coordinator position. And then, this past offseason, he was promoted to the offensive coordinator spot. The thought was that putting him in a coordinator role would be a good test run for him. But now, his chance is really coming.

With Gruden gone, O’Connell will be given free rein over the offense. Sure, he’s not the interim head coach. That role was given to Bill Callahan. But still, O’Connell figures to get a chance to call the plays and show what he’s worth in Washington.

And according to NFL Network’s Ian Rapoport, O’Connell is expected to get consideration for the head coaching job after the season.

Of course, that will depend on the performance of his offense moving forward, but it makes sense that the team would give him consideration for the job. After all, as Rapoport mentioned, the team has a history of letting young, talented offensive minds go and given that O’Connell is well-regarded in league circles, it would behoove them to get him a trial run and see if he really can be a head coach.

No matter how you look at it, the last 11 games of the Redskins season will be O’Connell’s chance to prove himself. Can he run a successful offense? Can he build a rapport with Dwayne Haskins? Will he be able to separate himself from other potential candidates that are on the market? He’ll have to answer those questions but if he does, the end result could be a head coaching job for him.

We’ll keep a close eye on O’Connell over the course of the rest of the season. His ability to run the offense will really come into focus and it will be interesting to see just how much he can do under new leadership in Washington.