Redskins: Studs and duds from the team’s Week 12 win over Lions

Dud: CB Josh Norman

It hasn’t been a very good week for Josh Norman. While some of that isn’t necessarily his fault, it did carry over into the team’s game against the Lions.

The uncontrollable part of Norman’s bad week came from the coaching staff. Last week, Redskins defensive coordinator Greg Manusky criticized Norman and essentially said that he didn’t know why the cornerback was struggling so badly this season. While the criticism was warranted, Manusky didn’t shoulder any of the blame and instead threw Norman under the bus.

And essentially, it let the team know that they had no confidence in Norman.

On Sunday morning, it was reported that Norman would be made inactive for the game against the Lions as a healthy scratch. However, the team elected to reverse course and instead kept Norman in the lineup. But it came with a catch — he was benched on defense and was relegated to special teams duty.

Making that late decision after declaring the intent to bench a player certainly isn’t a good look for the Redskins. But Norman could have responded better. Instead, he seemingly gave little to no effort while on the field, as evidenced by this play pointed out by NBC Sports Washington’s JP Finlay.

While it’s fair to wonder if Norman was just trying not to make a mistake as part of the coverage team, which he may have been added to late, the fact that he didn’t come out of his stance is a bad look.

Not only was Norman’s lack of effort on this play a bad look, the defense found much more success without him on the field. Fabian Moreau and Jimmy Moreland held up well as the other starters, so it seems that Norman has lost his job permanently. And that will lead to the end of his tenure in Washington, as he’ll surely be cut ahead of the final year of the five-year contract he signed with the team.