Washington Football Team: 5 dark horses that could make the team

May 25, 2021; Ashburn, Virginia, USA; Washington Football Team wide receiver Tony Brown (12) carries the ball during an OTA at Inova Sports Performance Center. Mandatory Credit: Scott Taetsch-USA TODAY Sports
May 25, 2021; Ashburn, Virginia, USA; Washington Football Team wide receiver Tony Brown (12) carries the ball during an OTA at Inova Sports Performance Center. Mandatory Credit: Scott Taetsch-USA TODAY Sports /
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Jun 10, 2021; Ashburn, VA, USA; Washington Football Team wide receiver Tony Brown (12) catches a pass during drills as part of minicamp at Inova Sports Performance Center. Mandatory Credit: Geoff Burke-USA TODAY Sports
Jun 10, 2021; Ashburn, VA, USA; Washington Football Team wide receiver Tony Brown (12) catches a pass during drills as part of minicamp at Inova Sports Performance Center. Mandatory Credit: Geoff Burke-USA TODAY Sports /

WR Tony Brown

I began this essay by looking for players who had been in the league a few years but had yet to see any action in a regular-season game. Well, that doesn’t apply to Tony Brown. He was on the field for four offensive plays in 2020. It may not seem like much, but it’s still twice as many as Saahdiq Charles managed.

I have seen more of Tony Brown than the other players on this list. That’s because I watched a lot of tape on quarterback Steven Montez after the Washington Football Team signed him as an undrafted free agent in 2020. It seems like every time I put on some Colorado tape to watch Montez, he was completing a pass to this tall, sure-handed wideout named Tony Brown.

Watching Brown reminded me a lot of Dylan Cantrell, who was just released by Washington after spending part of last year on its practice squad. Cantrell was a big play receiver in college who tracked the ball extremely well and made lots of tough, contested catches.

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Cantrell did not have the speed to be a receiver at the NFL level and was trying convert to tight end, but he was a good 20 pounds lighter than the smallest tight end Washington had in camp, and he couldn’t hang on.

At 6-foot-1, 195 pounds, Tony Brown has good size for a receiver but obviously will never consider the switch to tight end. He made plenty of tough catches in college. He proved to be a tough runner after the catch. In case you haven’t noticed, Tony Brown is tough.

The problem is he simply isn’t very fast. And unlike fellow receiver Antonio Gandy-Golden, who also lacks speed but shows great ability to make tough catches, he doesn’t have Gandy-Golden’s enormous length and catch radius.

Brown needs to get by being a smart route-runner who can provide a decent target on possession patterns and can beat you deep if you sleep on him. Players like that, with the strong hands that Brown has, can find a place on a roster. But maybe not on this year’s Washington Football Team roster, with its influx of new talent at receiver.