Washington Football Team: 5 sneaky storylines to watch in Week 2 of training camp

One week into Washington Football Team Training Camp, the prevailing story has been the level of Covid-19 Vaccination among the players and the number of players finding themselves on the Covid list. But while that story has grabbed most of the headlines, a few sneaky storylines have stayed under the radar.

Anyone tracking with WFT training camp in Richmond last week was bombarded daily with stories and opinions about player vaccination levels. Ron Rivera spent most of his press conference time discussing the topic from a variety of angles. The bottom line is, this team needs to see a significant uptick in vaccinations if they want to give themselves a chance to repeat as division winners this season. That’s not commentary on vaccinations…that’s just reality, given the NFL’s COVID-19 rules.

But there are more stories to cover that will, hopefully, end up more impactful than Covid this season.

1. The Punt and Kickoff Returner competition should and will impact the final roster.

Whether it’s Danny Johnson, DeAndre Carter, Steven Sims, Dax Milne, or “Returner X”, WFT is going to end up keeping a player on the roster because of their perceived or proven return ability and not based on the expectation of their ability to contribute much in any other way. And that’s ok. But it will be fascinating to see who emerges as that player to earn their roster spot primarily based in the return game. Early reports are that Sims and Carter have looked to be more likely to contribute beyond the returner role among these 5 options, but it’s possible that the preseason kick and punt returns will ultimately determine this roster spot.