4 Washington players who didn’t prove their worth in 2021

1. Curtis Samuel

Curtis Samuel’s first season with the Washington Football Team will go down as an all-time stinker, which speaks volumes given how many whiffs the team has had in free agency, especially at the wide receiver position.

He didn’t receive quite as much hype as fellow free agents like Allen Robinson, Chris Godwin, Kenny Golladay, Antonio Brown and JuJu Smith-Schuster, but almost everyone in the industry viewed it as a home run signing.

After all Samuel was coming off a career year with the Panthers. In 2020, he posted 77 catches for 851 yards (both career-highs) and three touchdowns, adding 41 carries for 200 yards (4.9 average) and two more touchdowns. All three of those stats marked career bests for the former second-round pick.

Not only that, but the idea of pairing Samuel with former college teammate Terry McLaurin seemed brilliant. Alas, it hasn’t panned out,

Limited by a groin injury throughout the offseason — that seemed to be mismanaged by Washington in some fashion — Samuel began the year on injured reserve. He returned for Weeks 4 and 5 before he was shut down for seven weeks after appearing to re-aggravate the injury.

Samuel was available from Weeks 12-14, but he played just 54 snaps during that span before going on the shelf again with a hamstring injury. That was the last fans saw of him, which sparked questions after he revealed in his end-of-season presser that he was feeling great.

Despite being given every reason not to, we still believe the 25-year-old receiver will become the Swiss-Army knife we were promised. With that said, though, he was still a shoo-in for the top spot on this list.