it appears being in a contract year has worked wonders for Preston Smith
from what we have read Ziggy Hood took Matt Ioannidis under his wing and helped him improve his strength in the offseason so he has come back a different player than the one that was cut last September despite being a
#5 pick.
the young defensive backs are all athletic and seem to have good hands. thankfully, the days of Carlos Rogers and Brandon Merriweather may just be behind us.
and the unspoken................Jonathan Allen after 3 games is near the top of the defense in terms of total snaps from scrimmage.
he's a clear three-down player and we haven't had many of those on the DL in the past 20 years that I can remember.
I agree that Chris Thompson is the offensive MVP so far, lucky thing we were able to get him locked up with a new contract.
Gruden is right that we can't give him 25-30 touches per game, he will wear down.
But in that 15-18 range consistently, I am hopeful he can play 16 games for us.
With Cousins bouncing back along with the offensive line, the two things that concern me are Jordan Reed, who seems to get hurt from just having people look at him in practice.....and the outside receivers.
Crowder is not stepping up into that Wes Welker type role as a slot receiver who can catch 80 balls to take the pressure off.
He seems like he is being exposed now that defenses are paying attention to him with no Garcon and Jackson on the outside.
Pryor contributed 2 catches for 19 yards last night.
Those are the kind of stats you expect from a backup tight end in an offense that just threw for 350 yards, not from a
#1 or even
#2 starter.
At some point, Brian Quick and Maurice Harris are going to have to get a shot to play regular snaps if things don't improve.
Perhaps Pryor will improve markedly as the season goes on, but what we are seeing is why the Redskins didn't give him more than a one year contract for $6M.
But again, one would expect more than 2 catches for 19 yards. Quick and Harris would produce far better than that IMO.
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