Deadeye’s Training Camp Report! 

By Robbie Duncan
After two fun days this Friday and Saturday in Richmond I had the great opportunity to take in the sights at the Bon Secours Washington Redskins Training Center. There were highs and lows. Good thing and bad things. Anyway, I’ll cut right to the chase:
Robert Griffin III

Let’s get the RGIII talk out of the way first. I liked what I saw from Robert. He was sharp and was making some really nice throws. He also was getting the ball out of his hands quickly and working with what the defense gave him. In my opinion, he’s clearly the best quarterback out there. He did nothing spectacular, but he looked more like a manager. This is a good thing.  As we’ve mentioned before here at the Hog Sty, Robert doesn’t need to put the team on his shoulders and feel he has to be a superhero. Just manage the game and get the ball into the hands of your playmakers. I did see Robert run some read option looks a couple of times. It’s like seeing Bigfoot (You gotta believe me!). Robert said he’s bought in to Gruden’s offense and that apparently is true. With the running game that we should have, we won’t need to run the read option more than once or twice a game. Just a couple of times to keep the defense honest. I’m encouraged about what I saw from Robert and look forward to seeing him continue to improve.
How was the OL?

• I have to start the OL section talking about Morgan Moses. He impressed me big time. Last week in our Training Camp Preview episode of our podcast, I was talking about how in a perfect world Moses would step up and show the coaches that he can be our RT in turn allowing Brandon Scherff to move to G (more on Scherff later). That appeared initially to be a fantasy but now it might be an actual possibility (Here, have some kool-aid). On Friday I saw Moses taking some reps with the ones so clearly Bill Callahan is giving him the opportunity to do this. It’s up to him how this ends up. I only saw one bad rep out of him and that was during Friday’s session of 1 on 1’s against Trent Murphy. He wasn’t moving his feet enough and just put his body on Murphy, giving Murphy an easy loop to run to where the QB would be. On SaturdayMoses was 3 for 3 against Murphy in 1 on 1’s and handled him really well. He showed a nice wide base, good feet, and got good separation. Moses also showed well in the running game. One particular play during Friday’s practice they ran a stretch play to his side and he opened a WIDE OPEN hole for the RB to run through. It would’ve been a touchdown. I’m not ready to “crown his ass” yet, Dennis Green, but I am very encouraged in the improvement I’ve seen in Moses.

• Next I’ll knock out Trent Williams really quick. Not much to be said really. Other than maybe DeSean Jackson, Trent Williams is the best player on our team, and it shows. He didn’t lose one rep at all in 1 on 1’s Friday or Saturday. Friday he mostly went against guys like Trevardo Williams and Jackson Jeffcoat. He handled them easily. The real show was during Saturday’s session when he was matched up against Ryan Kerrigan every rep. I’m not going to sugarcoat it here: Trent kicked Kerrigan’s ass. Their first round, Trent mauled Kerrigan and pancaked him like he was nothing. Second rep, Kerrigan tried a speed-to-bull rush and Trent stonewalled him. Easy. Then on the third rep, Kerrigan tried to dip under Trent and he just punched him down to the ground for another pancake. I ate it up. It was awesome! I even yelled to Trent “Pay the man! Pay the man!” he acknowledged me and smiled. He certainly is playing like he wants to get paid and he rightfully should.
• Brandon Scherff. I really do like this guy and I think he’s going to be a special offensive lineman for us. However, right now he is taking his lumps. Scherff shows good things and bad things. If you know Brandon Scherff as a player you can probably guess what he’s doing well at and what he’s not doing well at. If you don’t know, here’s the gist: Run blocking= good, Pass blocking= bad. This isn’t to say that Scherff was bad at pass pro the entire time, he had his good reps there too. The problem is the consistency. The stuff that was getting him beat were technical problems which can be corrected. For example, as I’ve said many times before about him, at tackle he has the bad habit of kicking out to his guy instead of kicking back for depth. When you kick out to your guy, you create an easy inside rush lane for the pass rusher and it’s an “Oh shit!” moment trying to adjust to it if you’re not ready for it. Scherff did that to Kerrigan in 11 on 11’s on Friday and had that been a live rep on a Sunday afternoon, Robert would’ve been killed. If he had kicked for depth and stayed square (meaning shoulders facing the line of scrimmage) Kerrigan’s only option would’ve been to run around him. Just an example. He may eventually in fact be moved to guard at some point but right now it’s too early to make that call. I want to see him against JJ Watt next week and also under the lights in the preseason games before I really make that judgement.
• Spencer Long has been quiet which is a good thing. I was able to get a good look at him on Saturday during the 1 on 1’s session. Long was going against newly signed defensive lineman Stephen Paea and he held his own well. On the first couple of reps Paea tried working some moves on Long, but Long had good feet and hands and mirrored Paea’s every movement. On their last rep, Paea went right at Long with a really strong bull rush. Long initially was pushed back a little but he adjusted and anchored well. Long is our starting RG and I don’t see anyone beating him out there.
• Out of respect for your time, I’ll sum up the rest of the OL here. Lichtensteiger has been battling back and forth against Knighton with both guys winning here and there. He will get better from this. Lavaou hasn’t been terrible but I think Scherff already would be a better guard than him, should that switch happen. Josh LeRibeus has stuck out in a bad way, getting pushed into the backfield on numerous occasions. Arie Kouandjio is this year’s project. He’s not having a good camp and will need time to get coached up by Bill Callahan. Just slow feet and bad technique out of him right now. One offensive lineman sticking out to me was Ty Nsekhe (don’t ask me how to pronounce that…). The dude is massive (6’8 325) and had solid showings in 1 on 1’s. I’ll be keeping my eye on him more in the future. OL in general looks better than what we had last year, will be curious what it looks like by the end of camp.
Who else impressed?

• Jamison Crowder. This rookie doesn’t look like a rookie the way he’s doing things out there on the field. He’s very shifty, runs good routes, and solid hands (except for catching punts, that needs work). There were two plays that stuck out while I was there. The first one was an end-around WR handoff play that he had that he took off for a huge gain. It was impressive. Secondly, he had a play where he made a really nice cut in his route that made him wide open deep for what would’ve been a TD pass from Kirk Cousins. Andre Roberts needs to watch out.
• Speaking of Andre Roberts, he is also having a great camp. He is feeling the heat from Crowder and is stepping up to the challenge. Both days I saw Roberts making extremely tough catches. If I had to guess, he’s the WR getting the most touches right now. I saw the ball in his hands a lot, which means he’s doing a great job of getting open as well as catching the ball. This position battle is the battle of camp that will go all the way to the end.
• Speaking of position battles, not sure I’d call strong safety that. Duke Ihenacho is becoming one of my favorite players at camp. He’s got an energy to him and seems to be a good leader out there in the secondary. I also have to note that he loves the fans. On Friday he ran right up near to where I was in the crowd and grabbed a kid to stretch him out. Very cool. Later that day he had a great forced fumble on Silas Redd that got the crowded excited. Right after that he took his gloves off and threw them to the crowd. On Saturday, he came up and stuffed big Matt Jones on a run and later was stride for stride with Garcon on a crossing route and batted it down. I think he IS our starting strong safety and has a big edge on his competitor Jerron Johnson.
• The Trent Murphy vs Preston Smith battle has been interesting. It’ll get even more interesting when that battle becomes Murphy vs. Smith vs. Galette. None of them really flashed to me. Both guys are gargantuan and look decent against the run. Smith seems much more physical in the pass rush department than Murphy but neither one really has the edge on the other there. The competition from Galette will make them better players.

• Let’s talk about Matt Jones. Jones is a big running back, and I mean a BIG running back. He doesn’t quite have the vision like Alfred Morris but like Alf, he never stops. There were many times where defenders seemingly bounced off him during the padded practice on Saturday. He looked good in pass pro as well, delivering a good punch to his man and showed good feet. I noted earlier that I saw Alfred taking reps with the two’s on Saturday. I’m not sure what that was about but the coaches clearly love what they have in Jones and they are going to get him his touches as well. Jones will need to work on his vision like I said, but I’m very encouraged about the two-headed monster we could have in Morris and Jones.
Other quick observations:

• Martrell Spaight did very well in Special Teams on both days. However, on Saturday they practiced an open field tackling drill and he had trouble there. One rep in particular, Andre Roberts broke his ankles on a nice juke and Spaight couldn’t even touch him.

• The DL and the Front 7 in general are going to be a problem for offenses this year. Many plays during full team reps they swarmed to the football. Also should note that Knighton moves very well for as big as he is.

• Secondary is improving. Not there yet but improving. Seeing them jam their receivers a lot right now. I hope they continue to do that.

• Like ESPN’s John Keim pointed out in his practice report, Defensive Coordinator Joe Barry scheme reminds me a lot of Seattle’s scheme – give nothing up deep and force the check down. Many times during Friday and Saturday’s live team reps the quarterbacks were checking down to either the running backs or the wide receivers running the underneath routes based on what the defense was giving them. With the guys up front that we have matched with this scheme and if we stop the run like we’re supposed to do, this defense could be really good.

• Colt McCoy and Kirk Cousins are still battling and swapping on who takes the reps with the 2’s and the 3’s. If I had to say who’s playing better I’d say Kirk. Kirk has had some pretty good plays while Colt hasn’t been very good. Threw a really bad interception to the secondary on Saturday. I don’t think he knew he was there plus it wasn’t even close to the receiver.
I liked what I saw overall at camp on Friday and Saturday. Guys are competing and working really hard. What I’ve learned in my first shot at doing something like this is that it’s extremely hard to see everything and watch everyone. You basically have to choose who and what to watch, especially when you’re stuck in your one spot in the crowd. Maybe next year the Redskins will deem our podcast eligible to get media credentials (“When you wish upon a star…”). I will not be at camp during the coming week next week as I am not paid to do this (maybe one day) and am only available for the weekend practices. Next weekend starts the joint practices with the Houston Texans. I am very excited for that and will continue to give you all updates and observations as I watch those practices. If you have any questions or want to chat with me about what I saw at camp, find me on Twitter (@DeadeyeDunkan). I would love to hear from you. Hail!