PHILADELPHIA — Here’s the best way to describe Terrelle Pryor’s current status in the Redskins offense: When Kirk Cousins was asked specifically about his outside receivers following Washington’s limp loss to the Eagles Monday night, the quarterback mentioned six names — including two tight ends and a running back. Pryor’s name didn’t come up.
And here’s the best way Pryor summarized his own status, when asked whether his first-half benching against the Eagles might be repeated next week against Dallas.
“I’m not sure,” he said. “I mean, that’s a good question. I don’t know.”
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To the many issues on Coach Jay Gruden’s agenda — a battered offensive line whose duct tape is now held together with duct tape, a defense that’s given up 87 points over three games, a secondary with more injuries than interceptions, a tendency to close games with a whimper — add this one: The head coach just sidelined his presumed top wideout on national television. He did so, Gruden said, to provide more chances to second-year man Josh Doctson, who responded by setting a career high in receptions. With three.
“We drafted Josh to be the number one guy,” Gruden said. “He just has had some injuries. Now that he’s healthy, we want to see what he can do, you know? And he’s doing a pretty good job. We’ve just got to coach ’em all. We’re gonna use ’em all, so it doesn’t really matter who starts.”
Maybe it wouldn’t matter if the whole crew was rotating in and out. Washington’s first-half rotation, though, skipped right over Pryor, not just in favor of Doctson but also Ryan Grant, the fourth-year man who caught nine passes last season. Pryor had 77, and then arrived in Washington suggesting there were greater things in store. So surely, he must have been a bit surprised to find himself on the field for just one play in the entire first quarter of this crucial division showdown, no?
“First quarter? First half,” Pryor noted. “I didn’t play at all. You know, that’s coach’s call.”
Pryor, to be fair, said the right things about this stunning rebuke: that he was rooting for his teammates, that he trusts his coaches, that “there’s a lot of guys around the league that are starting fresh with new quarterbacks that aren’t killing the game right now, either.”
Still, this had to sting for a player who arrived on a one-year prove-it deal, bubbling over with self-confidence. (“I walk it and talk it; I breathe it,” he said in the spring.) Despite a slow start — marked by drops and miscommunications — he entered the week having played more offensive snaps than any Redskins running back or receiver. (Before Monday night, he had been on the field for more than 86 percent of the team’s snaps.) The public message remained upbeat, about growing pains, and a slow process, and making strides.
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Now? Those words might remain, but you have to wonder whether the team’s flashiest free agent signing will turn into not just a disappointment, but an actual bust. The former 1,000-yard receiver, signed to help replace Pierre Garcon and DeSean Jackson, couldn’t get on the field in front of Ryan Grant. He’s totaled 37 receiving yards over the past two weeks. His 223 receiving yards rank 90th in the league. When he was on the field in the second half Monday, he dropped two more balls. And when he was asked about the momentum switch in the second quarter, Pryor answered as honestly as he could.
“I don’t know,” he said. “I was on the sideline really, just cheering my teammates on and just trying to be the best teammate I could be on the sideline. Whatever I could do on the sideline.”
That’s a lot of sideline talk, and it again points to the front office’s bold offseason gambit: that both Jackson’s game-breaking speed and Garcon’s third-down reliability could be replaced, in part by a castoff from Cleveland. Just think back to last year’s win in Philadelphia, when Jackson made an otherworldly adjustment to a deep ball for an 80-yard touchdown catch, and Garcon snatched a fourth-down conversion leading to the game-winning score.
Those qualities quite obviously are missed, even if the passing game isn’t Washington’s biggest concern. On Monday night, the vertical passing attack consisted almost entirely of 33-year old tight end Vernon Davis running down the seam. And crucial third-down pass attempts — to Jordan Reed, Jamison Crowder and Grant — came up short or fell incomplete.
Maybe this was a game plan specific to Monday night, but it didn’t exactly sound that way. Cousins said the plan was to rotate Pryor in “maybe every third series or so, but as long as Josh was fresh and feeling good, to get Josh more involved. And when you add Vernon and Jordan and Chris Thompson, it doesn’t leave a lot of space for four or five receivers. So you pick two or three and you go with them. And that tonight was Jamison and Josh Doctson and Ryan Grant, and I thought those three did a good job, and expect them to continue to be there.”
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That leaves Pryor scrambling for leftovers. The Redskins have bigger concerns right now than a free agent misstep or a receiver’s ego. The season could be done-in by the offensive line carnage, combined with an upcoming four-game death march against four NFC teams with at least .500 records. Pryor promised not to turn diva, saying “you’re not going to see any animosity with me, you’re not going to see me angry.”
Still, this all has been an unpleasant and unhelpful shock. Pryor came here so strikingly sure of himself. Monday night, he was asked why it’s been so difficult to get involved in Washington’s offense.
“I’m not sure,” he said. “I’m not sure.”