Category: 2021 Offseason

Washington signs CB Darryl Roberts, adds to defensive depth

Washington got a nice piece of defensive depth on Friday with the addition of CB Darryl Roberts.

After losing cornerback Fabian Moreau to the Atlanta Falcons in free agency, the Washington Football Team has added CB Darryl Roberts to the roster, giving them some solid depth in the secondary.

Roberts is a former 7th-round draft pick out of Marshall in 2015, and he has spent time with the New England Patriots and Detroit Lions. In 2020, Roberts had one interception and six passes defended with a total of 39 tackles. Roberts has 4 interceptions in his career.

By no means should fans be jumping off of the walls about a Roberts signing, but his presence on the defense will give some much-needed depth, with him now being able to rotate in with Jimmy Moreland and provide some relief in the secondary. This still remains a slight position of need in the draft, but Washington got a guy that they like.

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Washington agrees to sign slot WR Adam Humphries on 1-year deal

Washington has added slot WR Adam Humphries to the roster, further bolstering their receiving corps this offseason.

The Washington Football Team hosted free-agent wide receiver, Adam Humphries, on a visit this week, and they are now agreeing to sign him to a contract for one year.

While we await the final contract details and look to see how much money is guaranteed, we can look at the fit of the move, which seems to make a lot of sense for both sides.

Though Washington already signed a perceived slot-receiver in Curtis Samuel, they reportedly still had desires to get better at the position through either free agency or the NFL Draft, and by signing Humphries, it will likely allow them to move Samuel to the outside to threaten the defense deep alongside Terry McLaurin. With those two occupying the safeties, it should allow both Humphries and TE Logan Thomas to feast underneath.

This is also a great landing spot for Humphries, who played alongside Ryan Fitzpatrick with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and had two of his best career seasons with the new Washington QB. From 2017-2018, when the two were playing together, Humphries had a total of 137 receptions for 1,447 yards and 6 touchdowns.

Humphries also acted as a viable punt-returner for the Buccaneers in his time with the team, which just so happened to be spent under then Special Teams Coordinator Nate Kaczor. Kaczor is now the Special Team’s Coordinator with the Washington Football Team so it could mean that Washington finds a fix at a big hole on the punt-return team.

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Washington hosts FA slot receiver Adam Humphries

Washington has brought in Adam Humphries on a free-agent visit, which makes sense considering his connection to Ryan Fitzpatrick.

Washington seemingly already made a big free-agent signing at the slot receiver position by adding Curtis Samuel to the roster last week, but they still have their eyes on another player at that position, bringing in free agent Adam Humphries for a visit this week.

Humphries is a viable slot receiver who has played with QB Ryan Fitzpatrick before and also worked as a punt returner for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers when Nate Kaczor was the special team’s coordinator. Kaczor is now in that same position with Washington.

If Washington were to sign Humphries, it would likely mean that the team plans to move Samuel to the outside and place Humphries in the ‘Y’ receiver position where he has thrived in his career. This could open up the offense a lot for Washington, with both Samuel and Terry McLaurin attracting attention outside and deep, while Humphries and TE Logan Thomas are able to work with room underneath.

We will see how the visit goes, but don’t be surprised to see another WR addition in the coming hours or days.

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Former Washington CB Fabian Moreau agrees to deal with Atlanta Falcons

Washington’s former CB Fabian Moreau has agreed to a deal with the Atlanta Falcons, leaving D.C. after four seasons.

There was not a major expectation that Washington’s CB Fabian Moreau would be returning to D.C. this offseason, but now it is official with the young player signing a deal with the Atlanta Falcons.

Moreau played for 4 seasons in Washington but was coming off of an underwhelming season in 2020 where he had a total of 9 tackles in 16 total games. He only started one game in the season, though he did come up with two interceptions and three passes defended.

With the signing of William Jackson III, there was an expectation that Moreau could add to the depth on the defense if he were to return, but he obviously wanted to find a situation where he could offer more to a defense than being a role player, which he now has in Atlanta.

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Report: Washington has shown interest in Patriots’ WR N’Keal Harry

Though he has struggled in the NFL, Washington has reportedly shown interest in the Patriots’ former first-round WR N’Keal Harry.

Though they made a splash at the wide receiver position in free agency last week, the Washington Football Team is still looking to add some more depth to that spot on offense, whether it be through the NFL draft or finding a fringe player that they can acquire for cheap.

One of those players that they’ve reportedly had their eyes on is New England Patriots wide receiver N’Keal Harry, a third-year receiver who is yet to make good on the promise that he showed as a former first-round draft pick under Bill Belichick.

According to a report from ESPN’s John Keim, Harry could be traded this offseason, and Ron Rivera has expressed some interest.

Ever since being selected with the 32nd pick in 2019, Harry has struggled to produce in New England, amassing a total of just 414 yards receiving and 4 touchdowns in his two years. In college, however, Harry was a beast at Arizona State, where he had just under 3,000 total yards and 22 touchdowns in three seasons. In both of his final two seasons, he had over 1,000 yards receiving and at least 8 touchdowns.

So he may not have shown his talent in the NFL, but anyone who watched him in college knows that he is an athletic freak who can make some big-time plays. Standing at 6-foot-4, 215 pounds, Harry could come to Washington and help give Ryan Fitzpatrick a big-bodied player to go to down the field, further opening up the offense.

We’ll see if anything more comes of this report, but it’s a viable option for Rivera and one that we could be interested in seeing play out, assuming that the price is right.

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Dan Snyder isn’t selling the Washington Football Team, but buying more of it

Among endless calls for him to sell the team, Washington owner Dan Snyder is working to buy more shares and become the sole owner.

After a tumultuous 2020 left Washington Football Team owner Dan Snyder changing the name of his team and at the center of several lawsuits that involved both infighting in the front office and sexual harassment allegations, there were many calls from the fan base for him to sell his stake of the team, and even multiple part-owners looking to cash out as well.

Instead of selling the team and giving many fans what they want, Snyder is doing the exact opposite; he is now working to buy the remaining shares and become the sole owner, according to multiple reports.

Here is the explainer from the New York Times on Wednesday morning:

Support for Snyder’s purchase comes as the N.F.L.’s investigation into sexual harassment claims made against former Washington Football Team executives concludes. In the coming days, Commissioner Roger Goodell may address the findings collected by Beth Wilkinson, a Washington-based lawyer whom Snyder hired last summer to investigate after several Washington Post articles reported widespread sexual harassment of women who worked for the team over a 15-year span. The N.F.L. took over her investigation from Snyder.

So one of the most controversial owners in the NFL, a man who is at the center of multiple lawsuits and an ongoing investigation into sexual harassment under his watch, is being made more power, and the NFL is encouraging it? Yep, that’s what it sounds like.

However, this new move, if approved by the rest of the NFL owners next week, would not mean that the investigation from Beth Wilkinson is over.

There is still a chance that the owners do not reach an agreement in a vote to allow this, but that seems unlikely, considering the NFL is one of the parties pushing for this.

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Washington re-signs CB Danny Johnson and LB Jared Norris

Washington made a couple of depth signings on Tuesday, bringing back both CB Danny Johnson and LB Jared Norris.

They aren’t the big-named free-agent signings that we have grown accustomed to in D.C., but the Washington Football Team made a solid move to retain both CB Danny Johnson and LB Jared Norris on Tuesday afternoon, keeping them around to provide depth on the defense in 2021.

We don’t yet know the terms of both contracts, but the two players will do well to round out the defensive roster for Washington.

Johnson has provided some rotational minutes for Washington on the defense, but he is the primary kick returner and has been reliable in that spot. Norris game to the team in 2020 and played mostly special teams, but he could potentially move up the LB depth chart if he continues to perform well.

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Report: Washington could consider using QB Steven Montez in a ‘Taysom Hill-type’ roll

Though he won’t compete for the starting QB position, there’s a belief that Steven Montez could be used in a versatile ‘Taysom Hill-type’ role.

All of the focus on the Washington Football Team’s quarterback position has been centered around the three guys vying for the starting spot; Ryan Fitzpatrick, Taylor Heinicke, and Kyle Allen.

However, a recent storyline involving the fourth guy on the roster has recently popped up, with a new wrinkle potentially being added to the offense.

According to The Athletic‘s Ben Standig, Washington has considered using practice squad QB Steven Montez in a versatile role that would mirror what the New Orleans Saints have done with QB/TE/HB/WR/KR Taysom Hill.

What the coaches know is Montez is an impressive athlete with good physical traits. There’s a world where, over time, the quarterback who finished his college career with 63 touchdown passes and 9,710 passing yards pushes for a spot solely on his throwing skills. When last season wrapped, the coaching staff informed Montez the quickest path to contributing likely comes in the utility role popularized in recent years by the Saints with Hill.

After playing quarterback at BYU, Hill went undrafted before landing in New Orleans in 2017. Since then, the Saints have used his impressive athletic skills in a variety of ways. Hill touched the ball 181 times as a runner or receiver over the last three seasons in addition to returning kicks in 2018.

Standing at 6-foot-4, 230 pounds, it’s clear that Montez has the body type to serve multiple roles on the floor, but we haven’t seen him do anything at the NFL level since he was picked up as an undrafted free agent out of Colorado with the lack of a preseason in 2020. Still, the QB was fairly mobile during his time in college, with more than 230 yards rushing in three of his four years.

Could this mean that Montez will be vying for the starting spot in Washington? Absolutely not. He could, however, take a spot on the roster every now and again, with OC Scott Turner picking his place to fit him into an offensive package. It would be just another way to keep the defense guessing, which we know this coaching staff loves to do.

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Ranking Washington’s 2021 NFL Draft needs following free agency

With the biggest free-agency signings now behind us, we take a look forward to the draft and identify the biggest needs Washington still has.

The NFL free agency period isn’t technically over, but the first wave of signings is definitely in the rearview mirror. The Washington Football Team was extremely productive in that first wave as well, adding QB Ryan Fitzpatrick, CB William Jackson III, and WR Curtis Samuel to the roster.

Those three pieces ass came at major positions of need for the team, and they undoubtedly improved their roster with the three major signings.

So now that we have many of the top free agents off the board, and any team looking to find major fixes at a position will likely turn to the NFL draft rather than a flier-signing in free agency, where does Washington stand?

They’re in a good position, but there are still several needs that they have to fill before the start of the 2021 season. Here’s our ranking of their biggest needs heading into the draft.

Washington re-signs CB Danny Johnson to one-year contract

With the top of the cornerback depth chart locked down, Washington re-signed Danny Johnson to provide some depth at the position.

It may not be as groundbreaking of a signing as the others we’ve seen over the past three days, but the Washington Football Team made a move to add some depth to their defensive secondary by keeping cornerback Danny Johnson around for the 2021 season.

Johnson splayed sparingly in 2020, only acting as a special teams returner where he averaged 22 yards per return on 26 attempts. However, in the past, the team has relied on him to provide some relief at the CB position, where he has two passes defended and 19 total tackles over the past three years.

We will see how much Johnson gets into the rotation this year behind Kendall Fuller and William Jackson III, but he should be in the mix alongside Jimmy Moreland.

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