Tag: Bill Callahan

Redskins nominate Adrian Peterson for Art Rooney Sportsmanship Award

Peterson has been a picture-perfect example of a leader in his two years with the Redskins, and he’s now getting recognized for it.

He’s only been with the team for two years now, but running back Adrian Peterson is a great example of what an exemplary athlete looks like in the NFL, and the Washington Redskins have now nominated him for the Art Rooney Sportsmanship Award.

Peterson is one of 32 nominees in the league, and his 34-years of life experience makes him one of the oldest nominees for the award. Not only is AP a great modicum of leadership on the field, but he is a sure-shot to make the NFL Hall-of-Fame later in his career, as he currently ranks sixth in history in rushing yards and fifth in touchdowns.

“There’s nothing you can’t ask him that he wouldn’t do,” head coach Bill Callahan said. “He’s first in line in every drill, he’s first forward in the meeting room, he sits right in front of the room when the plays are being installed, and it’s like he’s a rookie on Day 1 just looking at the first play going in for the install of the week. There are so many things that impress me about Adrian.”

Peterson has been asked to shoulder the load on offense in two straight seasons now as second-year running back Derrius Guice has missed time with injuries, and in that time, he’s become one of the most important players for the Redskins organization.

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The Washington Redskins are completely helpless when it comes to third down

The Redskins’ offense and defense have been the worst in the league when it comes to being successful on third down this season.

When the Washington Redskins and New York Jets meet on Sunday afternoon, it won’t only be a contest between two of the worst teams in the league, but also between two of the least clutch offenses.

Heading into this Week 11 showdown that very few people outside of Washington or New York will be watching, both the Jets and Redskins rank as the bottom two teams in the NFL when it comes to third-down conversions — Washington converts for a first down just 24.2 percent of the time, which is slightly above New York’s 23.7 percent success rate.

For the Redskins, they know it’s absolutely something that they need to get better at, as it’s imperative to their success.

When it comes to third down, Washington is even worse on defense. Through nine games, they rank dead-last in the league, allowing their opponent to convert on the down and distance 50 percent of the time. It’s no wonder they’ve found little success this season.

Whether on offense or defense, third-down is where a team really shows how good they are. It comes as no surprise that Washington is near the bottom of the barrel on both sides of the ball.

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Pressuring Dwayne Haskins among Jets’ keys to defense vs. Washington

The Jets face another rookie quarterback in the Redskins’ Dwayne Haskins and need to make him beat the defense.

The Jets get their second chance to build a winning streak this week when they head to Washington to take on the Redskins. On the heels of their second win of the year over the Giants, the Jets will now take on one of the worst offensive teams in the league. Washington averages a league-low 12 points per game and ranks 30th in yards.

It looks like an easy matchup on paper, but the Jets are seriously thin at important positions on defense, including linebacker and cornerback. Just this past week, the Jets gave up 281 total yards and four passing touchdowns to the Giants, so they of all teams cannot overlook the lowly Redskins. 

Here are four keys for the Jets defense in Week 11.

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Washington will look to get Terry McLaurin more active in the offense

The Redskins desperately need to find something that works on offense, and they think that moving McLaurin around on offense might help.

It sounds like you can expect to see much more of rookie wide receiver Terry McLaurin this weekend against the New York Jets.

You can probably expect to see more of all Redskins receivers for that matter.

When talking to the media on Thursday afternoon, Washington coach Bill Callahan talked about how the team went about trying to solve their offensive woes during the bye week, and one of the top solutions they came up with was getting the receivers more open in space downfield, allowing rookie QB Dwayne Haskins more options to pass to. Obviously, that includes McLaurin, but Callahan also made sure to note that he wants to see more production from Steven Sims Jr., Cam Sims, and Darvin Kidsy as well.

While the Jets defense is one of the best in the league against the run, their secondary is nothing to gloss over either. The Redskins offense will have their work cut out for them on Sunday, but maybe this new wrinkle can help them end the touchdown-less streak at long last.

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Will Derrius Guice be a productive fantasy football player in Week 11?

Guice is returning to the field on Sunday after missing the first nine games with an injury, but will he be able to put up fantasy numbers?

Are you hindered by one of the last major bye weeks in fantasy football this week? Are you in desperate need of a fill-in running back, and happened to miss out on Atlanta’s Brian Hill on the waiver wire?

It’s possible that Washington’s Derrius Guice is a solution for you, but make sure that you know he is a very high-risk option if you were to stick him in your starting lineup. However, if things were to pan out, Guice could help you to a Week 11 victory. Let’s take a look at some Pros and Cons for this play.

Pros:

  • Guice is coming off of the Injured Reserve, so he has fresh legs.
  • The Redskins have heavily emphasized the running game since Bill Callahan took over, leading to the fantasy success of Adrian Peterson.
  • The team said on Wednesday that Guice looks to be filling a nice role in the backfield, catching passes on checkdown routes and offering a change of pace from Peterson.
  • Though he’s barely seen the field in his career due to injury, we’ve seen in the preseason — and his time at LSU — that Guice has a unique explosion that can be deadly when he gets into the open field.

Cons:

  • Guice hasn’t seen any live-game action since Week 1 when he tore his meniscus, and he was held out of his entire rookie season with a torn ACL. Rust is a real factor.
  • The Redskins’ offense is abysmal, and they’ve currently gone 3-straight games without scoring a touchdown, so any fantasy points would likely have to rely on the volume of work unless Washington is able to end that streak.
  • AP clearly holds the RB1 role for the Redskins, and they don’t seem to be willing to go away from him any time soon.
  • Rookie QB Dwayne Haskins will be making his second career start, so the offense might continue in its stagnant nature.
  • We just haven’t seen Guice be an effective fantasy RB as of yet. The skills are there, but until we witness some production, it might be hard to start him with confidence.
  • The New York Jets have the second-best defense against the run in the NFL, allowing just 81.9 yards per game on the ground.

Has your confidence been boosted, or did this have the opposite effect? That’s understandable. The truth is that Guice offers an extremely high risk-reward option this week, but we don’t really know how high his ceiling is. I wouldn’t be blown away to see him score 12 points in PPR scoring, but the same would hold true if he put up 3 points — we just don’t know. If you are absolutely desperate, there are worse options on the board.

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Dwayne Haskins is more comfortable, and ready to be a starting QB in the NFL

After being moved to the QB1 spot, Haskins admits that he is much more comfortable, and his demeanor shows that he’s ready to be a leader.

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We’ve seen rookie quarterback Dwayne Haskins take the field before for the Washington Redskins, and every time he did, it didn’t go very well. So when he trots out to the hashes on Sunday to face the New York Jets in his second career start, what will make this time different? Why should fans have boosted expectations?

Repetition and comfortability, straight from the QBs mouth.

When speaking to the media on Wednesday morning, Haskins said that having the experience of live reps in the offense has improved his comfortability immensely, and given him a great deal of confidence going forward.

The truth is, the spotlight is now focused solely on Haskins, as he has been named the starting QB for the rest of the season in Washington. Though, as a first-round signal-caller, the spotlight has always been on him, it’s now brighter than ever going forward. He seems to understand that and has been trying to bring more accountability and leadership with him each day at practice.

If you still have low expectations for the rookie on Sunday when he takes the field against the Jets, nobody can blame you. But things seem to be different this time around; Haskins is carrying himself with the demeanor of a starting QB in the NFL. We’ll just have to wait and see if that shows itself on the field on Sunday.

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WATCH: Redskins rookie QB Dwayne Haskins to run offense for remainder of season

Rookie quarterback Dwayne Haskins is going to run the Redskins offense for the remainder of the season, interim head coach Bill Callahan announced Monday.

Rookie quarterback Dwayne Haskins is going to run the Redskins offense for the remainder of the season, interim head coach Bill Callahan announced Monday.

The Ohio State product made his first NFL start in Sunday’s 24-9 loss to the Bills (6-3) with season starter Case Keenum in concussion protocol. In the debut start for the Redskins (1-8), Haskins completed 68.2 percent of pass attempts (15 of 22) for 144 yards without throwing an interception. He was sacked four times for a loss of 28 total yards.

Haskins also came off the bench this season versus the Giants (2-8) and after Keenum was injured versus the Vikings (7-3). The 22-year-old was the Redskins’ 2019 first-round draft pick and Callahan said Monday that he knew he would make a long-term decision, but wanted to have a conversation with the QB first.

The Redskins host the Jets (2-7) Sunday.

The Trent Williams situation gets another comment from Bill Callahan

The interim coach had some interesting comments about the star left tackle.

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By now, much has been said about the ongoing saga between the Washington Redskins and Trent Williams.

In the latest stretch of spat between the two parties, the Redskins decided to put the left tackle on the NFI list and opted not to pay him.

With the bye week over, interim coach Bill Callahan got back on the podium in front of the media and understandably had to tackle these questions.

According to JP Finlay of NBC Sports Washington, Callahan said “I have nothing but the utmost respect for Trent.” He also noted he was compassionate of the situation but otherwise didn’t want to comment.

And at this point, Callahan is just trying to steer a largely sinking ship on an interim status. It’s expected he’ll comment on his relationship with Williams as a person but leave the business side out of the discussion.

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Redskins rookie QB Dwayne Haskins to run offense for remainder of season (Redskinswire)

Rookie quarterback Dwayne Haskins is going to run the Redskins offense for the remainder of the season, interim head coach Bill Callahan announced Monday.

Rookie quarterback Dwayne Haskins is going to run the Redskins offense for the remainder of the season, interim head coach Bill Callahan announced Monday.

Redskins rookie QB Dwayne Haskins to run offense for remainder of season

Rookie quarterback Dwayne Haskins is going to run the Redskins offense for the remainder of the season, interim head coach Bill Callahan announced Monday.

Rookie quarterback Dwayne Haskins is going to run the Redskins offense for the remainder of the season, interim head coach Bill Callahan announced Monday.