Rich Tandler’s five things possibly relation to the Washington Redskins and other matters.
5. We are three weeks into NFL free agency and the Redskins and London Fletcher have yet to come to a contract agreement. The word is that Fletcher is not drawing much interest from other teams and the Redskins aren’t seriously shopping for another starting inside linebacker. As long as that remains the situation there really is no great urgency. The offseason workouts start in two weeks but the first two weeks of that is weight training. They can start to get on the field some in four weeks and that is the point where Fletcher will start to be missed.
4. Offensive tackle Demetrius Bell left Philadelphia without a contract, just as he has left several other visits without a contract. Those empty visits include one to Redskins Park. As our friends at Pro Football Talk point out, it would appear that Bell is asking for too much money for a player who missed over half of the season last year due to a shoulder injury. Bell has played in 16 games in a season just once in his four years in the NFL. This offseason represents Bell’s one big chance to cash in with a big contract and there is nothing wrong with wanting to maximize this earnings. But if you price yourself too high for the Eagles, who have a lot of cap room and are desperate at tackle due to Jason Peters’ ruptured Achilles injury, you might want to rethink your strategy.
3. Some folks out there don’t want to believe that Roy Helu is a starting running back in the NFL and I’m not quite sure why. He’s not going to carry 350 times a year for you but very few backs out there can unless you want to run the risk of having him fall off a cliff after two seasons with that kind of workload. And he did seem to hit the rookie wall last year as some nagging injuries limited him in the last three games. Helu did, however, demonstrate rare athletic ability and a good knack for knowing when to make the cut and maximize yardage behind zone blocking. There is no reason to believe that Helu can’t become the next in the long line of mid-round Mike Shanahan backs to have success.
2. A lot of Redskins fans will be skipping the first part of tonight’s NCAA hoops championship tilt between Kansas and Kentucky to watch Robert Griffin III being featured in the next edition of Jon Gruden’s quarterback camp. A couple of preview segments have gone up and have been entertaining as the shows always are. If you can’t miss the start of the basketball game Tivo the RG3 segment. It also will be repeated numerous times, as they say, check your local listings. Update: The actual tipoff for Kentucky-Kansas will be at 9:23 so you’ll be able to catch up with that soon after the first media timeout.
1. Many mock drafts have the Redskins going with a safety with their third-round pick, which will be their first after taking Griffin (or possibly Andrew Luck) with the second overall pick. That’s a possibility but they also could eye a cornerback there. This draft is deep at the position and a starting nickel corner could be found in the third. They could then move Cedric Griffin to free safety and go with a rotation of him, Brandon Meriweather, and Dejon Gomes at the back end of the defense.
Days until: Start of offseason workout program, 14; NFL draft, 24; Redskins season opener, 160
Rich Tandler blogs about the Redskins at www.RealRedskins.com. You can reach him by email at RTandlerCSN@comcast.net and follow him on Twitter @Rich_Tandler.
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