Jay Gruden’s weekly visit with Chris Russell was mostly about the Sunday slate of NFL Week 11, as the Commanders’ loss to Philly on Thursday night is now a full weekend in the rear-view – but of course, Chris had to ask Jay if, after watching that game, he still believes what he said last week that Jayden Daniels’ ribs are still bothering him.
“Yeah, I don't think it's so much that he can't tolerate it, I just think they're being very protective of it, and he is, too, because those things can be sore,” Jay said. “The last thing you want to do is run into a pile and get hit again. I think his throwing motion looks okay, I just think his ability to run has been limited a little bit, and that’s a big factor, because that's really one of the attributes he's special at.”
Is there anything else that concerns Jay right now, or is the Commanders’ two-game slide more of just a young team coming up against two stiff defenses in the span of five days?
“I think a lot has to do with the Thursday game with the young quarterback; those are always tough, but if you have a veteran quarterback, it's not so much because he's very familiar with a lot of different plays and a lot of different play concepts,” Jay said. “When you have a young quarterback, you might have to put in a few new concepts for new defense, and it’s hard to get them all reps during the week because you're probably just doing walk-throughs, so that's a little bit more difficult. Thursday night games are harder on younger players than they are for veteran players, so let’s chalk that up, and I think there's some miscommunication there too, which I think can point to the fact that they didn't have enough time to prepare.”
The NFL and the data say Thursday night games don’t lead to more injuries, per se, but Chris believes guys just can’t get healthier and be prepared ‘mentally, physically, and emotionally,’ and Jay agrees.
“Yeah, I do buy some of that. There are some players that would possibly play on a Sunday that may not be able to play on Thursday, and maybe, instead of being 90 percent, they’re 70 percent and not running their full capacity,” Jay said. “Mentally, I think it's tough on a lot of guys; I don't think people really understand how much detail goes into a game plan, how hard it is to come up with a game plan for all the situations that come up, and it’s not a preseason game where it doesn't really matter if you win or lose. This is a regular-season game, and a division game with division leaders; you have an important game like that with only three or four days of work on it and you're playing on the road, you're leaving on Wednesday, just played a hard game on Sunday, it’s tough on those guys, and tough on the coaches as well.”
