Washington Redskins' head Coach Mike Shanahan
The Washington Redskins’ are beginning the second week of their 2010 training camp and have had to use the dreaded ‘I’ word. Fortunately, the list of players nursing injuries is not incredibly long but this is an intense training camp and there is a list.
“We just had a couple out today,” head coach Mike Shanahan said yesterday. “They still went through installations, still went through the individual drills but there were not many out there today that weren’t practicing.”
The previous day, several players were recently given a day off from practice in an effort to keep them healthy. Middle linebacker London Fletcher, running backs Clinton Portis and Larry Johnson and wide receivers Santana Moss and Joey Galloway all did not practice on Wednesday. It appeared to have a positive impact.
“There’s more bounce in their legs,” Shanahan confirmed of the time off given. “Especially, one if they had a little age on, number two if they’re injured from the year before. Usually the extra day of recovery time does them well. They looked good when they came out, we saw that today.
Asked after practice yesterday what the general state of the players’ health was, Shanahan was relatively positive and only needed one hand to list the players.
Defensive tackle Albert Haynesworth has had an MRI and it confirmed that there is no structural damage to his irritated knee(s).
During a meeting with reporters, the head coach reported yesterday that wide receiver Mike Furrey has a concussion which he sustained in practice earlier in the week.
“You don’t know with those concussions,” Shanahan said. “He’s had one before, so we’ll just have to wait and see.”
Another receiver, Malcolm Kelly has continued to nurse a hamstring and the coach said that when he will return to practice is still uncertain.
“He’s getting closer,” he said. “You can see through his rehab work he’s still not there and those guys work extremely hard when they’re in rehab. You could just see that he’s not 100 percent yet and we don’t want to set him back and throw him out there too early.”
Right tackle Jammal Brown did participate in drills and practice but without pads. It was clear watching him that he was not 100 percent. Shanahan indicated that there was nothing seriously wrong but, having coming back from a hip injury that sidelined him all of last year, caution was the route being taken with the former New Orleans Saint.
“He’s fine,” Shanahan said to reporters. “After a guy has been injured, he is going to be a little bit sore. He wanted to go today but I thought it was best for him, having gone through the type of surgery he had last year that it’d be good for him to take a day’s rest. Hopefully after tomorrow he’ll be good to go.”
Guys that had been injured are being watched carefully and the staff is doing what they can to ensure injuries are not repeated. Linebacker Jeremy Jarmon is on this ‘watch’ list, as well as some of the players that rested yesterday.
“He’s one of the guys we have to keep an eye on,” Shanahan said about Jarmon. “Anytime a guy misses a year, he’s gained some weight and he’s playing a new position there’s a fine line. You want to give him a day off but at the same time you want to give him as much exposure as you can because he hasn’t played in a while. We’ll do this in different segments with different players. Again, sometimes it’s injuries from a year ago and sometimes it is age. You’ve got to be careful once you get to the sixth or seventh day of camp, especially if you’ve been in pads everyday.”
