Why some Commanders stars won't play at all in the preseason game

The Washington Commanders get two cracks at the New England Patriots this week, with a joint practice held on Wednesday and a preseason game coming Friday night, and for players like rookie running back Jacory Croskey-Merritt and receiver Jaylin Lane, the reps they get in both are critical to their early growth in the NFL.

Both opportunities provide both the Commanders and Patriots another lens to view their teams through as the two events become one large evaluation, while players see them as opportunities to finally compete for real against NFL opponents, not teammates.

“Having a joint practice and a game, it's good for us, for [General Manager] Adam [Peters] and myself for a lot of reasons,” Washington head coach Dan Quinn said before practice Wednesday. “The first one is evaluations.”

Never-Ending Evaluations

Peters has said multiple times he and his staff never stop looking for ways to make the roster better through signings, trades, and the occasional re-signing of a player. Once a guy gets on ground, however, the return on investment evaluation begins and the front office finds out if they got what they thought they were getting, or if they got duped somehow.

On occasion, like with veteran tight end Zach Ertz last offseason, the Commanders find out they got more than they bargained for, in a good way.

Washington Commanders wide receiver Jaylin Lane (83). | Eric Canha-Imagn Images

Three Groups, One Plan

This week isn’t as important for a guy like Ertz this time around, he’s already proven his value to Washington.

Quinn says, however, that there are three groups of players to look at this week, saying, “There'll be some that'll play a lot in the practice and none in the game. There'll be another crew of players that'll play some at practice and some in the game. And then there'll be another group... that'll play limited here today and a lot in the game.”

Ertz, and others like quarterback Jayden Daniels, are expected to be in that first group, and they certainly got plenty of reps in the practice session. Others, like Croskey-Merritt and Lane, are expected to get more run in the game.

Regardless of reps Wednesday or reps Friday, it’s all part of the plan, according to Quinn.

The Balancing Act

That plan involved going through “person by person” to figure out the best way to balance workloads to get the best evaluation with the lowest risk of injury. Hard to do when you’ve got 90 men all itching for a chance to touch grass.

The plan has a bigger goal in mind though, too, one that involves the Lombardi Trophy. In the case of Daniels, it makes little sense for Quinn to put his star quarterback at risk in a preseason game where defenders can deliver hits over maximizing his reps in a controlled practice environment where practice sacks never lost a team its starter for the season.

Illustrating the mindset behind the plan, Quinn shared he often thinks, “‘Hey man, I'm hoping to get this guy about 20-some today and then we'll go 25 in the game. This guy maybe 10 here, over 30 in the game.’ So, you just try to balance it out best you can.”

Balance is the key to all things football, isn’t it? No offense can fully function if it can’t be balanced, and no defense will stop every opponent if it can’t stop a balanced attack.

So too, then, is roster management, an exercise in balance. Balancing the need to see players in action with the need to preserve them for when the wins and losses count in the standings as much as they do in the film room.

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