Washington's Ron Rivera Confident in WRs - Even Without Curtis Samuel

Injuries are an unfortunate part of the process for teams like the Washington Football Team. Tell them something they don't know, right?

Whether it's former quarterback Alex Smith, safety Landon Collins, or another player, someone will get injured. That's not really the question. It's who will get injured, and how will the team adjust to missing said player?

Right now, the player in question is Curtis Samuel. It's a particularly rough injury to deal with because there's no real knowledge of what it is the team is really missing.

This leaves the imagination to take over a little bit as the ideas of what a player like Samuel could mean for this year's offense are more solidified right now considering the lack of physical evidence.

Evidence does exist, albeit in limited portions, of what other members of Scott Turner's offense can do. And head coach Ron Rivera is hopeful those players will be able to contribute thanks to the experience gained while Samuel has been out.

"Yeah, absolutely," said Rivera when asked about how helpful it is for different receivers to get reps while Samuel has been out. "...you feel really good about who Cam Sims is...Terry (McLaurin) is as solid as it gets...Adam (Humphries) with his experience...obviously Dyami (Brown) is a guy that can run and so he's a big play waiting to happen...It's a good group. It really is. And if Curtis plays great, and if he doesn't, great, because we've got a lot of confidence in the other guys."

It's good to hear Rivera has confidence in his other guys. Truth be told though, he isn't exactly going to get up there and say he doesn't.

The confidence in receivers like Brown and Humphries has spilled over to social media as well, however. Fan bases have a tendency to lean towards the more pessimistic view of situations like these.

To their credit, the Washington fan base seems to be taking a more upside-focused look at the current situation, choosing to appreciate more playing time for young and unproven players over panic and angst.

Of course, if Samuel misses Week 1, this trend should continue through the weekend. If he misses Week 2 however, then questions about the future could start coming up. Something Rivera doesn't want to approach, until necessary.

"I don't want to speculate on that," Rivera said when asked about the possibility of Samuel being placed on injured reserve. "...because I don't want anybody thinking that's what we're going to do."

There is outside concern Samuel suffered a setback on Wednesday, but Rivera kept with his previous message of patience saying the team would evaluate him daily, as they have up to this point.

Winning solves a lot of problems. A Week 1 win, with or without Samuel, will help calm a lot of nerves. A loss will only intensify the questions though, even if patience is still the right answer.

Add us as a preferred source on Google