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Washington Football Team Practice Report - Monday Aug. 24

Before a monsoon of rain came in, the Washington Football Team had a second fairly sharp practice in a row.
Chris Russell|
Washington Football Team Practice Report - Monday Aug. 24
Washington Football Team Practice Report - Monday Aug. 24

Ashburn, Virginia - 

Monday at the INOVA Sports Performance Center was as good of a day as any to start in reverse. 

Look at it as just starting with the best parts of a third consecutive padded practice and then working our way to the not so interesting stuff. 

First - Ron Rivera has started all of his practices at 9 AM during August and that paid heavy dividends on Monday. Not only is it a bit cooler but a monsoon of rain engulfed the practice fields about an hour-and-a-half after the team walked off the field. 

Before that - we saw new Team President Jason Wright addressing the players for the first time on his first day at the facility. 

Shortly after addressing his team and stressing according to Rivera that Wright's door is open and he understands what it is like to be a player, he walked off with his new boss, Dan Snyder. 

Now to the actual football. 

The play of the day was easily this in the two-minute offense:

After the practice session, Rivera said "the two-minute drive was an excellent precursor to what we talk about. He took it, he took it and then all of a sudden you saw the defense getting impatient, and then all of a sudden he hit a couple of deeper balls," Rivera said of Haskins. "Now, all of a sudden he’s got the option of throwing the ball short underneath or throwing it right through the middle of the defense. He did a nice job. He preserved our time outs, so he was able to move us down the field. And then when he got the man-to-man press coverage that he was looking for, he was able to throw the deep ball [to McLaurin above]. So, when you get in those type of situations, it really isn’t about—again like I said yesterday—making the big plays, it’s about making the right ones. He made a bunch of the right plays today.”

HOT READ: Practice Report - Sunday August 23, 2020

Right before the scoring play, Haskins spiked the ball at 0:22 following a first-down completion over the middle to McLaurin and then threw an incomplete pass to the left flat. He then dialed up his favorite target again. He also had a completion to Logan Thomas earlier in the drill

HOT READ: Practice Report - Saturday August 22, 2020

A cool view of a play that looked familiar for Haskins and McLaurin from their days in Columbus. 

Turnovers were an issue again: 

Aaron Colvin looked like he had a pick of Kyle Allen. As he was going to the ground, the ball came loose a bit so I'm not sure if it would have counted but it was a turnover worthy throw and play. 

Jimmy Moreland also almost had a pick-six opportunity on Allen, who has yet to look smooth in any reasonable opinion. 

McLaurin had a fumble on a trick play that I'm not allowed to describe and Logan Thomas was popped very hard by Troy Apke and fumbled inside the red zone. 

"The emphasis on the offensive side of the ball is to protect the ball at all costs," Rivera said to SI.com's question about how he views turnovers in camp. "The emphasis on the defensive side is to take the ball away. I show these guys a very interesting stat that when where I came from, from 2013 to 2017, when we won the takeaway battle we won 92 percent of the time [in Carolina]. 

"The stat here for this team when they won the takeaway battle [Washington] was only 68 percent of the time. So, there’s a huge disparity in my opinion in your attitude and the way you look at things. So, I want to emphasize to our guys that that to me is very important and very valuable. So, we have to protect the football. We’ve got to take care of the football, and on the inverse, we’ve got to get the football. We’ve got to take it away. I just believe very strongly in that." 

Chase Young is BACK! 

He had not participated in team drills since last Tuesday. 

Young did not take part in much of Monday's practice but towards the end in goal line situational play, 11-on-11, there he was after running on the back practice fields without his helmet on. 

He first lined up at right defensive end  and then flipped sides and engulfed a pass by Allen with a perfectly timed leap. 

After that, he was very stout against the run on a play to his side. 

"We want to put him in a situation where he can start working himself back into it. We didn’t want to overload him. We didn’t put him in a lot of drills," Rivera said after the No. 2 overall pick returned. 

"We kind of picked and chose the ones we thought he would be able to protect himself in without trying to protect himself. You’d hate to have him in there when you’re doing some sort of full-team movement out there in the middle of the field where he’s trying to open up 100 percent. You’ve just got to be smart with it and let him work himself gradually back and get a feel for it again.”

Scherff at QB?

Brandon Scherff was not only throwing passes after some individual drills but he was working with fellow offensive lineman, David Steinmetz on his get off. 

It Was a Bad Day for Tight Ends

Logan Thomas was in the chateau bow-wow on Monday of new position coach, Pete Hoener. 

Thomas didn't accelerate out of his breaks in a red zone drill once and got barked at. The very next play, Hoener lost it screaming at him that he wasn't prepared for practice and yanked him off the field. 

Later in the session, Thomas collided with a defensive back on a route and looked sloppy doing it and also had a fumble much later in another red zone period. 

Sure he had a touchdown in more red zone work later and has caught three over the last two days but he better put in more effort and hustle with this coaching staff. 

Schedule Ahead

The Washington Football Team will have a fairly light practice on Tuesday morning in shells and helmets before a players day off on Wednesday.

At 1 PM on Thursday, to simulate what September 13th against the Eagles might feel like, the team will practice (shells expected again) at FedExField for the first and probably only time during training camp. 

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