With Fletcher's Arrival Comes a Sense of Security

"He's like a guy who's almost like a wise old owl out there," fellow linebacker Marcus Washington said of Fletcher. "He just sees so much. He's able to kind of direct guys in the right path. He'll be like 'watch for this' or 'I think they may do this.' It's almost like having another coach on the field."

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Last year in a debacle of a loss in an exhibition game at New England, Williams blitzed and watched in horror as Brady simply waited for the extra pass rushers to steam in, then coolly dropped pass after pass to his tight end, Benjamin Watson. In many ways the Redskins' defense was broken that night and never fully recovered.

This season Fletcher's presence in the middle has been so strong that Williams has barely blitzed. When he does, the surprise is there again, bringing with it a sense of danger the Washington defense hasn't had in more than a year.

They came to believe in each other in Buffalo even though Fletcher was there just two years before Williams was fired as head coach. But the relationship here is different, tighter, and not just because Fletcher felt the Redskins' urgency to have him, but because Williams is now the defensive coordinator, cutting away another layer of bureaucracy between coach and player.

At times Williams will pull Fletcher aside. Sometimes it's the other way around. The talks are subtle, maybe in the hallways of Redskins Park or an office or even the side of the practice field before the daily hitting begins. Often Williams will have a message to deliver to one of the other players on the defense -- a small piece of advice -- but words that sound so much better coming from a player than a coach.

And at the same time Fletcher occasionally will ask Williams to push a message in his daily speeches, something he senses the team is not grasping. Dutifully, Williams does it. If Fletcher considers it important, then it is.

"There is a trust with us," Williams said. "And trust for me is blanket."

Years ago, Jack Pardee, the former Redskins coach who hired Williams as an assistant on the Houston Oilers, told Williams that when scouting a player you can only see the tangible, physical skills. To know what they are like inside, you have to coach them, watch them every day.

Williams made tons of calls on Fletcher before he signed him with the Bills. Everyone told him the same thing: He was getting a great leader. But he never knew just how important this was until Fletcher was in his locker room.

Normally, Williams has a tactic for bringing together a defense. He will look for the player with the potential to be the best leader and carefully begin propping him up in front of the rest of the players, gently reminding them that this is the person they should be turning to. Yet when Fletcher arrived this spring, Williams did none of that. He said nothing.

Some of the other coaches noticed this and were perplexed. Given the way Williams had raved about Fletcher, wasn't this his next great leader? Williams just smiled.

"The gifted, natural leaders you don't have to prop up," he remembered telling them. "Just give him some time."

Through spring workouts and summer training camp, Fletcher said little and made no speeches. "No rah-rah-sis-boom-bah stuff," Williams said.

Then came the first exhibition game at Tennessee. In the short time he played, Fletcher was all over the field, glancing off linemen, knocking people down. Being London Fletcher. That's when they got it. So at halftime of the first regular season game, against Miami, when Fletcher stood in the FedEx Field locker room and implored his teammates to win, they listened.

Now when players come to Williams with questions about something in the defense, the coach shakes his head. "Go ask London," he'll say. And if Fletcher doesn't have the answer, Williams knows he will come to him and ask then take the response back to the player himself.

That's blanket trust.

Where would the Redskins be without it?