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A Key Cog Gets Back In Working Order
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During his career as a Pro Bowl defensive back, Gray recovered from major knee surgery and remained a productive player. Gray has traveled the path Rogers is on now.
"The good thing is that I've been in his position. I got a chance to come back, and I understand what happens to guys," Gray said. "Mentally, their bodies want to do some stuff that it's not used to doing. You've got to overcome this injury, and then when you overcome it, you're going to become a lot better player. Now, you're working a whole lot smarter technique-wise. You understand, you say to yourself, 'I've got to bear down.' You know that there are things you actually have to go through.
" 'I may not have that 4.3 speed. Now I've got 4.4, 4.5 speed.' Now your technique had better get real important to you. Those are things he's actually going through right now."
With Rogers out, Smoot and Shawn Springs are the starting corners. The trio shared the top two spots in the first half of last season, and Smoot and Springs helped hold together the secondary after Rogers's injury and the death of Pro Bowl safety Sean Taylor in November.
Springs's father, Ron, went into a coma in October after what the family believed would be routine surgery to remove a cyst at a Dallas hospital. He has been taken off a ventilator and can breathe on his own but has not regained consciousness. Smoot, in the first season of his second stint with the Redskins, was inactive for three games because of recurring hamstring problems.
Despite everything that befell the secondary last season, the Redskins finished tied for third in the league with 6.0 yards allowed per pass attempt. In 2006, Washington was last in that category at 6.91 yards.
Relying on Smoot and Springs to succeed in press-man coverage, former defensive coordinator Gregg Williams, who now directs the Jacksonville Jaguars' defense, devised creative game plans that provided the foundation for the four-game winning streak that ended the regular season.
"Oh, man, Gregg would leave me and Shawn out there with no help in that hard-knock zero coverage" with no safety support, Smoot said. "But we excelled at it. Gregg asked us to do it, and we got the job done."
New defensive coordinator Greg Blache, Washington's defensive line coach the last four seasons, said he intends to use press coverage, and Smoot and Springs have lined up close to wide receivers in the early stages of camp, "but I don't know if he's going to leave us out there in zero as much," Springs said. "I mean, [Williams] will put pressure on the corners, and I haven't seen Greg in a game situation yet, but I think we'll be fine whatever he wants to do. This is the first year we've got some very good young talent behind us."
In addition to fourth-year cornerback Leigh Torrence, who contributed as a nickel back down the stretch in 2007, the Redskins are high on rookie cornerback Justin Tryon, a fourth-round draft pick out of Arizona State.
"Hopefully, with all the guys we have, it will work out and we can just pick up where we left off last year," Smoot said.
Rogers aims to help from the start.
"I've been shooting for the first game" since the day he was injured, Rogers said, "and I'm still shooting for the first game."
