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Barry Svrluga
Sports columnist with writing experience in baseball, golf, NFL, college basketball and college football
NEW ORLEANS – That's what we know: on the play in which Drew Brees became the most prolific smuggler of the NFL, neither Tre'Quan Smith nor Cameron Meredith had a Washington Redskin about thirty inches away from him. Brees did not need a choice, but he had them. He chose Smith, who scored on a game covering 62 yards. You can watch the replay a thousand times. You will never see Washington cornerback Josh Norman.
We also know it: Norman did not play the first series of the second half and Michael Thomas, the recipient of the Saints, tweeted: "I brought this boy out after the first period." As we could s & # To wait for it, it has degenerated into a genre – in midnight, reputation is at stake for the twenty-first century.
"You have little to lose," Norman replied.
What is Norman's exact weight?
"Josh is, I think, in love with celebrity and not necessarily football," said defender DeAngelo Hall, a former Norman teammate, at 106 Junkies, the Fan, on Tuesday morning.
Here's the story that will dominate the week before Washington plays against Norman's old team, Carolina. Analyze all the details and smallness, and we end up with this: Washington has a problem with Norman. He considers himself one of the best cornerbacks in the NFL. He is paid as one of the best cornerbacks in the NFL. And it just does not produce as such. Instead, he finds himself in the middle of outside discussions, if not absolute controversy.
[Jerry Brewer: Redskins can’t sustain success, and Jay Gruden is running out of time]
We are only Tuesday, but Norman 's week already includes a break, a payback period after the match, during which he was consulted by Washington' s public relations staff to make sure that he 's not in trouble. he had rallied well, an unbiased approach to the decision of coach Jay Gruden play with him to start the second half, a self-assessment that he "would not waste my breath" Speaking of Thomas, an external evaluation of an analyst of "Monday Night Football" according to which he was not the best Washington corner half and a war on Twitter with a team player who strangled him 24 points.
Washington is not deep enough nor talented enough for its best players to behave in ways less than its best players. It takes Jonathan Allen and Daron Payne to go for it. He needs Ryan Kerrigan to get to the quarterback. He needs Alex Smith to take care of football and find the open man. He needs Jordan Reed be the open man.
And Josh Norman must be a player worthy of the five-year contract, worth $ 75 million, which was awarded in 2016.
Related: Josh Norman's last interception took place on December 24, 2016. He played 34 games with Washington. He has an interception in two of them.
Now, the real corners of shutdown can not make opposing quarters throw in their direction. But there is advanced data that would suggest when the shifts make Like Norman, he does not perform exactly his stopping tasks. Proof, according to Pro Football Focus, the smuggler's classification against Norman on the cover: 156.3.
Yuck.
Once again, Hall, who knows both the role of distraction off the field and playing a defensive role at a high level:
"Josh needs to refocus, get back to the drudgery, get back to the technical essentials and work because he's not going to live up to the reputation of being Josh Norman," he said. Lobby. "The teams start to attack him and he will either have to play, or someone else will have the opportunity to play."
This process actually began Monday night during the 43-19 debacle against the Saints. Norman, among other things, did not play on the Brees record. This was discussed internally at half-time – we need to get into the details of the discussion because they promise to be juicy – so Norman sat down to open the third quarter.
[Hail or Fail: Monday night misery continues in New Orleans]
Gruden did his part to defuse the situation and make it disappear. "It was me," said the coach, adding that "everything is fine", "everything will be back to normal" and that Norman "will play the rest of the year".
Except it's not really Gruden who made that decision. That's all a coach who tries to keep his team and his work can do: make sure poor performance has consequences. This situation is on Norman. If he had nearly played the good cover against Smith in the game that opened the game, he would have been on the field to open the second half, without looking at the sideline. What he saw from this point of view, standing without his helmet: Tre'Quan Smith waltzing in front of Washington defensive back Greg Stroman, the rookie who has just been Norman's substitute, for a pass 35 yards of Brees.
Is it on Gruden for putting Norman on the bench? Or Norman for being put in a position to be benched?
Go back to the blatant mistake of the first half and listen to the coach. He did not mention Norman's name. But he spoke with frankness and disgust that a veteran player could ruin what seemed like a basic mission.
"It can not happen in professional football," said Gruden. "You do not see that happening in professional football, we are too long together, we have used the same blanket too often, we have to coach better, we have to make sure it never happens again. absolute.
This is not at all to defend Gruden. But now let's leave the question of whether it is the long-term solution for this franchise for another day. Washington also has a referendum on Norman. It has $ 14.5 million against the salary cap in 2019 and $ 15.5 million against the ceiling the following year. He has not only failed to make games. He's bothering them now.
"You're 30, man," tweeted Thomas to Norman. "Life comes to you quickly."
All the exchange was ridiculous, but Thomas found a painful truth there. Careers in the NFL can be completed with remarkable speed. This does not mean that Norman's career is approaching this point. But it's fair to ask the following question, after a night in which he lost a blanket and was then put on the table: is Josh Norman part of the problem or the solution? Monday night, the answer was obvious and it was not pretty – neither in the field, nor in the sideline, nor in the twitterverse after.
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