Could Dyami Brown step up if Curtis Samuel is unavailable?
Samuel has been battling an injury throughout training camp. If he misses time to start the season, could rookie WR Dyami Brown take over?
Washington’s premier offensive free agent Curtis Samuel will be the center of attention for Washington fans this week. The versatile wide receiver signed a three-year, $34.5million contract in the offseason but has hardly participated in offseason activities due to injuries. Head Coach Ron Rivera has played down any concerns about his injury throughout training camp, but Samuel didn’t play a part in preseason and didn’t practice last week either.
Rivera did state last week that he expects Samuel to practice this week and be available for the opening game of the regular season against the Chargers on Sunday, so it’s entirely possible Washington has been extremely cautious with Samuel up until now. But if he turns out to be unavailable or only available for a certain package of plays, can Washington make up for his absence?
Samuel has a unique skill set that not many in the league can match, so from that point of view, Washington would struggle to replicate what he would bring to the offense. However, Washington also added another wide receiver this offseason with its third-round pick, Dyami Brown. Is he ready to contribute early and could he help make up for the potential loss of Samuel? Let’s take a closer look.
Ready to contribute?
Undoubtedly the main feature of Brown’s game in college was his deep threat. He combines speed with good ball tracking and great body control to enable him to offer the quarterback a large throwing window down the field. That translates to the NFL and we saw a few glimpses of that in preseason.
Here in the preseason opener against the Patriots, Brown runs a go route down the sideline. Off the snap, he releases outside and uses his hands well to swipe away the hands of the cornerback in coverage. Brown soon speeds by the corner and gets a yard on him before turning back to try and locate the ball. The ball is overthrown, but right at the end of the play, we can see the extra burst from Brown to try and catch up with the ball. He’s not able to in this situation, but the fact he was able to run by a defender and still have an extra gear to go to is very encouraging.
We knew Brown would be a deep threat coming into the league and that’s a good thing, but he’s also capable of contributing in more ways than just running deep every snap. His route running has potential to develop in a way that enables him to create consistent separation in short to intermediate routes, rather than just relying on speed to win deep.
This time, Brown runs a dig route from the outside. He takes an inside release against a corner playing with inside leverage. He does a great job setting up the corner with a jab step outside to get the corner to open up, creating space to cut back inside. Brown uses that space as he bursts by the corner as he works up the seam. As he gets vertical, Brown then sharply cuts across the middle, separating from the corner. Unfortunately the throw is off target, but that shouldn’t take anything away from the route.
While there’s certainly aspects for Brown to sharpen up with regards to the route running, there is plenty of potential there. That makes Brown more than just a deep threat and allows him to potentially contribute in other ways, like in the red zone.
On this play, the quarterback takes a shot with a fade to Cam Sims to the left and it just marginally doesn’t connect. However, looking to the right side of the field, we can see another good rep from Brown. He aligns on the outside of a trips set. Tight end Ricky Seals-Jones runs a pivot route inside while Adam Humphries runs a nice route from the slot to grab the attention of the slot defender and the deep safety. That leaves Brown one-on-one on the outside.
Brown’s corner plays with inside leverage, potentially anticipating having to open up and run on a fade to Brown while being able to protect against any route that breaks inside. Brown works that leverage perfectly. He uses his speed to force the defender to open up and commit to a potential fade route outside. As he closes the gap, the defender looks to get his hands on Brown, but Brown attacks the leverage, using a jab step outside to further sell the fade before sharply cutting across the face of the defender. With Humphries occupying the safety in the middle, Brown would have been open in the end zone, but the ball was already thrown at that point.
The route running along with the deep threat suggests Brown is ready to contribute early on this season. If Samuel is unable to play, Brown could easily take over at the Z receiver spot and be a productive receiver. However, Samuel is such a versatile weapon that just being a productive outside receiver wouldn’t fully replace what Samuel brings to the table. So can Washington use Brown to replicate Samuel’s impact on the offense?
Replacing Samuel
Samuel adds a lot to an offense because of his versatility. He’s able to line up all over and be used in a variety of different ways. On one play, he could align outside as the Z receiver and run a go route down the sideline, but on the next he could shift into the backfield and take a hand off. He’s the primary threat on things like jet sweeps, end arounds, screens and other gadget-type plays.
Brown probably won’t be motioning to the backfield to take a carry. He could be effective on the misdirection things like jet sweeps, but Washington might prefer to keep him outside and use his speed to stretch the defense vertically rather than horizontally. Those misdirection and gadget plays are all extensions of the run game, designed to help lighten the load in the box for the running back and offensive line. Brown might not necessarily be used in the same way as Samuel, but against the Bengals, Washington was able to use him in a different way to help the run game.
This was Brown’s biggest play of the preseason. It might look like just a deep shot, but it’s actually a run-pass option play. The quarterback has the ability to hand the ball off or keep it and throw the go ball to Brown depending on the look from the defense. The Bengals have a safety down in the box to help defend the run, leaving the corner one-on-one on the outside against Brown. That tells quarterback Ryan Fitzpatrick to pull the ball and take the shot.
Brown does his part too, he uses the space from a slightly tighter alignment to get on top of the corner and turn back to locate the ball. He then realizes that Fitzpatrick has thrown the ball to his back shoulder rather than out in front. Brown does a terrific job tracking the throw and adjusting his body in the air to turn and make the grab over the top of the defender for a first down.
His deep threat ability certainly played into the snap, but the fact they could hit a deep ball down the sideline off an RPO is a big positive and causes a lot of stress to the defense, as could be seen later in the game.
Later in the game, Washington showed the same look to the Bengals, with Brown to the right side just on top of the numbers while the tight end to his side motions in behind the right guard and right tackle. The Bengals respond with the same look, keeping the safety in the box to defend the run, but corner recognizes the look from before and bails off the line of scrimmage just before the snap to help him stay on top of the route. That calls for Brown to adjust his route from a go ball to a quick out route. With the corner worried about the deep ball, Brown breaks outside freely for an easy five yards to keep ahead of the chains.
Those short RPOs are a great extension of the run game while also providing easy throws for the quarterback. It causes the defense a lot of issues because they don’t want to keep giving up passes, so eventually they have to take a risk and leave the box lighter in the run game to take away the pass option.
Once again, Washington goes back to the exact same look as before. Brown has the same split, the tight end does the same motion and all signs point to the same play. The Bengals decide they’ve had enough of Brown getting passes off this RPO play, so the safety stays back over the top, providing protection deep and allowing the corner to stay on the line of scrimmage to play press. However, that’s exactly what Washington wants. Without the safety in the box, the Bengals are light on run defenders and Washington can simply hand the ball off against a favorable run look. That’s what ends up happening as the running back picks up nine yards on the carry.
So while Brown might not be able to do all the things Samuel does to help the run game and give the defense so many extra things to think about, he can still be used to help the run game via RPOs. Obviously, Washington would love to have Samuel fully healthy and ready to go against the Chargers, but with Brown, Washington has far more depth and flexibility at the wide receiver position. It won’t quite be the same with Brown playing the Z instead of Samuel, but it can still be very effective.
If Samuel does miss time, Brown could be given an opportunity to claim the Z position as his own. If he can be productive early, that could force Washington to use Samuel in the slot when he is healthy and create a very strong trio alongside Terry McLaurin.