Following the Washington Commanders' 31-17 preseason loss to the Cincinnati Bengals on Monday night, coach Dan Quinn all but confirmed the club is considering moving on from starting running back Brian Robinson, who didn't play in the contest.
Quinn said he and general manager Adam Peters met with Robinson on Sunday and told the RB they planned to hold him out of the game. Quinn then relayed the message to the players that the running back wouldn't play.
"There's just a lot of moving parts this time of year. Those things take place," Quinn said, via the team's official transcript. "And so I just wanted to make sure that's my responsibility to let the team know whenever I can so they're not hearing any information from anywhere else. So that was all more of the standard operating procedure for me. But if I have a chance when things come up, especially during this time of year, where I can bring them together and discuss things, I want them to hear those things from me first."
Those aren't the sorts of conversations a coach usually has if he thinks a player will be along for a season-long ride.
Trade rumblings escalated on Monday with news that Robinson wouldn't play in the team's preseason tilt. It was unclear at the time whether or not the Commanders might move on from Robinson, who started 13 games last season, if no trade partner materialized. The way Quinn talked Monday night made it seem like the RB is certainly a cut candidate.
Quinn was asked about Robinson's reaction to the conversation.
"Yeah, I'll keep that between us. News like that, it's not always that easy, but he's somebody that we respect a lot. That's for sure," he said.
Robinson enters the final year of his rookie contract. He finished second to quarterback Jayden Daniels in rushing last year with 799 yards and added eight touchdowns.
Following Monday's game, Quinn praised the club's depth at running back, further indicating the reasoning why the team is comfortable potentially moving on from its starting RB.
"Going into training camp, we really thought this was a deep room," Quinn said. "There would be real competition. Demetric Felton and Kazmeir (Allen), Bill (Jacory Croskey-Merritt) and Eck (Austin Ekeler) and so we knew this was one of our strengths going into training camp, felt that we had tight end and then again, at running back, so we wanted to let it play out and go through it. I'll go back and look at the tape, but I like the energy early on from what I saw from those two and at the offensive line."
Ekeler didn't play in Sunday's preseason game. Quinn also noted that the team knows what it has in veteran Jeremy McNichols (three carries, 10 yards), and wanted to see more of Chris Rodriguez Jr. and the rookie Croskey-Merritt, known as Bill.
"Yeah, I thought early, what I liked was decisiveness," he said of the two young runners. "I thought, you know, certainly saw some of the big plays. And we're still, you know, learning Bill in some ways. Not every run for every back is quite the same. Fortunately for us, with (running backs coach Anthony Lynn) here, you know, we've got a real veteran in the running back room. That's a big part of that. We've got a good sense for where Chris was coming in, but we wanted to get him more touches today, and Bill as well. So, with Austin and Jeremy, we were, you know, thinking a little bit less. And then as we get into next week, you know, Adam and I will visit, say who we want to feature and look at on Saturday."
Rodriguez led the Commanders with 62 yards on six carries Monday night, buoyed by a 40-yard blast on the game's opening drive, which led to a Daniels touchdown scamper.
Croskey-Merritt is the most intriguing player in the Robinson saga. The seventh-rounder has impressed the coaching staff thus far and could carve out a role by bringing more explosives to the ground game. He did so Monday night, getting to the outside and running past defenders for a 27-yard touchdown run on the second series.