Curtis Samuel Suffers Setback

Curtis Samuel was officially listed as a non-participant in practice today after leaving the field early and speaking with trainers on the sideline.

Videos from practice show Samuel take his helmet off after running a route and shaking his head as he tries to stretch out the affected area.

Samuel practiced without issue on Monday, but Wednesday was a different story. Washington Football Team head coach Ron Rivera was “very confident” in Samuel’s availability at the start of the season. Now, those waters seem murky and unclear.

After missing more than three months while recovering from a groin injury and the Coronavirus, Samuel returned to practice Monday for his first padded workout with the team.

“I thought Curtis looked good. He moved around well,” Coach Ron Rivera said after Monday’s practice. “We didn’t want to go out and overwork him and risk him tightening up or anything like that. We thought the things we asked him to do, he looked pretty good.”

“We got to see him take a limited number of plays, but they’re plays that obviously have him in mind. We wanted to make sure we could see the things that we needed to see — watch him catch the ball, watch him burst and turn it upfield, watch him catch the ball through traffic, watch him go deep. I mean, we got to see all that today.”

The images don’t bode well for Samuel’s status against the Chargers in Week 1. If he can’t go, Adam Humphries, Cam Sims, Dyami Brown, Dax Milne, and DeAndre Carter would join Terry McLaurin as receiver options.