When the emotional leader of the Washington | Forum

ASHBURN Art Monk Jersey , Va. (AP) — Redskins tried to explain the latest dip in their roller-coaster season, the diagnosis wasn’t pretty.“I guess we got too high on ourselves for whatever reason,” safety D.J. Swearinger said after the Redskins followed an emotional victory at Seattle with a 38-30 loss at home to Minnesota. “We just weren’t ready to play.”That’s not what anyone around the 4-5 Redskins wants to hear as they hope to keep pace in the crowded NFC wild-card race with a visit to the 7-2 New Orleans Saints on Sunday. Swearinger, cornerback Josh Norman and other players lamented a lack of consistency from week to week, leading to the question of whether the Redskins can handle and sustain success.“If they feel that way, then I got to do a better job of making sure they don’t get a big head,” coach Jay Gruden said Monday. “For the most part, players have to get ready to play. And I have to do a better job of getting them ready. If they’re not ready, then that’s on me.”Injuries have played a part and continue to take a toll as Washington will be without running back Rob Kelley and inside linebacker Will Compton for a few weeks. Kelley sprained the MCL in his left knee, and Compton has a Lisfranc sprain in one of his feet.The Redskins are planning to add a running back before facing the Saints. Rookie Samaje Perine and third-down back Chris Thompson are expected to split the carries in Kelley’s absence.But now that the entire starting offensive line is back and some injuries are healing up, linebacker Ryan Kerrigan said that’s no longer an excuse. That’s what made the loss to the Vikings in which Norman said the Redskins “just didn’t have it,” so baffling.“Those games come out of nowhere and just swipe you in the face,” Norman said. “You’ve got to come out here and be consistent. That’s the pedigree of a championship football team and we didn’t show that.”Perhaps part of it is that Washington has had to deal with the toughest schedule in the NFL so far. Four of five losses are to first-place teams, plus another to Dallas, and the Redskins have won on the road at the top two teams in the NFC West, the Seahawks and Los Angeles Rams.“Each week we’re playing very good football teams,” Gruden said. “Not saying we’re not consistently playing well. I just think we’ve run into some really good offenses with guys making plays on the other side, and were not matching play for play with the other team.”It’s not getting any easier this week at NFC South-leading New Orleans, which rushed for 298 yards in a 47-10 rout of Buffalo.“Everybody in the league is really good,” quarterback Kirk Cousins said. “You just have to learn from these tougher losses where we came up short and point to the plays where we weren’t good enough that end up causing the loss and try to prevent the mistakes so they don’t come up again.”NOTES: WR Ryan Grant is in the NFL’s concussion protocol, S DeAngelo Hall has a bone bruise in his right knee and DL Anthony Lanier has a sprained knee. … Gruden said TE Jordan Reed is day to day after missing the past two games with a hamstring injury. ASHBURN, Va. (AP) — Home sweet home? Not so much for Redskins players right now.Even though Washington has won three of five home games this season and leads the NFC East, cornerback Josh Norman called out Redskins fans in the aftermath of an ugly victory at Tampa Bay and said he felt they played better on the road. In the process, he put the spotlight on the atmosphere Sunday at FedEx Field when the AFC South-leading Houston Texans come to town.Norman said home games are “like the other team’s turf” because of an infusion of opposing fans and opined that Redskins fans “just boo everything and aren’t really behind us.” Teammates hope that sentiment works to provide a spark of energy for the rest of the year.“We have a really good team and what it comes down to is myself and Josh, we want to be backed up, and we don’t want it to feel like it’s 50/50 when we’re at our home field and they have as many fans as we do,” running back Chris Thompson said. “We just want everybody to be there. That’s it. We want our fans to be out there and just have our backs.”The Redskins organization began a concerted effort in the offseason to try to improve the fan experience at the stadium in suburban Maryland. Aware a sellout streak the team boasted had lasted the past 50 seasons would end, the decision was made to stop selling as many tickets to brokers and try to draw back in some of the disillusioned fans of a franchise that has just three playoff victories since its last Super Bowl title from the 1991 season.Washington’s average attendance of 61,201 ranks 26th in the NFL, and its 74.6 percent-of-capacity crowd ranks dead last. Chief marketing officer Steve Ziff said prior to the season there’s no timeline for when he expects fans to return in droves like the glory days at RFK Stadium.“We’re going to do things right for as long as it takes Derrius Guice Jersey ,” Ziff said. “Every day the goal is to do things right and hopefully over time, win or lose, fans will buy into that.”Right now, the Redskins are winning. At 6-3, they’re two games up in the division and on pace for their first postseason appearance since 2015.But Thompson, who has been with the team since 2013, understands there are long-term issues under the surface leading to fans staying away. Decades of mediocre on-field performance, polarizing opinions about owner Dan Snyder and the location of FedEx Field are all factors that have nothing to do with the current roster and its wins and losses.“All the responses I see all the time is, ‘We’ve been fans for 10-plus years, we’ve been fans for 25 years — whatever the case may be — and we haven’t gotten any results (and) the Redskins have been terrible,'” Thompson said. “I’ve been here for six years. I understand. I know. I’ve been to one playoff game in six years.”If the Redskins win the division and host a playoff game, the stands will be rocking like the old days — especially if Kirk Cousins and the Minnesota Vikings are the opponent. But to get there, they could use a boost at home so players don’t feel like they’re in unfriendly confines.For quarterback Alex Smith, it’s all about the cadence and ability to communicate verbally.“The big thing offensively is communication that you can count on,” Smith said Wednesday. “To be at home and be able to communicate, I think you can do more in the huddle and do more at the line of scrimmage.”On defense, it’s the opposite. The Redskins are coming off allowing 501 yards but only three points to the Buccaneers, and they’re counting on noise against DeShaun Watson and the Texans, who have won six in a row since an 0-3 start.“The fans play a big part in the way defenses can play, in the way the atmosphere is out there,” linebacker Mason Foster said. “When you get those guys going crazy in the stands, it’s hard for quarterbacks to communicate, it’s hard for them to audible at the line. When you get that going, I think it’s a tough place to play at FedEx.”NOTES: Coach Jay Gruden said left tackle Trent Williams (thumb) won’t play Sunday and there’s a good chance Thompson (ribs) is out, too. … In addition to Williams and Thompson, WR Jamison Crowder (ankle), CB Quinton Dunbar (shin), S Montae Nicholson (illness) and K Dustin Hopkins (groin) did not practice. Gruden said the team would see how Hopkins is Friday before deciding whether to sign another kicker. … With Crowder still on the mend, rookie WR Trey Quinn was activated off injured reserve and added to the active roster.