The Washington Redskins sent star tight end Jordan Reed to injured reserve ahead of Week 6.
With the move, another unfortunate byproduct of consistently having one of the NFL’s most-injured teams continued — the Redskins have droves and droves of cap space tied up in guys who can’t play.
ESPN’s John Keim took a look: “…the Redskins have $33.5 million of cap space occupied by big-money players who haven’t played a down for them this season. Quarterback Alex Smith (leg) takes up $20.4 million; tackle Trent Williams (holdout) occupies $3.5 million…and Reed (concussion) costs $9.67 million in cap space.”
Some of this can’t be helped obviously, though the trend is alarming. Once Alex Smith went down, the structure of his contract emerged as a talking point — yet the Redskins still found the room to invest heavily in Landon Collins during free agency.
The Redskins could mitigate some of these potential long-term hurdles by patching things over with Trent Williams or moving him. But otherwise, the story of this team’s season might rest in how much salary is once again unable to take the field.
As for Reed, his playing future remains in question with a concussion suffered during the preseason eventually landing him on IR.
