Second Thoughts

Video game teaches QB about team

Quarterback Josh Johnson will make his first NFL start since 2011 on Sunday when he leads the Washington Redskins against the Jacksonville Jaguars.
Quarterback Josh Johnson will make his first NFL start since 2011 on Sunday when he leads the Washington Redskins against the Jacksonville Jaguars.

This is what it's come to for the Washington Redskins: Their fourth quarterback of a once-promising, now-lost season, Josh Johnson, will make his first NFL start since 2011 on Sunday, and he spent time last week playing the Madden NFL video game to try to pick up something about his new teammates.

"I learned their names, first and foremost," Johnson said with a smile.

It's a whole-new ballgame when there's not controllers involved.

Johnson will play the most important position on the field Sunday when the Redskins, who have gone from 6-3 and first place in the NFC East to 6-7 thanks to a four-game losing streak, play at the Jacksonville Jaguars (4-9).

Between Washington's Johnson and Jacksonville starter Cody Kessler, the two QBs have a combined career mark of 1-14 as NFL starters. Johnson is 0-5 and hadn't even thrown a pass in a game in seven years until coming in to replace Mark Sanchez in the second half of Washington's 40-16 loss to the New York Giants on Sunday.

"I've been a fourth-stringer, a third-stringer. I've been so many other things," the 32-year-old Johnson said.

He's been signed and discarded by nearly half of the league: The Redskins are the 13th team that's brought him in, although only the second for which he actually was allowed to attempt a throw in a regular-season game (Tampa Bay was the other).

So why has he bounced around so much with little game time to show for it?

"He can be hot and cold throwing the ball. He can throw a great ball, then throw one in the dirt, then throw a great ball," Coach Jay Gruden said. "The [inconsistency], probably, is what people see."

In Washington, Johnson essentially is the backup to the backup's backup.

Sanchez only got to start against New York because Colt McCoy broke his right leg during the prior game; McCoy was starting only because Alex Smith broke his right leg two games before that.

Add it all up, and Johnson's is Gruden's No. 4 starting QB in a span of five games.

Johnson was signed Wednesday. A week before facing the Giants, he was playing in a charity basketball event at home in California.

"It was a good test for my cardio," Johnson said. "I actually got my body ready."

Entering Sunday after the score was 40-0, he went 11 for 16 for 195 yards, with a 79-yard touchdown pass to Jamison Crowder and one interception against the Giants.

He also ran seven times for 45 yards with a TD.

Wanting Witten?

Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones and Coach Jason Garrett shot down an ESPN report that the team reached out to former tight end Jason Witten and tried to lure him out of the ESPN Monday Night Football broadcast booth where he serves as an analyst.

According to the report, it was Garrett who made multiple attempts this season to get Witten to come out of retirement and help the Cowboys in their postseason push.

On his radio show on 105.3-FM, The Fan on Monday morning, Garrett emphatically said "No" when asked whether he reached out to Witten about returning.

And after the Cowboys' 29-23 overtime victory over the Philadelphia Eagles on Sunday, Jones said there was no truth to the Cowboys' being interested in Witten. And, per a source, the subject of trying to bring back Witten has never been discussed in the scouting department.

"We haven't at all," Jones said unequivocally. "What you are seeing is probably lingering aspects of Jason [Witten] saying I will never quit wanting to play. So you are seeing that. There has been no serious [discussion] that would be of the nature of him seriously playing."

Sports on 12/11/2018

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