Commanders center Chase Roullier is likely done for the season, Jeremy Fowler of ESPN.com reported last week (via Twitter). Roullier played in only eight games last season due to a fibula fracture, so this is an especially disappointing development for player and team.
It was the fibula injury, suffered in Week 8 of the 2021 campaign, that landed Roullier on the PUP list at the start of this year’s training camp. The Wyoming product was able to suit up for the 2022 opener, but he went down with a serious injury to his right knee — which John Keim of ESPN.com reports is a torn MCL — in the waning moments of Washington’s Week 2 loss to the Lions. He underwent surgery on the knee on Thursday.
A starter since his rookie year in 2017, Roullier established himself as a quality blocker over his first few professional seasons, with Pro Football Focus consistently awarding him high marks for his pass-blocking prowess. 2020 was his best year yet, and he earned a four-year, $40.5M extension in January 2021. Unfortunately, after appearing in 46 of a possible 48 regular-season games from 2018-20, it looks like Roullier will have appeared in just 10 of a possible 34 games from 2021-22.
He will, however, get a little extra financial security despite the injury. In order to carve out some much-needed cap space, the Commanders have converted $4.5M of Roullier’s base salary into a signing bonus, Field Yates of ESPN.com tweets. The transaction gives Washington an additional $3M in cap room.
PFF graded Washington’s O-line as the sixth-best unit in 2020 and 2021, but that group is facing some serious hardships this year. The Commanders lost longtime right guard Brandon Scherff in free agency and tried to replace him with veteran Trai Turner. Turner, though, missed most of training camp with a quad injury and was replaced by Saahdiq Charles during the club’s Week 4 loss to the Cowboys due to poor performance.
Meanwhile, Roullier’s replacement, Wes Schweitzer, sustained a concussion one week after Roullier’s injury and has been placed on IR, so the Commanders will deploy recent acquisition Nick Martin at the pivot for at least a few games. Furthermore, Nicki Jhabvala of the Washington Post reports that right tackle Samuel Cosmi underwent surgery on his right thumb on Tuesday and will miss an undisclosed amount of time.
More must-reads: