There are certain advantages and disadvantages that come with being a Rather Large Human (RLH). Possessing those attributes makes certain things come easier to you, particularly if you work in a field that allows you to exploit them. But there are occasional downsides.
As an RLH himself, Pittsburgh Steelers tight end Darnell Washington is familiar with this phenomenon. He’s lived with it throughout his football career. It’s become second nature for him to navigate around—or through—defenders who always want to get physical with him.
“I kind of always had that in my game with the counter moves. It feels great doing it”, he told reporters on Tuesday, via the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. “I feel like that’s more just a natural instinct. I know I’m a bigger player, so I know they love to reroute and things like that. They love to get their hands on me, so it’s just something that I work on, just little hand movement, things like that”.
Now in the NFL with the Steelers, he knows that he is able to focus on the receiving element of his game more than at Georgia. In college, he was teammates with one of the best pass-catching tight ends in the country, as well as a consistently strong wide receiving corps, so he did not get the level of attention as a weapon in the passing game that he wanted.
Indeed, he only ran a total of 483 routes throughout the entirety of his NCAA football career over three years with the Bulldogs. More than half of them came in 2022, 257 to be precise, on the strength of which he recorded 28 receptions for 454 yards and two touchdowns.
At 6-7 and somewhere north of 260 pounds, “Mount” Washington is an imposing assignment for just about any defender who might be asked to cover him. He is too big for most safeties to be able to handle, but more agile than most linebackers of adequate size.
Accordingly, he is used to dealing with defenders who believe the best way they can stop him in coverage is to get physical with him and throw him off his route. All that’s done is give him the tools to develop over time to learn how to fight them off.
While he has been harsh on himself in terms of his route-running ability, Washington has shown a lot of impressive work in both individual and team settings. He is a natural jump-ball option with his size and physicality, but he has also shown some nuance in his routes. Perhaps more than he gives himself credit for.
It’s a facet of his game that is very much in development, but the potential is there. He should find ways to get open, and even make some catches when he’s not. Though one hopes that he is also able to continue to improve his drop rate. That should come with greater exposure if his career-low rate of 6.7 percent last year is anything to go by.
