Washington offensive coordinator makes public plea for Trent Williams to return

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Washington has chronically mishandled the Trent Williams dispute. Which is no surprise, because in recent years Washington chronically has chronically mishandled problems like this — as discussed earlier today on PFT Live.

At to Williams, one man is trying to fix it. Even if he’s apparently going it alone.

Offensive coordinator Kevin O’Connell appeared Thursday on 106.7 The Fan, and he made an open plea for Williams to come back.

“There’s no doubt if, Trent, you’re out there and you’re listening, man, we’d love to have you back as soon as possible,” O’Connell said.

That’s an appropriate senitment, but what has the team actually done to make Williams feel wanted? When Adrian Peterson was ambivalent about playing for the Vikings in 2015, coach Mike Zimmer and G.M. Rick Spielman went to Houston to make an in-person plea to get Williams to play. There’s been no report or suggestion that Washington has done anything like that with Williams — and if they had, surely someone would have leaked it in order to make it look like the team has tried to get him back.

At this point, with so many hard feelings between Williams and the team and no apparent effort by the team to undo whatever damage was done to make Williams feel the way that he feels about the team, all O’Connell can do is talk.

“There’s no denying that and every Redskin fan out there knows that he’s an elite player,” O’Connell said. “Obviously, nobody wants him back more than me. I’m right up there with every other guy walking in the halls of this building right now, we want him back badly.”

O’Connell seems to realize that isn’t happening, and that Plan B is now Plan A.

“[W]e feel good about the depth that we have over there on that left side,” O’Connell said. “It’s still sorting itself out, both at the guard position and the tackle position.”

One thing that likely won’t be sorting itself out is the confrontation with Williams. With Williams apparently determined not to play for Washington and Washington apparently determined not to do anything other than wait him out, the chances of Williams walking through the front door of the facility remain very slim, at best.