It’s been a difficult few weeks for Washington running back Antonio Gibson. Gibson, entering year three of his NFL career and coming off his first 1,000-yard rushing season, fumbled in the preseason opener against the Carolina Panthers.
Rookie Brian Robinson Jr. entered the game and took over. From that point forward, it looked like Robinson was Washington’s top running back. The following week, Gibson practiced with the second and third teams while also working on special teams. It wasn’t necessarily a punishment, as head coach Ron Rivera said because Gibson was a standout kick returner in college at Memphis.
Gibson was upset after the fumble but was looking forward to his next opportunity to help the Commanders. He spoke to reporters this week and acknowledged he took the preseason fumble hard.
“Honestly, first game of preseason, I responded bad,” Gibson said per Nicki Jhabvala of The Washington Post. I let it get to me. Just my emotions; you can’t show that. It’s always the next play, and I didn’t do that. Just honestly, I threw a little fit with myself and beat up on myself, but you can’t allow that.”
Gibson’s outlook has been positive since the first preseason game. Instead of pouting while Robinson appeared to be trending as the starting running back, Gibson embraced returning kicks and catching more passes on offense. Ahead of Week 1, Gibson wants to return kicks, despite wide receiver Dax Milne being listed as the No. 1 kick returner.
“Definitely, I’ve never been against it,” Gibson said of returning kicks. “I thought I was coming in to help there and just never got to that. They wanted to rock with me at running back, and I was getting a lot of reps, and it’s kinda tough to do both. It’s something that just faded off. But as you can see, Brian [Robinson] came in running the ball good. It was like, ‘we could put you back there,’ and that’s where we were headed before things happened” [with Robinson suffering gunshot wounds].
Milne is likely listed as the top option because the Commanders do not want to take a chance on Gibson getting injured.
Gibson’s attitude in embracing other roles, such as returning kicks, is the exact type of team-first attitude head coach Ron Rivera is looking for from his team.
