Washington Redskins: Manti Te’o a smart, cheap option at linebacker

The Washington Redskins will likely need to make a move for a linebacker this offseason. Manti Te’o would be a smart, cheap option in free agency.

It’s widely believed that the Washington Redskins will be making a lot of moves this offseason in an effort to create cap space. Two of those moves could be coming from the linebacker position, with both Zach Brown and Mason Foster being potential candidates to cut. If this happens, the Redskins will clearly need to make a move for a new linebacker in free agency or the draft. Manti Te’o is the perfect candidate.

If the Redskins end up making those two cuts, they’ll have a hole at the middle linebacker position. Those two moves would leave Washington with two players at the position, Shaun Dion Hamilton and Josh Harvey-Clemons. Both are young (Harvey-Clemons is 25 and Dion Hamilton is 23) and have potential. Dion Hamilton especially has been someone that many are excited to see given a larger role.

That being said, the Redskins would obviously need to make some additions. You can’t roll into a season with two unknowns at the position. Adding someone in the draft could help immensely, but wouldn’t help with experience.

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Harvey-Clemons and Dion Hamilton have combined for 61 tackles in 42 games. Neither have gotten much playing time on the defense (not counting special teams). It would be unwise to go into a new season with no veterans at the position.

That brings me to Manti Te’o. The six-year veteran has had an underrated career to this point. No, he hasn’t been a superstar, but he’s been better than many might realize.

Te’o has 301 tackles in 59 games. He has just 1.5 sacks and two interceptions in that time, which are the flashier stats. Maybe that’s part of why people tend to overlook how solid he’s been to this point in his career.

Meanwhile, the 28-year old has 13 pass deflections and 26 tackles for loss. He’s a smart player who tends to know where to be and could give the Redskins defense a consistent presence in the middle of the field. Coming off a season in which he appeared in just five games, he will be a very cheap option at the position too. The Redskins should be able to scoop him up for a very team-friendly contract.

Many people are quick to write off Te’o whenever he’s brought up. They’ll bring up that Alabama game or make some miserable “girlfriend” joke that’s been made thousands of times before. That material is tired.

However, if you look past those now-irrelevant things, you’ll see someone you’d want on your team. By all accounts he’s a great player on the field and a good player in the locker room. He never let any of that catfish scandal interfere with his play and was apparently a good sport about it in his early years. Hopefully that’s not something players bring up too often anymore, but who knows.

Go try and find something negative on this guy from the past few years — it can’t be done. Manti Te’o would give the Washington Redskins someone who let’s his play do the talking. After all the issues of 2018, doesn’t that sound refreshing?