The Redskins talked to an old friend this week, but there’s no reunion in the offing.
We knew that General Manager Bruce Allen planned to speak with tight end Chris Cooley and coach Mike Shanahan confirmed that a conversation between the two men went down late in the week. Shanahan said that Cooley isn’t close to returning to the Redskins and that there isn’t much sign he’s on the verge of signing with anyone else either.
“I didn’t talk to Chris, but Bruce had a chance to talk to him a little bit yesterday. It was a good conversation. Chris is such a big part of this organization. He’s been a big part of his organization,” Shanahan said, via Mike Jones of the Washington Post. “He’s looked at his options; we talked about things that could possibly happen throughout the year. But if he did go to another team, it’d have to be as a starter.”
The Redskins are happy with Fred Davis as their starting tight end and it would seem that any team less thrilled with their starter at the position isn’t looking at Cooley as a replacement at this point. It might take a downgrade in expected role for Cooley, who has 428 catches in his eight-year career, to find a job sooner rather than later this season.