October 11-- Springs back at practice, sort of

CB Shawn Springs returned to practice today but only participated in limited portions of the session.. He says he will wait to see how feels tomorrow to see how close he may be to returning to the field.. Springs says the ultimate decision for him to play will be with the coaches but he is still waiting for his body to feel healthy before telling them he is ready to go..

P Derrick Frost suffered a calf injury after being kicked during kick off coverage in the Giants game.. Veteran punter Sean Landeta tried out for the Skins yesterday but the team is sticking with Frost for now as Joe Gibbs said he believes Frost will be ready for the Titans game.. Frost was also absent from the Wednesday practice to attend the funeral of his grandmother..

Injuries: LB Marcus Washington (hip) did not practice.., DT Cornelious Griffin (hip) did not practice, DE Phillip Daniels (shoulder) did not practice, DT Joe Salave’a (calf) did not practice..

Asked whether he thought TJ Duckett was worth the 3rd round pick the team spent to get him Joe Gibbs said definitively “yes” saying that had Clinton Portis missed a number of games and they didn’t have Duckett that the same question would have been asked.. The team continues to tout Duckett as not the problem with him not getting in the game…
On the same lines, Gibbs and Mark Brunell defended the limited production of #2 receiver Brandon Lloyd.. Both cited the few number of plays (45) of a week ago.. Brunell completed only 10 passes.. Antwaan Randle El is only averaging about 20 yards receiving per game as well, but he has at least 2 catches per game and is the primary punt returner.. Lloyd has 6 catches for 75 yards through 5 games..

There has been some speculation as to whether Joe Gibbs admitted he shared some of the play calling duties.. This arose from Monday’s press conference when he was asked to address how the decision worked between he and Al Saunders on the 4th and 1 decision to try a field goal against the Giants.. Gibbs said during this that when the team gets inside the opponent’s 35, there “is some discussion.” Those who were in the room at the time knew what he was talking about, which was a specific moment in the game and that he was not intimating that he does any of the play calling.. He cleared it up today when it was asked, saying he does not call plays, however the “discussion” between he and Al begins when they are in field goal range to discuss potential strategy.. Gibbs ultimately makes the final call on whether to go for it or kick..

Gibbs said that Nick Novak’s kick offs appear to have gotten better since last year when he was short on numerous kick offs replacing the injured John Hall.. Novak will be doing the kick off duties on Sunday.. Novak said he continued practice by having his brother be a holder for him and some local Indiana kids (his parents are teaching at Purdue) to shag some balls for him while he kicks..

Jeff Fisher is close with Skins D coordinator Gregg Williams and used the conference call to stick it to his friend by saying that “I’ve forgotten more defense then Gregg will ever know.” Williams was Fisher’s D coordinator during the Titans Super Bowl run..

The Skins difficulty beating the cover 2 was a source of discussion.. Everyone agrees the run game needs to get the teams to get themselves out of the umbrella like defense.. Santana Moss said that the Giants and Cowboys were the only teams that went true cover 2 on them for most of the game.. This was the two games where the Skins offense struggled the most.. He said the Jaguars didn’t use it very much..