When the Washington Redskins announced that they had claimed controversial linebacker Reuben Foster off of waivers the move was met with optimism and backlash. The second-year player has been in the public eye more for his domestic violence issues than his play on the field for the San Francisco 49ers.
Some wondered how the Redskins could bring in Foster. Others who support the franchise are in wait and see mode as several legal situations need to unfold.
I am a little surprised Redskins are taking a chance on Foster. It’s high reward if everything works out but a huge PR hit if it doesn’t. What are your thoughts on the move?
— Lake Lewis Jr (@LakeLewisJr) November 28, 2018
Foster was released by the 49ers on Monday after he was arrested again on probable cause misdemeanor domestic violence charges. This was his second domestic violence charge ironically with the same women involved in the prior situation.
Despite the allegations, two of Foster’s former teammates at Alabama in Ha Ha Clinton-Dix and Jonathan Allen said from their dealings with the linebacker he was a good person.
“From everything I’ve seen of him in college, I’ve never had a problem,” Allen said. “I’ve never seen any problems out of him. He’s a great person. But I don’t know the whole details of the situation, so I can’t really speak about that. But from my experiences, it’s been good.”
Ha Ha Clinton-Dix talks about the #Redskins acquisition of Reuben Foster. #httr pic.twitter.com/7W9RRlAQPD
— Lake Lewis Jr (@LakeLewisJr) November 28, 2018
Redskins coach Jay Gruden was asked often about the team’s decision to bring in Foster and what led to their thinking while addressing the media from the INOVA Sports Performance Center at Redskins Park.
“Yes. He was waived by San Francisco and we decided to claim him,” Gruden said. “Now, he is on the commissioner’s exempt list and he has to go through the process of the investigation the NFL does as do we. And then, we’ll go from there.”
Gruden mentioned that he did speak with Foster but would keep that conversation between the two of them.
“Yeah, I’ll keep it between myself and Reuben,” the fifth-year coach said. “It was very brief. We have a game to get ready for in Philadelphia. He has a lot of work to do before he even thinks about anything as far as being with the Redskins. Like I said, he has the NFL to deal with. He has law enforcement to deal with. He has us to deal with. We hold our standards very high also. We just want to get to the bottom of what happened and that’s it.”
The Redskins are not sitting back and waiting on the NFL to lead the investigation and come up with answers as to what happened in Tampa, FL on Saturday night. They have their own people investigating the situation with Foster and trying to furthermore find answers.
“We have our own people there involved and we’re going to do our work as is the NFL,” Gruden explained. “They’re first – the law enforcement, Tampa, California will do their work and we’ll get to the bottom of exactly what happened.”
Gruden did mention that there was some concern about fan reaction to the move but the team wants to know what truly happened.
“A little bit, yeah I’m sure there was, Gruden said. “From Bruce [Allen] and Dan [Snyder] and obviously Doug [Williams], but at the end of the day, we decided to make the move and we’ll deal with the outcry so to speak. But, for the most part, this is a young athlete, young person, who got himself into some trouble and we want to find out exactly what happened.”
Gruden went on to mention how much he relied on the pre-draft process to learn about Foster who was considered a sure-fire talent and top middle linebacker coming out of Notre Dame.
“A lot, really, a lot, I spent a lot of time with Coach [Nick] Saban, Reuben, obviously the same year Jonathan Allen came out, Ryan Anderson came out,” Gruden said. “They had a lot of players that we spent a lot of time with and he was one of them. At that time, he was one of my favorite players in the draft defensively as a player and one of my favorite interviews as a person. What’s happened since then, I don’t know really a lot about what’s happened, but I have just read a little bit about what’s happened and it’s not good. But, we will get to the bottom of it at the end of the day. There is no guarantee he is ever going to set foot on a football field here but we would like to find out more about what happened.”
Foster will be scrutinized heavily for his actions. Time will tell if he plays for the Redskins or any other NFL team as a vindicated or vilified man once all of the information surrounding his case comes to light.