Woody:Redskins' Ramsey out for season

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Redskins' Ramsey out for season

Starting quarterback is scheduled to have surgery on his right foot

BY PAUL WOODY

TIMES-DISPATCH STAFF WRITER Dec 8, 2003

Patrick Ramsey had hoped to end his second season in the NFL by leading the Washington Redskins into the playoffs.

Instead, he will end it on the operating table, perhaps as early as one day this week. Ramsey, bothered by a bruised and/or fracture to the fifth metatarsal of his right foot, has decided to pull the plug on the season and have surgery to repair the injury.

The Redskins placed Ramsey on injured reserve yesterday.

Ramsey and the team doctors concluded the injury will get no better this season. Ramsey, 24, realized last week when he aggravated the injury during a practice session that he would be unable to play again this year.

"We just felt it wasn't going to get better by the end of the season," Ramsey said. "This just gives me a head start. They said it will be 10 weeks after the surgery before I can run again, and that's the reason I want to do this now."

Ramsey, 6-2 and 223, started 11 games this season. He completed 179 of 337 passes for 2,166 yards with 14 touchdown passes and nine interceptions. The Redskins were 4-7 in games Ramsey started.

The Redskins have a home game Sunday against Dallas.

"We felt like surgery is inevitable, so let's go ahead and do it now, let the foot get well and start rehabilitating it," Coach Steve Spurrier said. "We've been hesitating to do this the last two or three weeks.

"These games are important, but maybe not as important as if we were in the hunt for the playoffs. Patrick is our quarterback and when he comes back, in all likelihood he'll be our starter."

That seemed to cast some doubt on how Spurrier feels about Ramsey's future with the team. But Spurrier quickly backed away from that inference.

"There is a chance a lot of stuff can happen, but we don't anticipate that," Spurrier said. "We anticipate Patrick being our quarterback when he comes back."

If the surgery and rehabilitation go well, Ramsey should be able to start working out again in March.

For now, the starting quarterback will be Tim Hasselbeck. He's 1-1 in his two career starts, both with the Redskins and both in the past two weeks. Hasselbeck first came on in relief of Ramsey against Miami on Nov. 23, a game the Redskins lost after leading through the first three quarters.

"Tim is a smart young man who has come in and done an excellent job," Spurrier said. "We feel confident we've got a reliable player in Tim Hasselbeck, and I don't know that we had that feeling early in the season."

The Redskins went into the season with Rob Johnson as the backup. He was cut Oct. 22, and Hasselbeck, 25, was signed to replace him.

"We hope we can keep him [Hasselbeck] healthy the rest of the season, if not, Gibran Hamdan is next in line," Spurrier said.

Hamdan, a rookie, spent most of the season on the practice squad. He was the Redskins' seventh-round draft choice last spring.

Spurrier said the Redskins might sign a third quarterback and assign him to the practice squad.

Hasselbeck, 6-1 and 211, has completed 52 of 94 passes for 655 yards with three touchdown passes and two interceptions.

Ramsey was initially bothered by the foot injury during training camp. The team is not sure if Ramsey suffered a fracture to the metatarsal then and that it healed and now has some type of bruise over the fracture or whether the injury never fully healed.

Trainer Dean Kleinschmidt has said he's not sure when Ramsey first suffered the injury and that it might even have happened while Ramsey was in college at Tulane.

Ramsey managed to play with the pain this season, but it became progressively worse.

The injury to the fifth metatarsal is not uncommon, and, according to medical experts, the insertion of a pin or screw to hold the bone together often is required.

"I understood this might be the reality when I slipped last week and it hurt that badly and aggravated it that much," Ramsey said. "In a game situation, more than that will happen."

AND FURTHERMORE: Spurrier said running back Trung Canidate, with foot and ankle injuries, might not be able to play this week. Backup running back Ladell Betts (injured forearm) also is unlikely to play. Offensive tackle Chris Samuels (sprained medial collateral ligament in his knee) is scheduled to begin jogging this week but seems unlikely to play. Linebacker LaVar Arrington suffered a sprained ankle and sprained knee against the New York Giants, but Spurrier said he expects Arrington to be able to play Sunday.

Contact Paul Woody at (804) 649-6444 or pwoody@timesdispatch.com