Far from healthy, Redskins’ Trent Williams, London Fletcher gut it out

Trent Williams wasn’t totally healthy, bothered by a thigh injury. Neither was London Fletcher, hampered by a bad ankle. But there was little if any doubt that the Washington Redskins‘ captains would be on the field for Monday night’s showdown with the New York Giants.

They were, starting the Redskins‘ biggest game of the season and contributing to the 17-16 win that kept playoff hopes alive. Williams and Fletcher wouldn’t have it any other way.

“It’s a situation where you don’t feel 100 percent, but once the game gets going you hope your adrenaline kicks in, which it did,” Fletcher said. “Just felt like battling, man. Sometimes you got to tough it out. And that’s what I did. Trent toughed it out today. He wasn’t 100 percent.”

It didn’t matter. Williams was playing at 60 percent against the Dallas Cowboys on Thanksgiving Day after he bruised his left thigh in a collision with left guard Kory Lichtensteiger.

Officially, the left tackle was listed as questionable. Teammates didn’t believe he was questionable.

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“He’s a warrior, so he’s going to go out there and play whether he’s hurt or not,” Lichtensteiger said. “I think he kind of liked to have all the attention on him this week by saying, ‘Oh, I don’t know if I’m going to play, I don’t know if I’m going to play.’ But I think we all knew he was going to play because he’s like that. If it’s even questionable, he’s going to be out there and give it a go.”

Fletcher was the same way. His streak of consecutive games played, tied for the active NFL record with Tampa Bay Buccaneers safety Ronde Barber, reached 236 despite a sore left ankle that has been bothering him for quite some time.

The veteran inside linebacker will likely have to wear a walking boot after games for the rest of the season. That’s just part of his process to get ready to play the next game.

“With the ankle, it gets progressively better as the week goes. It still doesn’t get to 100 percent,” Fletcher said. “But after the game and during the game I’m putting a lot of stress on it that you normally wouldn’t on it in normal situation, so they like to put me back in the boot to kind of calm it down for a couple of days. That’s kind of what we got to do.”

Whatever it takes to play, against the Giants and then Sunday against the Baltimore Ravens. With the Redskins‘ playoff hopes hanging in the balance every game, Fletcher said it’s just a matter of getting himself together enough to give as much effort as possible on game day.

It certainly doesn’t matter how these guys are feeling.

“I feel like [crap],” Williams said, “but I feel better now that we got that win.”

Rivalry gets personal

When Alfred Morris fumbled the ball in the red zone early in the third quarter, things got interesting as players piled on. Redskins center Will Montgomery had his leg yanked on by Giants defensive tackle Linval Joseph, and when Montgomery kicked, it looked like Joseph tried to stomp on him.

Flags then flew from officials.

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