{"id":278490,"date":"2025-08-11T03:03:10","date_gmt":"2025-08-11T03:03:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/278490\/"},"modified":"2025-08-11T03:03:10","modified_gmt":"2025-08-11T03:03:10","slug":"washington-commanders-rookies-weigh-in-on-first-preseason-game-experience","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/278490\/","title":{"rendered":"Washington Commanders rookies weigh in on first preseason game experience"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>ASHBURN, Va. (7News)  \u2014 It wasn&#8217;t the result the Washington Commanders wanted, but Friday&#8217;s <a href=\"https:\/\/wjla.com\/sports\/washington-commanders\/commanders-drop-preseason-opener-to-patriots-48-18\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"https:\/\/wjla.com\/sports\/washington-commanders\/commanders-drop-preseason-opener-to-patriots-48-18\" class=\"themeColorForLinks\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">30-point loss to the New England Patriots<\/a> to open the preseason was a wake-up call to the players and coaching staff.<\/p>\n<p>Without the starters suiting up, Washington&#8217;s depth players and rookies stepped into the NFL spotlight and got their first taste of a live-action NFL game. <\/p>\n<p>7News Sports Anchor Natalie Spala spoke with all five of the Commanders&#8217; 2025 draft picks about the experience.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I thought it was a solid game for myself, personally,&#8221; said rookie offensive tackle Josh Conerly Jr.  &#8220;Getting out there and practicing, I feel like that&#8217;s the only way you can get better.  Keep working things that you know that you&#8217;re good at and fixing things that you know you&#8217;re not that good at.&#8221; <\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Everything was smooth.  Went out there locked in, focused, and when I stepped on the field it was just like all the nerves went away,&#8221; cornerback Trey Amos said.  &#8220;It actually like slowed down for me.  After the joint practice, felt the new wide receivers and the game just slowed down.&#8221; <\/p>\n<p>Running back Jacory &#8220;Bill&#8221; Croskey-Merritt, who has been turning heads during training camp, had seven carries for a total of 24 yards on Friday.  His longest went for nine. <\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I was just blessed to be out there, but I think it was alright.  I know I can improve on a lot of stuff, so it was good to take some of the stuff I can improve on and just bring it into next week.  I&#8217;ve got a lot to clean up right now,&#8221; Croskey-Merritt said. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ASHBURN, Va. (7News) \u2014 It wasn&#8217;t the result the Washington Commanders wanted, but Friday&#8217;s 30-point loss to the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":278491,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2069],"tags":[427,3334,7,249,6,4136,9791,2478,8896,855,111,2480],"class_list":{"0":"post-278490","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-washington-commanders","8":"tag-commanders","9":"tag-cornerback","10":"tag-football","11":"tag-new-england-patriots","12":"tag-nfl","13":"tag-offensive-tackle","14":"tag-preseason-game","15":"tag-rookies","16":"tag-training-camp","17":"tag-washington","18":"tag-washington-commanders","19":"tag-washingtoncommanders"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/115007914345708047","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/278490","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=278490"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/278490\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/278491"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=278490"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=278490"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=278490"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}