Are the Redskins making a change at strong safety?

Against the Eagles, Duke Ihenacho started the game as he has since David Bruton went on injured reserve after his Week 4 concussion. But he played only 17 of the 52 snaps. Donte Whitner, the veteran who was signed after Bruton went on IR, played 40 snaps.

“I think it’s like the running backs; I think you start with Matt Jones,” said Jay Gruden when asked about the safeties’ playing time. “You start with Duke and Donte is going to play a lot. It might depend on the package. It might be more nickel for Donte, it might be more base for Duke, or what have you.”

The running back rotation against the Eagles was comparable to the safety situation. Jones started and played 30 of the 24 offensive snaps. But Chris Thompson, nominally the third down back, actually played more, 36 snaps. This is not something you would expect in a game that the Redskins never trailed. Robert Kelley played nine snaps.

Back to the safety situation, if Whitner is the strong safety in nickel situations then he is going to play a lot more than Ihenacho. So far this year the Redskins have played their slot corner, indicating a nickel package, about 65 percent of the time.

They used the nickel even more frequently against the Eagles. Nickel corner Kendall Fuller played 45 snaps and Matt Ioannidis, who has been playing nose tackle in base defense, played seven.

As he usually does when discussing changes in playing time, Gruden said that nothing is set in stone.

“That’s something that we’ll decide on a week-by-week basis and a game-by-game basis depending on who we’re playing, what personnel groups they’re featuring and go from there,” he said. “Donte has really come in and picked up the [defense] extremely well. Duke played well again yesterday. [Will] Blackmon had some good plays. I think the safety position is getting stronger.”

The Redskins seem to be somewhat wary of counting on Ihenacho fully because he has been injured early in each of the last two seasons. In addition, he is tied for the most missed tackles among active players with four. Whitner has not missed a tackle in his relative small sample size of 45 snaps.

We will see how it plays out. Whitner was in the Pro Bowl as recently as 2014 and he seems to be on a mission to prove that the Browns were wrong when the cut him last may after all of the major free agent dollars had been spent. Ihenacho also wants to show that he can play after being unceremoniously dumped by the Broncos in 2014 after a full season as their starter, followed by his two season with the Redskins both of which were severely shortened by injuries.