After an eight-game 2021 season, Chase Roullier is facing a second straight year with an extended absence. The Commanders center is heading to IR with what ESPN.com’s Jeremy Fowler notes (via Twitter) is a significant knee injury.
Roullier, who suffered a season-ending fibula fracture in Week 8 last year, will seek a second opinion, according to John Keim of ESPN.com. The veteran center left Sunday’s game with barely a minute remaining and exited Ford Field on crutches.
Last year’s injury required extensive procedures, leading Roullier to begin Washington’s 2022 training camp on the active/PUP list. He joined Chase Young and Logan Thomas among those needed additional rehab from injuries last season. Roullier returned to work and was good to go by Week 1, beginning his sixth season as Washington’s center starter. Now, the Commanders will need to make another adjustment.
Wes Schweitzer will take over for Roullier at center, Keim adds. Schweitzer, one of many veteran presences on Washington’s O-line, began his season as the team’s starting right guard. The Commanders signed longtime Panthers starter Trai Turner this offseason. After not cracking Washington’s starting lineup to open the season, Turner will make a first-string re-emergence as the Commanders’ right guard. He did line up with the starters in Detroit due to a Schweitzer hamstring injury.
Washington gave Roullier a four-year, $40.5MM deal at the end of the 2020 season. That deal ranks as the NFL’s sixth-most lucrative center contract. A former Falcons starter, Schweitzer is in Year 3 of his three-year, $13.5MM Washington deal. He has made 18 starts with Washington and 51 over the course of his seven-year career. He has almost exclusively played guard, however. Turner, 29, is even more experienced, having lined up as a starting guard 107 times.