What place for James Thrash?

I’ve been thinking about James Thrash and his place on the team for some time and I see I’m not the only one. Thrash has always been a hard worker, a reliable route-runner, a good blocker and perhaps the best player the team has on its kick coverage units. In a pinch, he would also fill in at a punt and kickoff returner and if his returns usually didn’t go very far, at least he wasn’t a fumbler.
It’s clear, though, that Thrash is not a starter in the NFL. At best, he’s a 4th wideout on a good offense and perhaps not even that. He’s not quick enough anymore to get open downfield, though he can be counted on to catch anything that hits his fingers. But earlier during the offseason the Redskins drafted WR Devin Thomas and WR Malcolm Kelly to bolster a thin and oft-injured receiving corps. Let’s face it, when Santana Moss and Antwaan Randle-El are your starters, your backups had better be ready to play.
If we assume that Moss, Randle-El, Thomas and Kelly will all make the team, where does James Thrash fit it? Well, for starters, we have to figure out if Head Coach Jim Zorn wants to keep 5 or 6 wide receivers on the active roster. Anthony Mix, Burl Toller, Billy McMullen, Horace Gant, and Maurice Mann are all wide receivers in training camp. These men are James Thrash’s competition. The coaching staff had plenty of nice things to say about Mix during the minicamps and obviously the team would love to have another tall wideout on the roster. [That might not be such a big consideration now, though, as Kelly and Thomas both have good size.]
James Thrash is a proven special teams standout, which is something you can’t say about his competition. Randle-El is a return man, though he seems a bit overrated as a punt returner [only 6.1 ypr in 2007] and doesn’t do much else on teams. Moss doesn’t do much on teams. Mix played on coverage teams in 2007, but didn’t distinguish himself the way Thrash has. If the Redskins let go of Thrash they’ll need to have a suitable replacement for him who can race down the field and make plays, tackles, downing the ball on the 3 yard line after a nice punt. Thrash is the man who does lots of little things during a game that add up during a season. It’s not that he can’t be replaced, it’s just that he can’t be replaced by one man. Several others will have to do all the things Thrash does.
Right now, I’d say the WR position looks like this:
Starters: Moss, Randle-El
Backups: Devin Thomas, Malcolm Kelly, James Thrash, Anthony Mix
Will Jim Zorn keep 6 wideouts? Quite possibly, though he probably won’t keep all 6 active on game day. Right now, I’d say there is still a place for James Thrash on the Washington Redskins. If he can hold off Mix and McMullen and the rest, we will be able to enjoy one more season watching James Thrash do lots of little things in a Redskins uniform.