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On Sitting out the Bowl Game, Washington Says ‘That Never Crossed My Mind’

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James Washington and Mason Rudolph will both be taken in the 2018 NFL Draft. Washington will probably go higher than Rudolph, and Marcell Ateman could join them at some point over the first few days.

Because of all of this, there is some justifiable fear over playing a glorified exhibition game when No. 2 and No. 28 strap it on for the final time against Virginia Tech on December 28. There have been whispers. Will they play? Should they play? They’ll play, right?

The answer appears to be, “Yes, they will play,” if the clip of Washington below is any indication. But the question is a fair one. There is precedent here, too. Leonard Fournette shut it down for LSU last year, so did Christian McCaffrey for Stanford. Why risk millions for some paltry bowl swag bags?

Those players sitting, of course, set off a series of the most self-righteous and hottest takes of the last few decades of college football takes. It also assured all of us that this would be a question for star players in meaningless postseason games for years to come.

It should not be that difficult to see and understand why somebody like Washington, a projected first round pick in the NFL Draft, would not play in an exhibition game named after a company that specializes in selling recreational vehicles.

If creating Excel spreadsheets were a dangerous sport, and you were about to go from unpaid skill laborer to absurdly-paid skill laborer but you had to put your health at risk for an Excel spreadsheet exhibition (The Gates Invitational, we’ll call it), I mean … it’s not hard to see that side of the equation.

And yet.

Washington was asked about this very thing recently, and he didn’t even blink.

“That never crossed my mind,” said Washington. “In my mind that’s like disloyalty. If I sign a scholarship to play here, I’m going to play every game I can. I’m not going to sit out just because of something later on in life. You never know when you’ll get this game back. I try to take every opportunity I can to play this game and play with my brothers.”

That’s a stand-up answer that I also respect. I think, like with most polarizing topics, there is a wide swath of middle ground to stand on. And when it comes to this, I can even see either decision being correct or right.

I’m glad James Washington is playing the Camping World Bowl on December 28 because  I love watching James Washington play football, but I wouldn’t bedowngrade him if he didn’t. Because James Washington’s future is a lot more valuable than one game than Virginia Tech and his world is about to get a lot bigger.

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