Bashaud Breeland’s return helpful as Redskins weather Chris Culliver’s ban

ASHBURN — The return of cornerback Bashaud Breeland from a one-game suspension should help the Washington Redskins’ secondary, which will again be short-handed after Chris Culliver was suspended on Monday.

Breeland served a one-game suspension in Week 1 for violating the league’s substance abuse policy. Culliver will serve a one-game suspension against the St. Louis Rams on Sunday for a violation of the personal conduct policy.

A sprained MCL in Breeland’s right knee kept him out of the team’s first three preseason games, and he returned against the Jacksonville Jaguars. He looked rusty then, and the question now will be how much rust he can knock off this week ahead of Sunday’s game.

“I think he was rusty in that last preseason game, that’s why he played,” Gruden said. “Then he missed all week of practice last week. We’ve got to get him a good week of practice. Wednesday’s going to be a big day for him. I think he understands the defense. Just a matter of going out there and playing and running and staying in the game.

“He might have to play some corner, might have to play some nickel. That’s hard on a second-year guy with a new system. We have high expectations for Bree.”

The Redskins had to do some reshuffling after strong safety Duke Ihenacho fractured his wrist on Sunday, which required surgery. The team has yet to place him on injured reserve.

Trenton Robinson is expected to take Ihenacho’s place. After Ihenacho was injured Sunday, Robinson played all 48 snaps in his absence.

Clean it up

The Redskins committed 11 penalties — tied with Buffalo for second-most in the league in Week 1. The only two teams with more were the Cleveland Browns and Tampa Bay Buccaneers with 12.

All the penalties were committed in the second half and disrupted the offense’s flow.

On the Redskins’ last drive of the third quarter, they committed penalties on three consecutive plays: A delay of game, an offensive pass interference call on tight end Jordan Reed and a holding call on right tackle Ty Nsekhe. The result? Third-and-29.

“We have to clean up the penalties, no question,” Gruden said. “We can send some into the league that we don’t think they were penalties or that were called, whatever, but they were called. We had way too many first-and-20s, second-and-25s. We had a couple opportunities there to really change field position or get points and we didn’t because of the penalties.”