ATHENS, Ga. — Darnell Washington pointed his scooter at the podium and wheeled it over. He parked it, lifted his left foot off it, and walked a few steps to his spot, in front of a backdrop Georgia uses for interviews.

This was unusual.

Typically, injured players are not selected by the team to do media sessions, and yet here was Washington, in fact doing his first-ever media appearance in two-plus years at Georgia. Perhaps it’s the new world of NIL, spreading around exposure among interviews. Perhaps it was a message, both to the public and to Washington, that his time — finally — is coming.

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Washington is the “yes, but” of Georgia’s team: Yes, the offense was good enough to win the national title, yes tight end Brock Bowers was the breakout star, but … why does Washington, who seems a massive mismatch every time the ball is thrown his way, not a bigger part of the offense? Or, a cynic could say, simply a part of the offense?

Maybe Washington wonders the same thing, privately, but on Thursday night he sounded very accepting.

“I just did my role,” he said. “If my role is to block, then I’ll block. I’m a role player.”

A role player? A five-star recruit as a role player? Actually, there’s a world where if Washington doesn’t suffer a foot injury last August that he has the season Bowers did, or at least is a bigger part of the offense. He missed the first four games of the season, and by then Bowers was on his way to being named the SEC Freshman of the Year. Does Washington wonder what might have been?

Again, what he thinks privately may be one thing, but publicly he again sounded the right note.

“I don’t really think like that,” Washington said. “I just think of it as we won the natty. So there’s nothing better than that.”

The expectations have been huge — as huge as his 6-foot-7, 265-pound frame — since Washington arrived from Las Vegas. (He grew up about 10 minutes from the Las Vegas Strip.) But whether it’s timing or something else, Washington hasn’t become the consistent weapon he seemingly could be.

The argument for timing: Last year there was the foot injury. The year before that, as a freshman, Washington said he came in heavier than he needed to be, and “wasn’t up to college speed. There was an adjustment to “playing with the big boys,” as Washington put it. Of course, Bowers came from Napa Valley and didn’t seem to have to make an adjustment.

So the argument for something else, specifically Washington being able to get the separation he needs to be depended on as a target. He acknowledged that he needs to get better at winning one-on-one situations before the ball is thrown. Footwork, hands, little stuff that helps him get separation.

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That could easily happen if Washington improves as much as he did in his blocking over the past couple years.

“If you go back to my high school film, I didn’t block,” Washington said, with a laugh. “I was a receiver in high school. So when I came here, I had never blocked a Travon (Walker), Azeez (Ojulari), anybody like that when I was in Las Vegas. My mindset flipped from catching all the balls in high school, to I wanted to be physical at the point of attack. My first game here, my blocking wasn’t pretty. So I realized I had to flip the switch.”

Washington doesn’t have a huge numbert of catches — 17 over his two seasons — but each one seems a tantalizing sign of what he could do for the offense. He averages 19.4 yards per catch, and often has a comical size advantage over the poor linebacker or defensive back trying to guard him.

But it’s the blocking that has Washington on the field plenty: 328 offensive snaps, well behind Bowers (661) and John FitzPatrick (588) but well ahead of the next-closest tight end (Brett Seither with 94).

FitzPatrick is gone now, but Arik Gilbert has joined the tight end room. Washington and Gilbert were classmates, two five-star recruits in the 2020 class, and now they’re picking each other up early in the morning for workouts, or at least they were prior to Washington’s injury. (He said it happened just before spring practice, while training, and said it was “nothing serious.”

Bowers, Gilbert and Washington. Are there enough balls, enough snaps for everybody?

“I believe so. It’s just something that I’ve got to come back off injury and work,” Washington said. “Just like Brock and Arik and everybody else in the tight end room is doing. I feel like only time tells.”

This isn’t the old-school world where only one tight end plays a lot. Georgia uses two tight ends most of the time and three tight ends often. Georgia had multiple tight ends on the field for 51.7% of its offensive snaps last season, the highest rate in the SEC and eighth-highest nationally. That was about double the national average (26%).

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There’s no reason to think that will change this season. Tight end is again a position of strength for Georgia, it’s just a matter of how it hashes out targets.

Washington was asked if this is a big year for him, potentially good enough to jump to the NFL if he shows out.

“I really don’t know the future,” he said. “I hope for a good year, hope to go pro next year. But I don’t know what’ll happen.”

Another potential weapon Arian Smith

The consensus seems to be that Georgia’s offense could really use speed at receiver. Someone with track-type speed who can play off those talented tight ends. Someone fast like … Arian Smith, who’s already on the roster, and has been for two years.

“I feel like I’m that guy,” Smith said, before adding, “You can say what you can say but it’s really going to show. I’m not a big talk guy.”

Smith could have been that guy the past two years. Literally a track athlete, he ran the leadoff leg for Georgia’s 400 relay team in the NCAA championship meet. He was timed at 4.2 in the 40-yard dash in high school. Georgia beat out Alabama, Clemson and others for Smith, who was the nation’s ninth-ranked receiver and the class of 2020’s No. 57 overall prospect per 247Sports.

But a wrist injury delayed his freshman season, not playing until the seventh game, and only catching two passes — albeit one a 55-yarder in the Peach Bowl. Then his second season, after catching a pass against Clemson and a 61-yarder the following week, he suffered a lower-leg bruise, causing him to miss four games. After returning for only two games — and catching a 35-yarder against Missouri — Smith broke his femur.

“It’s frustrating. But you’ve just got to control what you can control,” Smith said, saying later that being patient is what he’s learned the most since he got to college: “The injuries holding me back, making me wait. Making me wise, and being patient.”

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Smith is back to running at top speed now, he said, but is still in a black non-contact jersey at practice. The longer he stays healthy, though, the more intriguing he becomes for the Georgia offense this season: He only has five career catches, but they’ve gone for 186 yards.

Linebacker update

Nolan Smith and Robert Beal, a pair of seniors, are back at outside linebacker. Jamon Dumas-Johnson, a sophomore, has continued to get a lot of buzz as an inside linebacker and defensive leader.

The question is who else emerges at the two linebacker positions.

There are two recent five-star prospects: Xavian Sorey Jr. and Smael Mondon, each of whom played sparingly in their freshman year, because of all the talent ahead of them at inside linebacker. There’s also MJ Sherman, a top-50 prospect two years ago who also hasn’t been able to get major playing time yet because of the talent on the edge.

But if those guys are making a big move this spring it isn’t evident yet. At inside linebacker, Sorey, Mondon, freshman Jalon Walker and junior Trezmen Marshall were those mentioned by Kirby Smart after Tuesday’s practice. At edge, Sherman and Chaz Chambliss, a sophomore who saw playing time last year. Those two appear to be on the two-deep right now behind seniors Beal and Nolan Smith.

“We’re just really young (at the linebacker position),” Smart said. “You say stand out — I mean, there’s nobody that stands out — not compared to who just left that room. There are guys filling a role and there’s a difference — there’s a standard at Georgia when you play inside linebacker and outside linebacker and we’re probably not playing to that standard right now. But it’s not because they’re not trying hard enough and it’s not because they’re not passionate enough, it’s because they don’t have the experience or the reps. We’re catching up on that every day as fast as we can.”

(Top photo of Darnell Washington: Todd Kirkland / Getty Images)