ASHBURN, Va. (AP) – Using Steve Spurrier’s reckoning, two-time Pro Bowl left tackle Chris Samuels is one of those “star guys” who needs the lead the Washington Redskins out of their penalty funk.

Asked how he plans to take on that challenge, Samuels doesn’t offer any grand solutions. There’s no mention of helping plan a team meeting or even sitting down and discussing the topic with fellow linemen.

“The only thing I can do really is just go out there and stop making the penalties that I’ve created for this team, and that’s it,” Samuels said Wednesday. “Hopefully the guys can feed off it.”

Spurrier’s watchful eyes won’t be the only ones looking for mistakes Wednesday and Thursday as the coach brought four local officials from the Eastern Collegiate Athletic Association to flag wrongdoers in practice. While Spurrier said there was improvement, he wanted to see the refs crack down even harder.

“The refs didn’t call as much as I’d hoped. They called a few offsides, some of our rookie guys jumped the gun,” Spurrier said. “But overall I thought our team played a little bit better within the rules today. Hopefully it will carry into Sunday, that’s the only time it counts.”

For three years, Samuels and right tackle Jon Jansen have been reliable bookends for the offensive line, so it was disconcerting for the Redskins when the pair combined for five of the franchise-record 17 penalties in Sunday’s 24-21 overtime loss to the New York Giants.

“Right now it’s a disease the whole team has,” offensive line coach Kim Helton said. “Everybody knows the problem, and the only people who can fix it are the people who are doing it.”

Samuels was caught twice for holding. The first one negated a touchdown pass to Rod Gardner in the first half. The second one, on the final drive of the fourth quarter, hurt the Redskins’ chances to score a touchdown and win in regulation. The team settled for field goals both times.

Helton said both penalties were valid calls, and that Samuels did a good job blocking for a long time on the second one before finally resorting to a hold to keep the ball from being stripped from quarterback Patrick Ramsey.

In fact, perhaps validating the theory that offensive linemen get all blame and little credit, Helton pointed out that Samuels’ grades for the game were actually very high.

“It was probably his best game he’s had since I’ve been coaching here,” Helton said. “He played extremely well – other than he had two holding penalties.”

While Samuels’ miscues were physical, Jansen’s were all mental.

He committed three false starts, a glaring problem considering that Spurrier put in extra work to avoid dead-ball penalties during training camp.

“You hope one of your best players is never offsides, but he was,” Helton said. “We’re not going to fire him over it. I’m not going to suggest we fire him over it. I’m going to suggest that he do a better job of staying onsides.”

Jansen has made an effort to become more of a vocal leader this season, but the reason for his mistakes was something he clearly didn’t want to discuss.

“It’s just a matter of getting the job done,” Jansen said. “I don’t mean to be blunt, but there’s a lot of things that go into it, and I don’t want to get into all of them.”

Though he’s never been to a Pro Bowl, Jansen signed a six-year, $25 million contract at the end of the last season, qualifying him as one of Spurrier’s “star guys.” His solution for the penalty woes was the same as Samuels’ – lead by example.

“It doesn’t matter whether you’re a star guy or the last guy on the roster, we expect everybody to go out and play well,” Jansen said. “Yeah, we’re the team leaders, we need to go out and set a pace.”

Spurrier on Monday called on the veterans to set the pace for fewer mistakes, having backed off his initial threat to fine players for penalties.

The coach is known for being tough on quarterbacks and receivers if they don’t perform up to scratch, but he is not a team-wide disciplinarian.

This penalty problem is the latest test to see how he functions as an NFL head coach over 53 players.

“I can’t guarantee anything, we’re trying our best. We thought we had it fixed before the last two games, but obviously we had not,” Spurrier said. “We’re just trying to emphasize a little bit more that we have to play within the rules.”