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EXTREME PRESEASON COVERAGE: Redskins at Titans (FINAL ZOONYFIED EDITION)

Tarhog

By Tarhog
in The Stadium

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Tarhog

Tarhog

Posted
Posted

EXTREME PRESEASON COVERAGE: Redskins at Titans (the zoony edition)

LP Field, Nashville, Tennessee 8/11/07

Titans 005.jpg

PHOTOS

Click

'>HERE

to see Skins at Titans Pre-Game Pics #1

Click HERE to see Skins at Titans Game Pics #1

Click HERE to see Skins at Titans Game Pics #2

Click HERE to see Skins at Titans Game Pics #3

Click HERE to see Skins at Titans Game Pics #4

Click HERE to see Skins at Titans Game Pics #5

AUDIO

Click HERE to hear comments by Coach Joe Gibbs

Click HERE to hear comments by Jason Campbell

Click HERE to hear comments by CB Byron Westbrook

Click HERE to hear comments by Marcus Washington

Click HERE to hear comments by London Fletcher

Click HERE to hear comments by Gregg Williams

Click HERE to hear comments by Pierson Prioleau

Click HERE to hear comments by Ladell Betts

Its one of the most exciting dates on our collective calendars - the day the beloved B&G started playing real football. Okay....almost real football :) Right now, dreams of the Super Bowl still live....and lets face it, if Jason Campbell throws more than 50% of his completions tonight, you know what it means. Super Bowl-bound baby.

I arrived here at LP Field with my Mystery Date for the evening. He's big. He talks a lot. But so far he hasn't done anything most people would consider inappropriate. Then again, I'm pretty liberal-minded. Yes - I'm talking about zoony.

We're going to get settled in here, scope out the pre-game warmups, and maybe the Tennessee tailgaters, and we'll be back. Zoon already had a thrill as we ran smack dab into HOFer Sam Huff at the team hotel, and Sonny is chomping on the usual Sonny #9 ceeegar behind us. Its a hot one. I don't envy these guys in full gear.

According to the team:

Redskins Scratches for Tonight:

#26 RB Clinton Portis

#35 CB Jerametrius Butler

#60 OT Chris Samuels

#74 DT Vaka Manupuna

#85 WR Brandon Lloyd

#88 TE Tyler Ecker

Starting Lineup Changes

#74 Stephon Heyer starts at LT in place of #60 Chris Samuels

#46 Ladell Betts starts at RB in place of #26 Clinton Portis

For Titans, Vince Young is also a scratch.

Just got back from the field and snapped a few pics. Lots and lots of Skins fans here. We figure they're in a real hurry to get this season going and to wipe the nasty taste of last season out of their mouths. We understand.

London Fletcher, Santana, Clinton, and Jason all spent a LOT of time signing autographs, which is always good to see. Portis even threw his gloves to a lucky fan. Heading back down now. Zoony likee fieldee.

Tarhog’s Take

First things first. In choosing to lift one of our longtime members out of the depths of despair, we could not have picked a nicer, more intelligent, and classy guy than our own zoony. I swung by his place near Knoxville, despite his wife’s fears that I might deflower or violate him in some strange internet ritual, and we enjoyed the 3 hour ride into Nashville together. It was great to get to know him, and it confirmed what I’ve always known, that we have some great guys on our site.

Now to the football. This game should provide plenty of fuel for those who will worry themselves to death over our first pre-season appearance – as those of you who watched know, it was pretty ugly. Our inability to protect Jason Campbell for anything longer than brief flickering moments is concerning, but remember – it is early. If you like pyrrhic victories, Todd Collin’s and Byron Westbrook’s late game heroics were just the ticket. What does it all mean? Who knows? The heady days of Spurrier’s Osaka triumph notwithstanding, the preseason is STILL the preseason. The consensus from the coaches – the defense looked pretty good at times, the offense, not so much.

The game, like our coverage experience, seemed somewhat chaotic, the Redskin’s delivering a performance that could only be called out of sync. After spending about 2 hours on the field pre-game, we found out literally at kickoff that we had to have spiffy red vests to remain there for the game. Thus the search for the elusive red vests began. We finally located said appropriate vests just about the time the home crowd roared, indicating even to the field vest-impaired, things were not going well for our guys.

I was truly impressed with 2 guys tonight – London Fletcher was all over the field. A relatively diminutive guy who you’d walk right past on the street without giving a second look, he plays waaaay bigger than he is. And I think he’s going to be the best off-season acquisition we’ve made in a long time. I also was impressed with Rocky McIntosh tonight. He made some great plays and is starting to show more than the ‘potential’ we’ve heard about for so long. I was excited to see my current man-crush candidate, Mike Espy, make some plays tonight. I really hope he makes this team.

We’ve got a lot of work to do. As you’ll hear in JC’s post-game comments above, he knows he’s got to protect the ball and play better if the Skins are going to be successful this season. But I think we can take a little bit of optimism tonight from the defense’s performance, and build on it.

Although I had to act like an adult for most of the night (I was seated next to some important folks from the Redskin’s organization), I did get some snickers when I commented after we scored late to secure the victory that ‘This is a team of DESTINY!’.

The regular media guys love bitter sarcasm directed at our team like Art loves a good cigar. Sometimes, you gotta throw them a bone.

Zoony's Take

Where even to begin? From the word go, what an overwhelming experience. I decided just to write this with as little commentary as possible, and try to limit it strictly to observations. I doubt that I’m going to dazzle anyone with my keen insights to the game. You all saw it.

Pre-Game

Tarhog and I pulled up to the Stadium at about 4:00 today… Lot M. We pass several Titan’s players in the parking lot getting out of their cars, getting their gear together to go to work. Almost surreal… and we haven’t even entered the stadium.

Tarhog snaps a few pics of the outside of the stadium and off we go to find the media entrance. Very heavy presence of Redskin fans so far… where are all the Titans fans? Then I realize, we are right in front of the visitor’s players entrance, and fans are lined up to sneak a peak at the team getting off the bus.

After an informal pat-down and a check of credentials, we’re in! Dropping our things off at our alloted spaces in the press box, we immediately charge down to the field to check out warmups and get a few shots. Into the elevator and out of the tunnel right onto the field.

One thing that struck me being on the field was how clearly you could hear the fans. Note to fans on the visitors sideline at Fed Ex. They can hear you loud and clear. Let ‘em have it. Some assorted warmups going on with a few position coaches barking encouragement and praise. Buges is out working with Randy Thomas and another Olineman. Santana Moss is catching passes in the endzone. He turns around and nods to a kid screaming out his name from the endzone. Made that kid’s day, pretty cool I thought.

I locate my wife and sister in the stands. Row A, 48 yard line. I go over to say hello, and my sister tells me to turn around. Not 15 yards from me is Dan Snyder, and he’s walking right towards where I’m standing. Cool… he wants to get zoony’s feedback on his performance. It’s about damn time… but much to my dissapointment, he stops and does an about-face about 5 yards away. Apparently, he’s taken an interest in the sideline communication equipment. I go over to him and tell him that Mr. Madd says hi. Okay, just kidding about that part.

After that episode, Tarhog and I decide to wait near the Redskins’ players entrance. Big Mike Sellars walks by… and to my surprise, Titans fans are calling out to him. It appears #45 is making a name for himself outside of Washington. Tarhog already mentioned it in the original post, but I wanted to also mention that Portis, Moss, Fletcher and Campbell all took the time to sign autographs on their way back in. Pretty cool. And after some encouragement, Portis threw his gloves up to a fan.

Okay, here are some real-world observations on players, seeing them in person.

London Fletcher: Tarhog and I both mention that if you passed Fletcher on the street, you’d never know he was an NFL linebacker. He must have the heart of a lion.

Sellars: Big as a house. I would not want to get in his way.

Taylor: Lanky build, looks more like a basketball player. Covers a lot of ground with long strides. He looks like the type of athlete that would excel at just about anything.

Randy Thomas: Like PleaseBlitz once said… stay away from him. He might eat you.

Santana Moss: This guy just looks fast. He’s blurry just standing still.

Memorable Quotes:

“He’s got some big ‘ole ham-hocks on him, don’t he?”

-NFL photographer commenting on London Fletcher’s legs pre-game

“Here we go Rock. Yah, that’s right. Here we go Rock!”

-anonymous fan yelling to Rock pre-game. Rock stops what he’s doing, turns to look, and nods

“Don’t let ‘em fool ya”

-Mike Sellars to another player pre-game. Not sure what in the hell it means, but it drew some laughs from some of the players.

“Did you see what happened to Frost? He got dinged! He walked up to Gibbs and didn't even know who he was!”

-Bram Weinstein commenting to Tarhog on the previous play

Postgame:

We are herded into a small room. Kind of a broom-closet on steroids. Surely this isn’t where Joe Gibbs will be doing his press conference, is it? Somehow I pictured an auditorium. But in walks Gibbs, and he’s just a few feet away, fielding questions and giving his thoughts on the game. Tarhog captured the audio, so I won't recap.

John and I enter the locker room. Damnit, why didn’t I take Die Hard’s advice? Somehow summoned the courage to go up and talk to Pierson Prioleau. Asked him about the knee, and about his thoughts on the game. Got to ask London Fletcher a question about playing for GW again. I almost bump in to Sean Taylor leaving the room… I say excuse me, and tell him to go ahead. He refuses. I say… “no really, go ahead”. He points at me, then points at the door. “Yes sir”. (true to his word, he technically did not say a word… thus keeping his promise about not talking to the media. Little does he know I’m not media, just some random internet guy )

In closing, I know its just preseason, but I think it was good for us to get the win, no matter how ugly it was. Huge thanks to Tarhog for his infinite patience in dealing with me today. He is a class act Also, thanks of course to the other staff members who made this experience possible. Specifically murf, whose place I was able to take, and Die Hard, who gave some great advice prior to the trip.

POST-GAME QUOTES

Joe Gibbs

Opening Statement

'I think for us, obviously, you play a game like that there are so many things in there where groups and individuals probably make a lot of mistakes and didn't play well. But I also think we had groups and parts of the football team that played very well. Thats a process. Thats the reason why the film is so important. You study that and its a process for us, a learning process. Obviously we are going to have to play a lot better than that. Having said that I told my guys the number one thing that you always want is to fight your guts out to the bitter end. And I think thats what we did. And I sure appreciate a victory. Its been hard for us to get one in preseason. I appreciate the guys hanging in there and fighting the way they did. In the end, some guys made some plays. Its always good to win and everyone believes that at the same time we have a long way to go.'

On playing the offensive starters longer than anticipated

'Thats roughly about the length we had planned on playing them.'

On pass protection concerns

'I think we will have to take a look individually at what happened to us there. Certainly you don't want pressure back there. For us, thats something last year we were a real good pass protection team. We need to take a look at it for sure. Thats one of the things you come out of this being a concern. I know I was disappointed in our run game. I think in that case, they blitzed the safety quite a bit and that gave us trouble there. Thats probably some things we can do a better job of scheming.'

On Jason Campbell's performance

'I think it was a rough start for Jason and I think he will probably tell you that. I think last year he did a great job of protecting the ball. Today it got away from him twice. Obviously thats huge. Quarterbacks typically, in the NFL, are the biggest turnover guys. Because lots of times they don't protect the ball. They are looking to run, they are looking to throw the ball down the field and they get it out. I think he did a good job of protecting it last year and thats something we have to get back to. We were fortunate there at the end.'

On being pleased with the defense and not the offense

'I would have to say, we had to play some real good defense out there. I think this is the first time we got quite a few guys trying to get used to London Fletcher and things like that. I kind of felt like it was important. You got kind of a different group out there really. Shawn Springs is back healthy again. There are some new faces out there and for them to get together is very important to be calling things out, get a chance to talk things over out there and play a little bit together. We will have to see. I may be surprised, but I would say we had some individuals that played very well and also as a group.'

On Clinton Portis update

'The report back to me was that it is getting better for sure. They think we are doing the right things. We've done every bit of research we can. I think what it verifies is that this is the way we need to go right now. What we are trying to do is to get him back to a point where that thing will calm down and go away. A couple of things will do that. Strengthening the thigh is one of the things and thats a weight conditioning thing. And then cardiovascular. You need to be doing some things to keep his conditioning. I think we are on the right track.'

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SWFLSkins

SWFLSkins

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Right now, dreams of the Super Bowl still live....and lets face it, if Jason Campbell throws more than 50% of his completions tonight, you know what it means. Super Bowl-bound baby.

____________________________

How else was he going to get his completions? J/K, Tarhog,,,, Nerves I guess,,, I can almost smell the excitement. I know Nashville and it is a great town. You guys should have fun, and if you can make it out to Ru-Shans(sp) Rock and Roll Sushi bar it is worth the ride, I know Sushi in Tennessee, crazy huh?

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Die Hard

Die Hard

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Zoony, just remember what I told you.... after the game... when you're in the lockerroom.... put the microphone in the player's faces..... and don't look down. Whatever you do... DON'T LOOK DOWN!!!! :)

And if you get a chance.... go over to Mike Sellers and say "You're a still sexy bitsh" -- just do it, it's an inside joke... he'll laugh :)

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JimmiJo

JimmiJo

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Zoony, just remember what I told you.... after the game... when you're in the lockerroom.... put the microphone in the player's faces..... and don't look down. Whatever you do... DON'T LOOK DOWN!!!! :)

Words to live by my friend, words to live by.

I wish you gentlemen the best experience possible. Now go kick some ass.

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zoony

zoony

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This just in from Jeff Fisher

Vince Young will not play tonight after violating an unspecified team rule. He will be on the sidelines tonight, will practice this week and play next weekend at New England. Kerry Collins will start the game for us tonight.

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TSO

TSO

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This just in from Jeff Fisher

Vince Young will not play tonight after violating an unspecified team rule. He will be on the sidelines tonight, will practice this week and play next weekend at New England. Kerry Collins will start the game for us tonight.

Well that sucks. I'da liked to see what our Defense looked like against him.

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