RedskinLifer Posted December 4, 2004 Share Posted December 4, 2004 Bubba usually posts these for me, but he's out right now, so I'll put it up. Also, it was posted to the site absurdly late, so even if you were inclined to check, it probably wasn't up. I hope you enjoy. Where Have You Gone, Clinton Portis? By Trevor Walters Mid-Atlantic Sports Correspondent December 3, 2004 You might have looked right past it. You might have watched our 16-7 loss at the hands of Pennsylvania’s best team and not even noticed that he was less involved than Lieutenant Dyke in a village siege. But whether you noticed it or not, Clinton Portis played a bit part in our offensive attack, and his subsequent limited production was a fitting microcosm for yet another lackluster Redskins offensive performance. I can’t figure out exactly why Ladell Betts has become such an integral part of the offensive attack in the last two weeks. He did have a fine gain on a third and short, but other than that, he’s been rather unremarkable. After all, if he really had this degree of potential, then why did we go after Portis with such vigor? His ancillary contributions are a nice contrast to the slashing style that Portis brings but at 222 lbs., he’s hardly the bruiser that would truly be the thunder to Portis’ lightening. To his credit, Portis has adopted the team-first strategy that hopefully hasn’t gone home for the winter along with our playoff hopes. Portis remarked after Sunday’s defeat, “I'm not upset about the carries. I'm upset we didn't win. Week in and week out we've been having opportunities and we're just not taking advantage of them. . . . For me to be standing on the sidelines, it's a shock to me, too, but I think Ladell went out in this situation and played great.” I’ll admit that I have used the occasional hyperbole when I discuss the deleterious events that have occurred as a result of Betts’ inferior talent (or in the case of the Ravens game, effort). He is a decent backup, albeit one that I would prefer to be more consistent, but he does not need to get more of the offensive load than our featured back. Perhaps as a practicing Southern Baptist, I have an unconscious prejudice against a man named after gambling, but whatever your denomination, I can’t imagine that you’re on board with the level of involvement Betts has seen in recent weeks. Yet another paltry offensive performance did nothing to assuage an undeniable frustration among fans that is bound to show itself in the locker room before too long. For the second straight week, our defense played admirably against a formidable foe while the offense continued on its path to futile infamy. What frustrates me most is that we don’t have the simple things that other teams take for granted. We don’t have receivers that can catch the football. We haven’t the slightest hint of a homefield advantage, not that this would have been evident Sunday in Pittsburgh, but on the whole there simply isn’t a feeling of dread that surrounds a trip to FedEx. Our star running back is virtually no threat to run between the tackles, or to visit the end zone. That’s what I’m angry at; not at losing a game on the road that we had no business winning to begin with. Pittsburgh may well be the best team in the league, and if they’re not, they’ve certainly beaten the top team, so to say this was a game in which we should’ve emerged victorious is visceral optimism at its hopeful peak. These basic tenets aren’t something that we should be worried about. The fact that we must concern ourselves with them reminds me of earlier in the season when it seemed that the center exchange caused hearts to drop all over D.C. We shouldn’t have to worry if Laveranues Coles will come down with the ball. Listen, I admire his drive if he is indeed hurt, but if that is what is hampering his play to the point that he can’t be Laveranues Coles, then he needs to sit out. Let him join Barrow on IR and get whatever is bothering him fixed, so that next season this problem will be behind him. Of course, you can’t mention a wide receiver dropping a pass and not mention Rod Gardner. It isn’t a case of whether or not Rod will drop a pass, but when he’ll drop one, and how just how punitive will it be. As I said last week, I’m done with Rod. I’m finished explaining away his inconsistencies, and I’m done hoping that he’ll improve. Whenever the ball comes his way, I’ve just learned to accept that it will be dropped, and I’ll be pleasantly surprised if he does somehow manage to keep his hands on it. Really, I recommend you do the same. My sanity was all the better for it. I don’t care anymore that he’s an above average blocker for a wideout. His primary job is to catch the football and he does not do that with the prescribed level of consistency. A receiver that blocks well is an asset indeed, but if that receiver can’t be counted on to execute his principal responsibility, then he is of little use. Of course you can’t place the blame for the loss solely in the hands of the receivers, partly because they would drop it, and partly because the offensive line failed to play up to the challenge that the Steelers defense presented. Ironically, rookie right tackle Mark Wilson was not at the crux of the problem. In fact, by relinquishing only a single sack to the league’s top defensive unit, I would argue his inaugural performance should be deemed a moderate success at the very least. Reports from out of Redskins park seem to indicate that he suffered a knee injury during his first contest, however the severity, and whether he would miss any time, wasn’t known at press time. I’d really like to see what our other rookie tackle, Jim Molinaro, could do in a starting role, but given that he has worked primarily on the left side of the line, an abrupt switch to the right side would be unfair to him, and would likely hurt the team. Plus, you can’t really get a feel for a guy’s potential by playing him out of position, so should Wilson be forced to watch from the sidelines, I would expect that Ray Brown would matriculate back over to tackle, and Lennie Friedman would garner the start at guard. It was the line as a whole that should shoulder the blame for the insidious blocking that resulted in Ramsey being sacked five times, hit nine others, and hurried on 10 occasions. Somewhere, David Loverne is smiling. Ramsey’s surname was so often coupled with ‘pressure on’, that one could easily forget that his first name is Patrick. With a line that has been shuffled many times over due to injury, a few additional protection breakdowns are to be expected. However, the left side of the line, the one that injury has not affected, was the culprit in many of Sunday’s blocking guffaws. Chris Samuels, perhaps fatigued from carrying his inflated reputation around, continues to play somewhere south of pedestrian, and the youth grace period afforded to Derrick Dockery up to this point is about to run its course. These two now have nearly 25 starts as a tandem, so their poor play cannot be explained away as a function of lacking continuity. Point fingers where you will, I obviously do, but don’t spare Samuels when assigning blame simply because he has a good reputation and a high Madden rating, because truth be told, he’s living up to neither. In an effort to drive us all completely insane, Fox Sports assigned Sam Rosen, who eerily resembles the Winter Warlock in that old childhood tale of the early life of Santa Claus, and his easily amazed sidekick Bill Maas to announce the game for the at home audience. Now, for those of you who with the capability to get Sonny and the Boys, you missed out on their incessant commentary, so I’ll briefly illustrate some of the noise pollution that fell out of their mouths with alarming regularity. Rosen: You know, Bill, they tell me Pittsburgh is in Pennsylvania, which I believe is some sort of shopping mall. Maas: I played football. Rosen: Looks like the handoff goes to Jerome Bettis, the Bus as he’s called in this mall. Maas: Aaahhh, ooohhh, did you see Bettis? Did you see what he did? Omigod, did you just see what he did? Rosen: He just burst through the line, picking up three yards. Maas (laughing knowingly): Aaaahhhh, you see, you see, Sam, he just got those wheels turning, and boom. Aaahhh. Rosen: Yes, wheels because he’s a bus. Maas: He made that tackler look like a passenger. Rosen: His stop was apparently three yards from the line of scrimmage. Maas: The wheels on the bus go ‘round and ‘round. Rosen: He should be in yellow. Maas: I wonder if the tackler had to pay the fare. Rosen: He is a bus. Maas (chuckles): Ahh, oohhh. The bus is on schedule today. And it went on and on like this. There were more pathetic plays on Jerome Bettis’ nickname that we had dropped passes. Count yourself among the lucky if you can get the local broadcast because the worse your record, the worse your announcing tandem. Insight was in short supply, and three-plus hours of asinine puns hardly were a welcome replacement. Of course, the Redskins glass was not completely empty as the defense again showed a ****roach-like resiliency, holding a very capable Pittsburgh offense to mere mediocrity. Such household names as Chris Clemons and Ryan Boschetti – whose name Rosen insisted on pronouncing such that it rhymed with a common childhood mispronunciation of ‘spaghetti’ – were seen making key contributions, and relative lifetime Redskins Ryan Clark and Lemar Marshall continued to provide stellar play. This defense has spoiled us all this season, and my concern is that this performance will be tough to duplicate in seasons ahead. But, that is a long way from now, and sounds to be a better discussion for a later column, so we’ll pack that away for later. We also saw that despite a lapse in special teams coverage, we have the best punter in the league. Of course, that is a back-handed compliment at best, given that no one wants their punter to see the action that Tupa has. Either way, with a team that is going to use its punter apparently more frequently than its feature back, it’s good that we have a dandy. What should be the focus now has little to do with whatever fleeting chance at a playoff birth remains. We need to assess whether or not Patrick Ramsey is the man to lead the offense. I am of the belief that he is perfectly fitted for the task, but more than likely, I won’t be asked, so we need to take the rest of the season to get the staff as sold as I am. I think that the emotion he displayed after Cooley snagged his bullet for a touchdown should show that he’s got leadership tendencies. Ramsey hasn’t been demonstrative thus far through his career, but outbursts such as this will fire up his teammates and boost morale. It is good to see the guys get excited when they do something well, especially when it’s the quarterback. We also need to restore our legitimacy in the division. This is not to say that victories over a crumbling Giants team, and a poor Cowboys squad would do this, but to register more than a single victory per season in the division would at least demonstrate that we are no longer a bye week wrapped in an educational vacation opportunity. No matter how much a team improves, if it cannot win games within its own division, then it will never make the playoffs. This is clearly an axiom for future seasons, but this current season could be helped enormously by the pride that a few divisional wins would bring. We also need to take a look at those players who are on the fringe between sticking around next season, and finding employment elsewhere. Clearly, Gibbs couldn’t make every change he thought he should in the off-season, so it will be interesting to see what is to be done with those players that he would’ve liked to replace, but lacked the capability to do so. This also looks like a good suspect to see turning up in a later column, so I’ll politely skirt the issue now and hope you return in a few weeks to see my thoughts on it. Guys like Renaldo Wynn, Brandon Noble, and Robert Royal are among a few of the guys that would seem to be presenting their closing arguments in their respective cases for being a part of the 2005 Redskins unit. This week we’ll return to awarding a game ball, and its recipient is Marcus Washington. Nine tackles and a pair of sacks will get it for you every time, but perhaps more importantly, Washington seemed to click better with the defense in Sunday’s contest than he had all season. He seemed to move into more of a leadership role, and didn’t seem content to just contribute. It has been my opinion since the ink was dry on his contract that he is the best linebacker on the team, and he took many a step in proving me right with his performance Sunday. Let’s take a look around the league and see what happened in other action this weekend. - Patriots wide receiver Troy Brown has become the team’s nickel corner, and also returns punts. We can’t get a receiver to catch a pass, and Brown does everything but drive the Patriots bus. I think he cuts out on his post-game press conference prematurely so as to give himself more time to get those jerseys clean. - We should all be rooting for the Bills so that the first round pick that the Cowboys will receive from them this season won’t be a cherry. That made Buffalo’s stunning demolition of Seattle doubly as sweet for me, since I am one of the few who didn’t assume the position on the Seahawk bandwagon in the pre-season. - He won’t get the accolades because he plays an odd, and often misunderstood, position, but Chris Cooley is quietly having a phenomenal rookie campaign. In a draft class replete with receiving talent, Cooley trails only Lions rookie Roy Williams in receiving touchdowns, and has done so while masterfully playing the supremely challenging H-back position. - The Bears, who chose to dress as road construction cones for their Thanksgiving Day contest with the Cowboys, signed Jeff George this week in a move that could hardly be called surprising. George, best known for his stellar attitude and worthless arm (did I get those backward?), simply has to be better than Jonathan Quinn, who, as a quarterback, makes a fine chess player. - Also on Thanksgiving but in the early game, Peyton Manning threw for more touchdowns (6) than incompletions (5). Just for laughs, let’s compare that with Brunell, who would throw fewer completions than the team would have punts. Is there a better example of the haves and have-nots? - The Bengals and the Browns met in the intrastate rivalry that even Ohioans don’t care about, and scored a combined 106 points in a game that saw Cincinnati emerge victorious, and Butch Davis move one step closer to the head coaching position at the University of Florida. - Right now, one of two 7-4 teams, Baltimore and Denver, would not make the AFC Playoffs, while over in the NFC, only two teams, our beloved ‘Skins and the ghosts of Bill Walsh, are out of the NFC playoff picture. - Cincinnati scored more points in each of the game’s four quarters that we are averaging per game. That is the same average that is nearly 2.5 points below Miami. - Atlanta is whispering their way through the season, quietly posting the second best record in the NFC. Michael Vick, the most overrated athlete in professional sports, has started to make plays when they need to be made, and is learning to channel his athleticism in the proper direction. I may have to strip him of his title if he continues on this path, and advances his team deep into the playoffs. - Carolina downed Tampa Bay and officially became this week’s ‘You know, in a conference that is down, you can’t count them out’ team, ironically taking that title from the Bucs. - You know that injuries have gotten bad when you find yourself saying things like, ‘Maybe we can get Ron Warner back this week’. - The Eagles clinched their fourth consecutive NFC East crown Sunday when they manhandled the Giants in East Rutherford. That’s pretty impressive, despite the poor showing from the division this season. I can’t wait to see their collapse in the playoffs. - Resign Fred Smoot! It is important that we differentiate between upset about a loss, and angry at performance. I’m not mad that we lost in Pittsburgh. That’s not a game that a team with our record can realistically expect to win. What upsets me is that we still have foolish penalties, we still drop passes, and we still call a much too conservative offensive game. Maybe if we were to hit on one of the few deep chances we take we’d take a few more and see the offense open up, but defenses are playing man coverage and not worrying about the pass because we haven’t beaten anyone with it. I’m not saying that had we played a sound game that we’d have won, but at least it would have been easier to stomach. With the Giants coming into town, this weekend would be a good time to reclaim some legitimacy within the division and get a victory. At this point, we’re really just ruining our draft position, but pride is more important to us at this point than moving up a slot or two. We should have won the game in September, but that is a wound that we won’t open right now. I would be satisfied with a fundamentally sound effort, limited penalties, and some efficiency on offense. Surely to goodness we will eclipse 20 points at some point, and maybe this is the time. Keep your chin up, Redskins fans. Win or lose, they’re still our team, and it will make it all the sweeter when Gibbs rights the ship. Keep checking back in for your mid-week Redskins football fix. Hail to the Redskins! Questions and comments can be sent to Trevor Walters at skins.fan@comcast.net Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Blondie Posted December 4, 2004 Share Posted December 4, 2004 We also need to take a look at those players who are on the fringe between sticking around next season, and finding employment elsewhere. Clearly, Gibbs couldn’t make every change he thought he should in the off-season, so it will be interesting to see what is to be done with those players that he would’ve liked to replace, but lacked the capability to do so. This also looks like a good suspect to see turning up in a later column, so I’ll politely skirt the issue now and hope you return in a few weeks to see my thoughts on it. Guys like Renaldo Wynn, Brandon Noble, and Robert Royal are among a few of the guys that would seem to be presenting their closing arguments in their respective cases for being a part of the 2005 Redskins unit. I am sure EVERYONE knows who I am most concerned about returning next year. I believe that Rock is a TRUE REDSKIN. His contract is up this year, and he will be a RFA. I hope he continues to do what they ask of him.......and he is back in the B&G next year. Blondie Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JoeSkins Posted December 4, 2004 Share Posted December 4, 2004 Originally posted by Blondie I am sure EVERYONE knows who I am most concerned about returning next year. I believe that Rock is a TRUE REDSKIN. His contract is up this year, and he will be a RFA. I hope he continues to do what they ask of him.......and he is back in the B&G next year. Blondie :fingersx: But for some reason, I doubt it. He's my favorite Redskin, but he probably won't be one after his RFA deal is up. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Blondie Posted December 4, 2004 Share Posted December 4, 2004 Originally posted by JoeSkins :fingersx: But for some reason, I doubt it. He's my favorite Redskin, but he probably won't be one after his RFA deal is up. Don't say it.........please don't say that. :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: Blondie Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Blondie Posted December 4, 2004 Share Posted December 4, 2004 Originally posted by JoeSkins :fingersx: But for some reason, I doubt it. He's my favorite Redskin, but he probably won't be one after his RFA deal is up. BTW..have you visited his new website? Blondie Rock Solid 40 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TODD Posted December 5, 2004 Share Posted December 5, 2004 Nice article, a freakin' novel , but a good article. Nice job. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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