A lot of things to get squared away before the buses leave to take us to the airport in just a few minutes, so today’s practice update is necessarily bare bones.
The headline has to be injuries, I’d think: the only player not present at practice was Marcus Washington. Clinton Portis was doing some light work, as were Anthony Montgomery and Chris Samuels. Coach Zorn called Portis a gametime decision, noting “I thought he’d be more involved today,” but that’s ahead of where he was at this time last week.
Ladell Betts will definitely play, though. And Shawn Springs and Malcolm Kelly both continued to participate.
So it looks very much like the team will be near full strength on Sunday (with the exception of Washington), and like Zorn will finally be able to pick and choose his inactives based on what he wants to do, not what he has to do.
Other than that, it was a Friday practice. Red zone work, a lot of special teams, and a bunch of guys ready to get on the road, all with added simulated crowd noise.
When you walk into Redskins Park, you are (sensibly enough) looking directly at the reception desk. Beyond the reception desk are the Super Bowl trophies, and beyond that are the stairs down to the locker room, practice fields, and so on. The far wall beyond that is a glass window looking in on the Redskins.com TV studio, where Redskins Nation and Redskins Gameday and the eleventy million other shows are filmed and edited.
In front of that window, with a view of the lobby, the trophies, and everyone who walks into the facility, are two black couches. If you come in on a Monday or Friday, the right-hand couch is occupied by Sonny Jurgensen. If you’re in at the right time on any other day, the couches are occupied by Fred Smoot, Carlos Rogers, and a rotating assortment of other guys, studying their playbooks, jawing at each other, occasionally avoiding the media, and just generally hanging out.
Tanner Cooley rode to Sunday’s game in Antwaan Randle El’s Bentley as part of the a contest Eastern Motors is having. What’s above is part one of the resulting interview.
ESPN has been running a lot of Sean Taylor coverage in preparation for the one-year anniversary of his death. The magazine article leaves me a little cold, but NFC East blogger Matt Moseley’s piece is much more effective.
While we’re mentioning the Cooleys and videos, Chris Cooley’s blog has posted Fred Smoot’s Wired Up segment from Redskins.com TV. If you haven’t had enough Smoot for the day, this is a great place to go.
And Brian Murphy at Homer McFanboy talks to the Redskins defense about Chris Horton’s website. It’s much more amusing than that description would imply.
Ironically enough, it looks like commenter Jack’s observation that he’s tired of reading about good practices preceding subpar gameday performance came just about the time I was out on the practice field scratching “looks ragged today” into my notebook.
Practice is generally going to look at least fairly crisp — the quarterback can’t get hit; the first team guys are playing against people who are often practice squad players for a reason; much of what’s being installed is the specific gameplan for this week’s opponent — so often the distinction between crisp and ragged is just a few plays or a general sense of malaise. Today it was a little of both.
The most interesting thing today was the set of giant speakers sitting at one end of the practice field to simulate crowd noise. One equipment guy after another warned me that they were loud, but I was still impressed when they finally turned the things on. It’s a more treble-y sound than the bass roar of a live crowd, but it makes conversation in a normal voice completely impossible and even shouting difficult to understand. The fact that the offense can be successful at all in that situation is remarkable to me, and they actually seemed to be running smoother with the noise than they did without it.
The practice update will be up shortly, but the NFL Superad website is finally live, so we can all start voting for Fred Smoot.
I asked Smoot today if he had seen his ad yet, and he said no. “Which one did they use? I gave them three or four, I don’t know which one they went with.” But, he assured me, they were all about the same thing: “Champ Bailey, Darrell Green, Bruce Smith, and me as a rookie in Carlisle, Pennsylvania.”
Not all of those guys get namechecked in the version that’s used, but the result is still worth your vote — and not just because Smoot is on the Redskins.
Whenever there’s an injury, I get emails asking why the trainers did this, or didn’t do that, or if they’re doing this other thing. The training room is one of the most closed, private places in Redskins Park — it’s where a lot of players go if they want to be sure the media can’t get to them — and, as a result, it’s one that tends to intrigue fans.
I was able to talk to Director of Rehabilitation Larry Hess (that’s him above right) and new Physical Therapist/Assistant Athletic Trainer Elliott Jermyn (above left) for awhile about Jason Taylor’s calf, the differences between knee sprains, and what it is, exactly, they do. Along the way, I got some pictures of the training room, and both Hess and Jermyn agreed to answer some questions from you guys.
So if you’ve emailed in the past with questions for the training staff (that aren’t covered below), or you just want to take the opportunity now, send your questions to me. I can’t promise they’ll answer everything, but I’ll do my best.
All right. Start by taking us through your regular daily routine.
Elliott Jermyn: On a regular practice day, we get here early, at about 6:45 or so. We have treatments from about 7:00 until when team meetings start at about 9:00. For that we have people who are arranged into groups to come in, so not everybody’s here at the same time.
More specifically, it’s time to vote on the NFL’s Superad campaign, which has players record stories of their NFL experiences, the best of which will get turned into an artsy black-and-white Super Bowl ad.
A bitterly cold, windy day in Ashburn as the guys headed out to the practice field and got back to work.
I think the most encouraging thing I saw, in what seemed like an intense, crisp practice, was Jason Campbell’s performance. I mentioned on Friday that practice seemed ragged and that Campbell had missed a few passes. Today was pretty much the opposite — Campbell was casually chucking the ball all over the field, hitting the long passes that never materialized on Sunday night and checking down to the outlet receivers when that was the correct move. As always, it’s foolish to predict too much from a single practice session, but this looked much more like the Jason Campbell we’d grown accustomed to over the first eight games than the one from the last two. (A very good thing, since he spent much of those two games on his back and the QB isn’t touched during practice.)
Add it to the ever-growing list of things that make me feel like an old, old man: in my day, we found out about roster moves the next day at the earliest, in the newspaper, and there was virtually no information whatsoever beyond basic press release stuff. Also, the newsprint came off on our hands, and it was dirty and disgusting, and later on the paper was useful for starting fires.
The internet has changed almost all of that, although you can still start a fire using your computer if you know what you’re doing.
Case in point: the Kansas City Chiefs signed LB Curtis Gatewood from our practice squad to their active roster. To fill the practice squad spot, the Redskins have signed Steve Octavien, an undrafted rookie LB out of Nebraska. Once upon a time, that’s all we would’ve known.
The early Pro Bowl results have caused a little bit of a stir on the internet, as you might expect. Commenters on the ESPN.com post that initially released the results have been critical of the number of Redskins currently leading their positions, as have many of the commenters on ProFootballTalk’s post on the subject. And Dan Steinberg asserts in headline-ese that the Redskins “successfully make mockery of Pro Bowl“.
But here’s the thing, as many Redskins fans have pointed out on those comment threads: all the team did, when you come right down to it, was encourage the fans to vote. Which they did. In enormous, impressive numbers, especially for Mike Sellers.
Not nearly as agitated with the Redskins? The NFL Digital Media department, who last week sent out an email to the digital media contacts at all 32 NFL teams, reading in part:
As it stands right now, the Redskins are leading the NFC ballots in 16 of 19 positions. Its no surprise, given that they have been promoting this all season long and currently have an interstitial ad and a top right ad urging fans to vote.
This would be a great weekend to promote pro bowl voting to your fans. Let me know if you need any ideas or support from the league (or the Redskins :)) in this important initiative.
(I too was surprised that the NFL Digital Media department uses emoticons. At least they didn’t send out the msg ntirely n txt lol.)
There is a long and storied history to “rigging” All-Star Ballots, most of which employ a little more craft and guile than just repeatedly asking your fans to vote. The 1957 Cincinnati Redlegs used pre-printed paper ballots in their local newspaper. San Francisco Giants fans used a computer program to vote in Barry Bonds, and Vancouver Canucks fans used a Firefox plug-in to vote for Rory Fitzpatrick and anger the entire hockey universe. Heck, Steinberg was the one who brought major media attention to the “Punch Parties” to rig, yes, the WNBA All-Star Game. All of those are several orders of magnitude different from the Redskins Ticket thing, and also most likely did not receive approving emails from their respective leagues’ Digital Media people.
On top of everything else, it’s probably a self-defeating proposition. There is no doubt in my mind that an enormous number of Cowboys, Eagles, and Giants fans have been sitting in front of their computers voting for their team’s guys just about continually since the early numbers were released. Truly, 2008 is the year of massive voter turnout.
