Hard Core Players

For Jim Zorn, Dan Snyder, residents of the Dead Tree portion of the FedEx Field parking lot, Jason Campbell, and most importantly, the most strident practicers of 'tism who may happen upon this blog, Sunday's convincing dubya against the 'boys, a team whose vauntedness remain(ed) unparalleled throughout the most one-sided broadcast since the Republican National Convention coverage on FoxNews, sweet vindication was in order. Not necessarily for the positively predicting folk, who just knew that this team had "special" imprinted all over its commemorative patches, but mainly for those who preach consistency, a concept that some were convinced was foreign to the braintrusting folks in the front office. Unlike the more hater-type of scribes, we here at the DC Optimist understood the manner and direction behind the team's makeup. Even when the old coach hung up his mesh curly R snap cap, we knew that this consistency concept was something the Redskins were in the throes of standing behind.

While certain columnist-types were badmouthing what they thought was the only constant in the flighty ownership's team-building philosophy being fluctuation, we saw how the Redskins sat back, utilized patience and locked in talented, hard-working players many would define as core. Guys who were rocks on successful, playoff-bound teams remained in the fold with contract extensions and restructures, and rewards were doled out to players who fit into the mold, not necessarily of some stalwart structure-er of offense, who thought his scheme would accommodate the most square of pegs into his rounded play holes (uhhh), but into the mold of possessing exceptional talent and a hard-working nature.

So when regimes sort of changed, and everyone began to freak out about whatever identity the Redskins were planning on forging with their 10 draft picks all fitting no foreseeable mold, we knew the skins would remain strong. They have had the same punishing ground attack that began back when Joe first signed on and obtained Clinton Portis for Champ Bailey's me-first attitude and a second rounder. What's lost in the constant gobs of analysis (something not seen on this seldom contributed-to blog) is the fact that, instead of genius coordinators, unprecedented talent discoverers, and slick-spending general managing, football games are oftentimes won and lost as a result of football players making successful plays. The Redskins have players.

While some Brian-Mitchell-types and Brian Mitchell continue to berate the colorfully obtuse running back for having the gall to be slightly interesting, oftentimes mistakenly taking this strive for genuine affability and character for a lack of desire, Portis is, quietly, in a strange manner, beginning to eclipse some of the records held by only the most esteemed Redskins. His 121 yard game yesterday tied C.P. with the immortal Riggo for the most 100+ yard games in Redskins history. Yep, in this case, C.P., most obviously stands for "Core Player."

What we saw in the offseason, and what is sprouting nicely into a nice little I-told-you-so is how this new coaching staff realizes how this team has players, and all they need is to find the best way to utilize them, not necessarily by forcing them into some rigid system, but by seeing what they do best, and then making sure that is planned to be done Sundays.

Zorn, along with Sherman Stewart, Stump Mitchell, and Chris Meidt, have taken this philosophy to impressive levels that become obvious with each more impressive offensive performance. Week one, the skins saw modest success when Jason Campbell went shotgun. As a result, Zorn, who had yet to fashion his variety of West Coast offense with the gun in mind, suddenly began implementing that scheme, as it fit Campbell's talents. In week three, Clinton Portis continued to be stifled at the line, charging into the teeth of the large defensive lines of the first few opponents. Does Zorn have such faith in his brilliance that he won't give Clinton the chance to take a different approach to his runs? No. That rad-ass running performance against the 'boys featured a newer wrinkle to the running game where Clinton would receive the ball, almost like a toss a few yards back of the line of scrimmage, so that Portis could visualize the holes, sprout through them and pick up close to six yards per carry.

The consistency and core of the Redskins has been forged through these mostly successful recent years. People may be surprised at these recent returns, but these guys with this talent, have been here. It's just nice to see someone at the helm that is innovative enough to let those talents shine outside of their genius box.

A Win Is A Win, But We Need to Hate Harder

Surely the DCO nation would be happy with their beloved Redskins overcoming a fourteen-point deficit on the road against an opponent firing with Kellen cannons of desperation. Surely the DCO nation would be happy with a five-and-three midway point with the three losses coming to a 2-loss, a 1-loss, and the greatest team of all time, respectively (or respect-less-ly), right? Surely the DCO would laugh in the face of those curmudgeons at the Washington Post (save one), who basically note that all of the adversity overcoming didn’t matter as the Redskins just couldn’t beat on those lowly Jets enough to properly savor this victory. I mean, why would the DCO guard the ‘tism on this victory, one where Clinton Portis’s spryness again returned, as he danced between the Pete Kendall-Chris Samuels hat-on-hats to the tune of 196 yards and a touchdown? Why would they temper any sort of reaction to the fifth, game-winning overtime upright-splitting performance by current DCO hall-of-famer Shawn Suisham? Well, the reason isn’t that we aren’t impressed with the ‘skins overcoming another bottom-feeder with guile, guts, and ‘ggressiveness, it’s that the positivity that we could possibly be emanating in response could be detrimental to the team.

This is evidenced in a gross misjudgment by the current beacon of ‘tism at the Post, Mike Wise, who after telling us all to relax, and that everything was going to be fine™ on Friday, distributed a bevy of happy backslaps to the aforementioned Portis in light of his stellar performance and back-carrying tendencies. While we of course loved the positivity in the face of Les Carpenter’s scoffing at the lack of hearty victories against the league dregs, we can’t help but feel that a column like this is not going to help Clinton go back to being the reason the Redskins were good two years ago and terrible last year. See, what we know about C.P., other than the fact that he has a penchant for intensely entertaining pressers, is that the haterz are his motivation this year. We attempted to heighten that motivation before a week 2 victory over the Eagles with this post, summing up all of the reasons we should hate Clinton and his ways. The purpose of this post was to further motivate Clinton to two-step in front of his detractor sect and rip off 30-yard scampers behind solid blocking and (slightly) improved quarterbacking. Portis didn’t quite respond the way we had initially hoped, but the team responded with a fantastic in-division victory.

With the Iggles again flailing into town, now is not the time to tell Clinton how much we love him and realize how important he is to the team. Now is not the time to bask in the team finally realizing that they have a solid left side of the line that can, with their all-pro pedigrees, open up holes for a guy who had 1,500 yards the last time he was healthy. We shouldn’t be feeling better about the Redskins holding precocious team-only meetings where offensive philosophies were chiseled out, and a superstar pledged his back to team-carrying. No, we should instead dwell on the fact that Clinton hasn’t been able to have performances like this against teams that aren’t the New York Jets. Why, Clinton, couldn’t you have run for close to 200 yards in another game this year? Was it because you were too busy referring to yourself in the third person, butchering proper English dialects, and loafing throughout the much important preseason? Could this performance be on the heels of organizational whispers that deem your backup Ladell Betts as the more competent ball-carrier, thus making your outlandish contract stipulations as unnecessary? Why now Clinton? It’s not like you will be able to continue this torrid pace against the “tougher” part of the schedule, again taking the skins to the playoffs and beyond. Why, your performance wasn’t even the most fantastic running back performance of the week.

No, we need more motivational hatred to be guided Clinton’s way, for a victory over those insufferable Iggles and their insufferable suffering fanbase would be just delightful to us. Would a blowout sweeping victory over the Iggles be the final nail in the Andy Reid “5 passes per run” era’s coffin? Will this win finally lead the Eagles’s franchise quarterback, Donovan “bouncepass” McNabb to end up being the next QB savior of the Chicago Bears? Will a T-shirt that reads, “T.O. Swallows Pills Supplied By the Reid Family Drug Emporium,” as suggested by my mother, be a bit too classless? Only 93,000+ haterz can influence those answers.

The Clinton Portis Motivation Post

Listen, Clinton, we don't care how many Redskins victories you can singlehandedly account for. It doesn't matter to us that you hold the Redskins' record for rushing yards in a season, besting gawds Bobby Mitchell, John Riggins and Rickey Ervins. And you know what? It didn't matter that due to your departure from the team last year, the Redskins sucked.

Nope, we still think you are a second-rate running back, unworthy of even a first round fantasy draft pick. In fact, that guy behind you on the depth chart, Ladell Betts? He's better than you. Yep! Better. He rushed for like a ton of yards in that end of last year where you weren't around and the wins weren't coming. What were you doing? Rehabbing for the first time in your career? Returning to 100% or whatever other percentage of abritrary health you feel like achieving? That doesn't sound like a team player to us. Nope. Those attention-grabbing press conference dress-ups that everyone seems to love don't help either. We know that you were just pandering for Madison Avenue types, trying to get that Chad Johnson love. In fact, we thought your little dance after scoring the Redskins' only touchdown Sunday on a typically athletic 19 yard scamper was sub-par at best. I didn't see any props, any championship belts, any of the whimsy that Johnson continues to beat us over the head with.

In fact, we can distinctly remember coach Gibbs saying that Ladell was going to get a majority of those carries; we bet you were on the sideline whining for the ball. 98 yards and a touchdown doesn't always come with limited carries, and we can easily see that your me-first ways were plaguing a team that needed some sort of boost when down at the half. We read Dillweed's (spec-friggin-tacular) offensive game breakdown and saw that the Jansen injury can be blamed on you!

This disturbs us, in addition to the troubled offseason you've had here. Sympathiezing with dog killers? Not cool man. It's also not cool to not take every snap during the preseason seriously by ignoring nagging health issues. The preseason is important to the development of team chemistry, despite the games being meaningless and often gut-wrenchingly terrible. We were right with those guys all clamoring for your head at the beginning of the season, wondering why you and your gi-normous contract were still on this team when we had Betts and his occassionally reliable non-fumblingness with a newly signed deal and everything. You became an afterthought. And then you try your best to direct the cameras toward you, you attention-whore, to opine about your injuries and the haterz and the motivation they are causing you. And after all of the hubbub about your status for game one being questionable, and how you may not know how you're gonna play, and how your language is colorfully edited by Post staffers for legibility purposes and other stuff, we saw that none of it mattered as long as you got your carries.

And you know what, despite your competent performance against the vaunted Dolphins D, we are still nervous about giving you a majority of the carries against the Iggles. It is where you broke your thumb and subsequently washed away the whole offseason of spending and revamping, ultimately resulting in 5-11. When it comes to scampering, injured, multi-purpose running backs, your run a close second to Brian Westbrook in many people's eyes. While we are never going to side with a Philadelphian, we still want you to know that we are listening a little closer.

(This disturbing amount of hatred was meant purely for motivational purposes. Now go torch the Eagles)

The DC Optimist would like to apologize...

We here at the DC Optimist would like to apologize for our comments a couple of days ago regarding the defense of Clinton Portis, who has quickly turned into the Rant Casey of NFL writer and fan finger-wagging, spreading a penchant for soapbox-standing as if it were rabies. Simply associating yourself with this one-time media darling leads to an innumerable amount of pooh-poohing blog posts. To characterize these genuinely altruistic whistle-blowhards as racists goes a little too far. I mean, being that most of them likely grew up near the mean streets of places like Potomac where dog fights likely involved Ace Combat 7 for PS3, they know only of Benji, not of "Dog."

We just want to reiterate that The DC Optimist in no way condones dog fighting. In fact, all of us are dog lovers. Never would we go as far as thanking the vicious brutality that was allegedly performed by Michael Vick and defended by the misunderstood Redskins running back. Thanking this indefensible act simply for bringing to light its existence is similar to thanking the drafting of Kwame Brown and the trading of Rip Hamilton for bringing to light the mismanagement of Michael Jordan; the damage has already been done.

We don't wan't to be associated with Portis's anti-animal stances, we are pro-animals, especially of Hershey Bears, again heading for the Calder Cup with the Capitals' extra-bright future in tow. Of course some hater-types, who enjoy animal fighting, attempted to thwart the greatness of the Bears by actually reaching into the penalty box to attack Kip Brennan. "If that's what he wants to do, do it."