The Redskins Blog

More Positivity From Clinton Portis

Through what has felt like a three game losing streak (but has actually been two losses and one ugly win), Clinton Portis has remained remarkably upbeat. The DC Sports Bog has chronicled a lot of his on-air radio positivity, and the Clinton Portis Stay Calm Engine was cranking just as hard during his press availability on the steps today.

http://p.castfire.com/MfaMI/video/167707/167707_2009-09-30-143948.flv

A few excerpts…
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On The Field For Practice – Finally, Back To Football

The scheduling of the NFL week is less than ideal for the losing team. Instead of immediately getting back on the practice field, putting the loss — especially a bad, frustrating loss like Sunday’s — behind you, and moving on, you get a couple days to really let it sink in. Monday is all about treatment and position meetings; Tuesday is the players’ day off (and, therefore, the main day for charity events and the like).

It’s not until today, Wednesday, that the guys get to get back to actually playing football.

Today’s practice went through some of the weirdest weather I’ve ever experienced, starting cool and cloudy, then getting very hot when the sun came through, then pouring rain, and finally settling back on the initial cool-and-cloudy.

Not practicing today were Albert Haynesworth, Clinton Portis, Carlos Rogers, and Mike Sellers. Rogers said after practice that he expects to be back, possibly as soon as tomorrow. Portis, during his media session, said that his ankles are fine and that he’s good. And Coach Jim Zorn said that he expects Haynesworth “to improve all week,” and that they’re trying to keep Sellers’ quad loose.

Just a few notes from practice:

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Wednesday, September 30: The Jerseys Of Redskins Wives

The wives of Redskins players and coaches were all pretty uniformly thrilled to be able to participate in yesterday’s All Star Survivors Luncheon.

Christy Cooley, wife of Chris: “It’s amazing. It’s really cool. Its great to see all the different players wives and coaches wives come out too and help out.”

Majanique Alexander, wife of Lorenzo: “Both of my grandmothers passed away from cancer. One ovarian and one breast cancer, but … the women we were put with today, there was some divine reason because they’ve all been sharing their stories and it’s been really special.”

Brian Orakpo’s fiancee Tura: “It’s been really neat. It’s been really great, we’ve met some wonderful people, some really great women. And to hear their stories, some of the things they’re going through from the beginning of treatment to towards the end of treatment from these women who survived it … it’s been really awesome.”

Joy Zorn, wife of head coach Jim: “I have almost cried about three times just hearing these ladies’ stories. They are just incredibly courageous. It helps to put life in perspective when you hear what some of these women have dealt with and what a difference it makes to them to be able to look like themselves again.”

Emma Dockery, wife of Derrick and one of the driving forces behind growing Chris Cooley’s event from last year into the larger spectacle of yesterday: “On a personal side, yesterday marked the third year of my mother passing from breast cancer. I feel like if life gives you lemons, you make lemonade. So this is pretty much my lemonade.

“I got involved with breast cancer things when we were in Buffalo,” Dockery continued, “And I think that October is a wonderful month, but it doesn’t just stop at October. 365 days a year these women are dealing with this and they’re fighting and they’re winning. And that’s what makes it important to me to come out and really be a voice, if you will, for just that. Just to continue for people to fight, continue for people to win, continue for people to live life because it’s so precious. You look at the scheme of things, life is so short, so you might as well live every day the best you can.”

Dockery made another major contribution to the event: all of the wives and girlfriends were wearing Redskins jerseys with their husband’s numbers on them, but the numbers and names were all in the distinctive pink of breast cancer awareness.
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All-Star Survivors Luncheon Has Really Grown Since Last Year

Last year, Chris Cooley organized a little event at Redskins Park on one of his Tuesdays off that turned into one of the best charitable events I attended all year, treating a group of breast cancer survivors to lunch, a tour of Redskins Park, and makeup kits, wigs, headscarves, jeans, and gift bags.

This year, that little event got just a bit bigger. Instead of being just Cooley, the thirty women this year were hosted by Cooley and his wife Christy, Derrick Dockery and his wife Emma, Daniel Snyder’s wife Tanya, and the wives of many other players and coaches. Read more »

A Quick Non-Football Note: Driving To U2

So you may have heard that there’s this U2 concert at FedExField tonight. For those of you who are going, the Washington Post‘s Dr. Gridlock had some suggestions to avoid traffic jams like there were at the Paul McCartney show a few weeks back.

Parking opens at 3:00, gates at 5:00, and I believe opening act Muse (whose first album was one of my favorites around 1999 or 2000) takes the stage around 7:00. Plan accordingly, and enjoy.

We’ll return to Redskins Tuesday content shortly; Dr. Gridlock’s advice is after the jump.
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Tuesday, September 29: About The Hook-And-Lateral

It was my least-favorite part of an unfavorite day: with, in all likelihood, one play left to pull out a Pyrrhic win against a desperate Detroit team, the logical move would seem to be the classic Hail Mary, a desperation hurl into the endzone hoping for a miracle catch or a defensive pass interference allowing one final play.

That’s not what happened; instead, we saw this.

A pass to Santana Moss followed by two designed laterals, one to Antwaan Randle El and the next to Ladell Betts.

Coach Jim Zorn defended the call at his press conference yesterday. “If you looked in the end zone,” he said, “they had both of their wide receivers standing in the back. So we decided to go with a play that would maybe give us a chance to run the ball in, with an opportunity to pitch, lateral and try to get in running. So that’s what we did. That’s all I can tell you that play was.”

Moss was a bit more forthcoming. Read more »

Yes, The Redskins Players Are Aware Of The Team's Problems

If you believe that admitting you have a problem is the first step to recovery, then today’s open locker room was absolutely full of recovering football players. For just about every problem that has been brought up about the loss to the Lions and the team’s play in general, there was a player somewhere explaining to a microphone just how aware they were of that problem. Read more »

Monday, September 28: Worst. Redskins Game. Ever.

Well, after a night of further reflection, yesterday was still pretty freakin’ unpleasant. In fact, I think one of the only interesting things to come out of the game was a discussion in the comments here. No, not the ongoing attempt to assign blame for the loss — that one is just very grim to read — but the side discussion about which game represented the worst loss for the Washington Redskins.

In the heat of the moment yesterday, I had blandly suggested that the loss to Lions might be the worst Redskins loss in my lifetime. Other, cooler heads took grim pleasure in reminding me of any number of other terrible losses, and I thought it might make for a suitably depressing discussion and poll on this depressing Monday morning, while we wait for open locker room and Coach Zorn’s 12:25 press conference.

Here, then, are your choices, in chronological order:

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Redskins @ Lions – Fourth Quarter Thoughts (and Polls)

I’ll be honest: I’m finding it hard to come up with many articulate, printable “thoughts” about this one.

I think this was a catastrophically bad loss for team that really needed a win — even over a Lions team that wasn’t highly regarded.

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Follow Redskins @ Lions On Twitter

(UPDATE: Scroll down for my thoughts on a frustrating first and second quarters, and a marginally better third quarter.)

For those of you who don’t use Twitter, follow on the Twackle module below for Twitter updates from me (@redskinsblog), Gary Fitzgerald (@redskinsdotcom), and Larry Weisman (@LarryWeisman). Offer your thoughts either with the gold colored respond button on the module, or in the comments section right here.

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