Friday, March 5: A Redskins Blog Fred Smoot Retrospective
Posted by Matt Terl on March 5, 2010 – 9:18 am
“I remember walking in here as a rookie — only NINE YEARS ago — and I feel like … I blinked and it’s gone. I blinked and it’s gone.” – Fred Smoot, talking back in November.
The Redskins released ten players yesterday, and in nearly every case I can understand why. Most of the cuts make the team younger, they allow the new coaches and front office to bring in “their” guys, and — because of the uncapped year — the moves could be made without destroying the team’s ability to compete financially.
The players released were all good guys, and — like general manager Bruce Allen said in his press conference yesterday — “If all of them signed in the next week we’ll be happy for them.” Just about all of them were good quotes, good locker room guys, and good sources of blog material, but I’d be remiss if I didn’t make special mention of cornerback Fred Smoot.
Say what you want about Smoot’s on-field performance; he’s definitely one of the quickest-witted people I’ve ever met, and at points over the last couple of seasons it felt like the easiest way to get a blog item was to ask Fred Smoot any question about anything and just transcribe what he said.
Since it looks like I’ll be losing that opportunity (although I’m irrationally holding out hope that the team re-signs him for the veteran minimum purely for blogging purposes), let’s trot the old stuff out for one last go-round. Here (in no particular order) are ten of my favorite Smootcentric blog items.
1) Smoot Goes Bowling – Smoot sparked a whole bunch of drama by claiming that he could bowl on the PBA tour — bowling fans are a prickly lot — and then had a chance to show off his skills when the whole team went to the bowling alley during training camp last year. This was the result:
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2) Smoot KOs Todd Yoder And Himself – Smoot and Redskins teammate Todd Yoder were on opposite sides of a surprisingly contentious Mississippi State/Vanderbilt rivalry, and one of their meetings left both of them unconscious. “I’m a physical guy,” Smoot told me. “I can really catch a lot of guys sleeping. But that was one of my best as far as form; it was truly legal. I got my helmet right up under his chin, and — come on, he’s a 260 pound guy, I was a 170 pound guy, and I laid him out unconscious.”
3) The Dead Man Suit Award – Probably the high point of the Welcome Home Luncheon, the “award” is given to the worst-dressed player at the event, the guy whose suit looks like it was stolen from a body at a funeral home. Last year’s surprise winner was safties coach Steve Jackson, usually a paragon of style. “He is always very stylish,” Smoot said. “That’s what we couldn’t understand. And what he did was a travishamockery.”
4) Smoot’s General Lee Big Wheel – One of those long, rambling Fred Smoot locker room dialogues, this one involved Smoot and LB Chris Wilson ganging up on poor Devin Thomas because Thomas preferred the Power Wheel toy to the classic Big Wheel. Features Smoot attributing his NFL success and speed to his childhood choice of the Big Wheel over the Power Wheel. “That’s why I’m in the NFL! My cousin jumped on a Power Wheel, I jumped on a Big Wheel. That’s why I can run fast!”
5) Buffy And Mack – In which Smoot becomes hugely frustrated because no one has ever heard of his favorite book from childhood. “Maybe it was just a southern thing,” he suggested. “Chris Samuels remembers it, so maybe it was a Mississippi and Alabama kind of thing.”
6) Fred Smoot, Ambassador of Peace – Austrian TV visits the Redskins locker room, affording Smoot the chance to address the people of Austria. In the process, he introduces the International Corner of the locker room, which would become an ongoing theme. “Well,” he began, “I just wanna say to the Austrian viewers that I’m a Washington Redskin, the United States capital. I appreciate y’all trying to learn our game. I know it’s not easy – what y’all call football over there I know is soccer, but we play a great game of football over here.”
7) Smoot’s Impala – In which I am introduced to the word blurple.
8) Fred-O-Synthesis – Another locker room debate, in which Smoot explains why fried turkey is the only good turkey, and how a process called Fred-O-Synthesis turns turkey into THE TURKEY.
9) Smoot Lays Out Marko Mitchell – At this year’s training camp, Smoot adopted a sort of elder statesman role. This occasionally involved administering some discipline, in this case a vicious hit on rookie wide receiver Marko Mitchell. “Hey, he’s a rookie,” Smoot explained. “And you know, sometimes rookies got the notion to be rude to vets, so I had to straighten him. It’s just like my gramma used to do when she’d put me on her knee and spank me a little bit.”
10) What’s Next? – There’ve been a few hints of what Smoot could do next, even beyond the professional bowling incident. There was the FedEx deliveryman thing and the possibility of a Food Network gig, but far and away my top choice was the idea of adding him to the radio booth when Sonny and/or Sam elect to step down. “I’m gonna do it all,” Smoot said when I suggested that. “You know me.”
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