The Redskins Blog

Monday, October 5: Brian Orakpo Knows How To Handle The Media, Opposing Quarterback

Brian Orakpo rang up his second sack of the season yesterday, also his second in the last two games. (UPDATE, courtesy of the nice folks in the media relations department: the last Redskins rookie with a sack in consecutive games was Andre Collins, who did it three straight times in 1990.)

It wasn’t a meaningless, garbage-time sack, either; Orakpo got to Bucs rookie quarterback Josh Johnson on a crucial third down at the end of the first half, with Tampa Bay just in the Redskins red zone.

“I made an inside move, you know,” Orakpo said. “Just speed speed speed, countered with my left arm, made an inside move and the quarterback was right there on my left.”

When I asked Orakpo about his sack last week, the first of his NFL career, he was bluntly indifferent. The team had lost, and his sack wasn’t making him feel any better. And when I spoke to his fiancee at the breast cancer event last Tuesday, she mentioned in passing that he had reacted the same way away from the microphones.

But surely after a win it would be different, right?

Not exactly.
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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 »

Brian Orakpo And Jeremy Jarmon Are Both Pals With Roger Goodell

Sure, Brian Orakpo knows Commissioner Roger Goodell from the Draft, as you can see from the picture above. It makes some kind of sense that they’d have something to talk about on the sidelines of practice today.

“He was just telling me, you know, it’s been a long journey since April,” Orakpo said, “and we were laughing and joking about that, about how I was just excited and anxious because I didn’t know what team I was gonna be with, and now I’m here in D.C.”

And Goodell’s reputation as a stern disciplinarian? Orakpo seemed to think that’s a little overblown. “He’s got a lotta great charisma, lotta great humor about him,” Orakpo said. “Everybody sees the mean, dark side of him when they watch him on TV, but, I mean, he’s a normal human being that’s just doin’ his job.”

Fair enough. Those two may not be old friends, exactly, but they do have some kind of relationship stemming back a few months. But defensive end Jeremy Jarmon was a supplemental draft pick, next year’s third rounder, and hadn’t had any chance to meet the Commissioner at all.

So when Jarmon saw the Commissioner standing by the sidewalk on the way down to practice, he stopped to talk to him and ask a few pointed questions about the treatment quarterbacks receive in the NFL.

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Afternoon Practice – Orakpo And Skolnitsky Get Taped As Well

There are, I’ve determined, two different kinds of hot-weather practices. One is the sneaky, muggy kind, where it doesn’t seem that hot but you wind up drenched with sweat anyhow. Today was the other kind: clear, with a blazing hot sun and a breeze that abjectly failed to cool anything.

It was the most up-tempo shorts-and-shells practice I’ve seen in some time, too, with Jason Campbell throwing the ball downfield repeatedly and the defense frankly demolishing the third-team offense to the tune of three interceptions with several more dropped.

One of those drops belonged to rookie Brian Orakpo, in perfect position back in coverage at strongside linebacker.

So when Orakpo found himself taped — along with fellow (albeit much less heralded) rookie defensive end J.D. Skolnitsky — to the goalposts after practice, he had to shake his head thinking about the missed opportunity. “I think ’cause I dropped that,” he said, “that’s what made it a little worse, too, especially from the DBs.”
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Tuesday, August 11: Lendy Holmes Sports A Dallas Haircut

Here’s what safeties coach Steve Jackson had to say about undrafted rookie safety Lendy Holmes when I talked to him back in May:

“He’s very promising. Athletic guy. You wanna talk about ball skills, he’s got excellent ball skills, and he’s smart. It’s gonna be good to see what he can do once we get the pads on, because everybody looks good in shorts. It’s a talent show.

“But you wanna see the toughness and how a guy’s gonna react when it’s a hundred degrees outside and you’ve got guys who are bigger than you and faster than you that wanna knock you down, AND you’ve gotta remember your plays, AND you’ve gotta get out of there in one piece”

And here’s what a bunch of other people around Redskins Park had to say about undrafted rookie safety Lendy Holmes over the last month or so: “What’s up with his hair?”

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Morning Practice – Orakpo "Gonna Be A Great One"

A long hot practice today, in full pads, and it looks like the largely injury-free run the Redskins were experiencing has come to an end. By the end of practice, Mike Williams, Casey Rabach, Stephon Heyer, and Randy Thomas were all either sitting out or drastically limited. (That’s 3/5ths of the starting offensive line, for those of you keeping score at home, along with a presumptive backup.)

Anthony Montgomery, Carlos Rogers, and J.D. Skolnitsky were also still out from yesterday, and Roydell Williams doesn’t look to be coming back any time soon after having a plate inserted into his fractured pinky.

Of the four offensive linemen, only Heyer seemed to be potentially serious, with Coach Jim Zorn telling the media after practice that “we’re going to get that looked at, but everybody else- it’s all muscular.”

Oh, and Albert Haynesworth was back at practice, and he still appears to be completely dominating. As, for that matter, does rookie Brian Orakpo.

Orakpo matched up against Chris Samuels in some spirited 1-on-1 drills; Orakpo beat him cleanly with an inside move once, and seemed to overpower him the other time. Samuels disputed that after practice. “He got by me one time,” Samuels said. “He is fast. He doesn’t look like a rookie out there.”

Fellow offensive lineman — and sudden candidate to start at right tackle — Jeremy Bridges offered a similar, even more effusive analysis of Orakpo. “He’s got an outrageous hunger for the game,” he told me, “and he’s gonna be a great one. Watch number 98, man, he’s gonna be great. He works very hard, and he’s very humble. I speak highly of him. You don’t get no mouth out of him: he’s a rookie, he knows his place, and he gives 190% out on the field.” Read more »

On The Field For Morning Practice – 7/31

A few notes about morning practice. To follow things like this (and, in some cases, these actual items) in real time, be sure to follow me on Twitter. (In fact, due to some techinical stuff, all of these photos come via my Twitter.)

In any event, it appears that the ovation and name-chanting for Jason Campbell is going to be a daily event. I was disappointed that Charles Robinson left that out of his otherwise very good profile of Campbell over at Yahoo! Sports while still mentioning the fans with the pro-Vick signs. Because there seem to be a whole lot of people doing the former, and only a few of the latter.

Speaking of the Vick signs, a few fans drove in from Pennsylvania today to offer up this counter-protest:

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You May Exhale: Brian Orakpo Agrees To Terms [Updated]

The Redskins have agreed to terms with first-round draft pick Brian Orakpo. Orakpo is expected to join the team at Redskins Park on Friday, his 23rd birthday. Crisis averted, all draft picks ready to go.

See you all at 8:30 tomorrow morning — an estimated 5,000 people attended today, and I’m looking forward to seeing how many show up tomorrow.

UPDATE: Now with some of Orakpo’s comments from last night, after the jump.

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Thursday, July 23: Kevin Barnes Signs, Marking Five Down And One To Go (Sort Of)

With just over six days to go until the start of training camp, the Redskins today signed third-round draft pick CB Kevin Barnes to a contract. Terms of the deal were not disclosed, as is the way with these things, and DE Derek Walker was released to make room on the roster.

This leaves first-round LB/DE Brian Orakpo as the last remaining unsigned member of the Redskins 2009 draft class, along with supplemental pick DE Jeremy Jarmon. (I’m not exactly sure if he’s classified as part of the draft class or not, hence the awkward phrasing.)

Anyhow, it’s Orakpo’s signing status that has people a bit worried, based on the questions I’m getting here, at Redskins Nation, and even on Twitter. I have no specific information on Orakpo’s negotiations, but here are three reasons I’m not particularly concerned: Read more »

Friday, July 17: Brian Orakpo Makes His Official Debut As A Fashion Model

Hitting the stands next week: Brian Orakpo, Washington Life magazine cover guy!

For those of you who don’t recall, you can find a lengthy behind-the-scenes look at this photoshoot here. For those of you who do recall and have been wondering ever since just what Ryan Zimmerman’s sailboat pants looked like, there’s a good shot of them after the jump (along with another picture of Orakpo).
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