The Redskins Blog

Secret Santa With The Defensive Backs

I’ve been involved in some Secret Santa gift exchanges before and made out pretty well, I think. An orange-shaped lump of chocolate one time, an Amazon gift certificate another. Solid workplace gifts.

The Redskins defensive backs their Secret Santa on a slightly different level. (“Nah, nah,” LaRon Landry said. “No secrets, just a gift exchange. We drew names.” Whatever.)

Reed Doughty was sitting in front of his locker today, already changed after practice into his usual everyday-guy jeans-T-shirt-sweatshirt-sneakers combo, a Gucci bag sitting incongruously next to him. “Should’ve put your name into the defensive back secret santa pool,” he explained. “Fred Smoot had me, so I got my first pair of Gucci shoes.”

I asked if Gucci shoes weren’t a little steep for the usual twenty-bucks-max Secret Santa. “Yeah, I can be a little frugal at times, so when I found out that Fred was giving me these, I was, like, whoa.” But Doughty found out in time to adjust his gift for Doug Dutch.
Read more »

Monday, November 23: LaRon Landry Doesn't Give A [Darn] How He Played

I only seem to find myself talking to LaRon Landry about things that do not make him happy. Getting run over by Brandon Jacobs, for example. So I was actually kind of excited today — even though the team lost a heartbreaker in Dallas — to be able to finally ask Landry about one of the best games I’ve seen him play. The stat line wasn’t that remarkable, just two tackles and three assists per NFL.com, but he was breaking up passes all over the field.

Landry, on the other hand, didn’t see quite so much reason for enthusiasm.

“I felt good out there,” he said, but continued, “I ain’t gonna say it was my best game, but I felt good out there. But the bigger picture is we lost. I don’t give a [darn] how I played, how the defense, offense, special teams did. At the end of the day, we lost. And no matter how we played, it wasn’t good enough.” Read more »

DeAngelo Hall Still Feels Good About Pitching The Ball

When DeAngelo Hall pitched the ball to LaRon Landry at the end of his interception return, I was skeptical — and I wasn’t the only one. Professional Redskins critic John Riggins, presumably tweeting from the woodpile behind his house, wrote “you can’t win with guys that think like D-hall…it’s all about them….”

I didn’t feel quite that strongly about it, but as far as I’m concerned, the fewer moving parts on a play like that, the better. The key, to me, is not losing the ball.

And this wasn’t a play that had gotten a lot of work in practice. “Nah, man,” Landry told me. “It just happened. I asked him to pitch it.” Landry shook his head. “I didn’t think he was gonna DO it, though.” Read more »

Redskins Talk About Practicing Tackling

In yesterday’s links post, I wrote briefly about an Associated Press article that put forth the idea that not tackling in practice was leading to shoddy tackling in games. Here’s a quick excerpt to give you the flavor of the thing, but it’s really worth reading:

Sure, [not tackling in practice] keeps everybody healthy, but some Sundays can look pretty ragged. Many players get a chance to tackle at full speed only during exhibition games. It shows once the regular season begins.

“It shows a whole bunch,” Redskins safeties coach Steve Jackson said. “That’s one of the fundamental skills. A lot of people don’t tackle now because of the salary cap. You lose a guy because of a tackling drill, you’re the dumbest guy on the planet.”

But one thing I noticed as I read it through is that most of the quotes come from people who definitely aren’t missing tackles on Sundays: coaches. Since missed tackles have been a problem for the Redskins defense at points this year, I thought it would be worth asking some of those guys for their thoughts on this article’s premise. Read more »

An Interesting Day At Redskins Park

I was disappointed that I missed the snake.

Toward the end of open locker room, a small snake slithered out from under Chris Wilson‘s locker, and … here, I’ll let John Keim of the Washington Examiner tell it:

“Somebody do something!” linebacker Chris Wilson said.

Stephon Heyer made several attempts to pick it up and carry it outside, though Mike Sellers chastised him because, “You don’t know if it’s poisonous!” Chris Samuels made the same point.

But Heyer managed to pick it up (it fell to the ground once and coiled up) and took it outside, gently setting it on the ground and letting it free.

Rich Campbell of the Free Lance Star was onhand to snap a picture; I missed the entire thing. This was a source of immense disappointment to me — snake in the locker room! OMG! total blog gold! — and I was kind of bummed out as I headed to my desk.

That all turned around when someone passed my desk and mentioned that LaRon Landry had a monkey waiting for him in the lobby.

The white-faced capuchin was just over two months old, wearing a leash and a diaper and clinging to a stuffed bear, chaperoned by two of Landry’s friends, and he cheep-ed happily when Landry showed up.

“Just a thought over the offseason,” Landry explained, when I asked why he’d gotten the monkey. “I didn’t want nothin’ too big. He’ll get up to fifteen pounds, live 35 to 50 years. When I die, he can die with me.”
Read more »

LaRon Landry Talks About That Play Last Year

It was one of the most memorable plays of last season’s opener: first quarter, 2nd and 2, Giants running back Brandon Jacobs gets into the secondary and runs clear over Redskins safety LaRon Landry. For Redskins fans, the memories are not good ones; for Giants fans, it’s still something to bring up tauntingly, even a year later.

And for Landry himself?

“I watched it a lot of times, you know,” Landry acknowledged. “Over the break, right after it happened … [but] I don’t really look at it too much anymore.”

He paused, thought about it for a second. “I don’t need to watch that [stuff]. I don’t need to. I already got it on my mind.”

So, I asked hesitantly, are you using it for motivation for Sunday, then?

“[Forget] motivation,” Landry said flatly. “It’s already on my mind.” Read more »

Saturday Practice – Now With Pads!

The practices thus far have been relatively mild affairs. Sure, the workload might’ve been enough to destroy any of us normal people, but it was being conducted in shirts and shells — lightweight protective gear, not full pads — and guys were just tapped down rather than being hit.

Today, finally, that changed as the team came out hitting. The first shot was on Devin Thomas coming across the middle, from Fred Smoot, and it all made for a visibly more intense practice than the previous few. (It also made for a LONG practice, as additional reps were added to make up for yesterday’s rain-out. And a HOT practice, because … well, it was hot.)

The quick bullet points on practice today would be:

• The offensive line is struggling somewhat against the defensive line, to the point where three separate people stopped me and asked if the defensive line is exceptional or if the offensive line was just having a bad day. I think it’s a bit of both, but I also think the offensive line needs time to build cohesiveness as a unit. It’s early, yet.
• Jason Campbell looks good and in charge, but still sometimes holds onto the ball too long.
• There’s a furious competition at the bottom of the receiver depth chart, with both Keith Eloi and Marques Hagans making plays, along with Roydell Williams. Not to say that Marko Mitchell and Trent Shelton did poorly, but the other three flashed more.
• Carlos Rogers left with a minor calf injury, which opened up some more playing time for Justin Tryon. Tryon made the most of the opportunity, making a few impressive plays. “It’s totally different from last year,” he told me afterward. “I feel comfortable. Now I’ve just gotta do it fast. Be easier if the vets keep giving me their reps.” Rogers is not expected to miss significant time, though.

The other big news was that the first-team offense scored two touchdowns in 11-on-11 drills, meaning the first team defense let up two touchdowns. I caught up with Devin Thomas and noted hitter LaRon Landry — who was covering Todd Yoder for one of the touchdowns — to see which unit really walked away with bragging rights. Read more »

On The Field For The Last Day Of OTAs

It’s another one of those last-day-of-school days here, and — to be blunt — it’s probably a very good thing that LaRon Landry came back today. I have a suspicion that today’s OTA could’ve been a very rote, by-the-numbers affair, and it seemed like Landry’s return gave a little bit of a spark to the team.

That spark was probably clearest when DeAngelo Hall picked off yet another pass and, instead of jogging it out, lateraled it to Landry. Landry took off. It was partially that his legs haven’t been subjected to OTAs for the last two weeks — and his teammates were all shouting “Fresh legs!” at him — but he’s one of those physical specimen kind of players, and you could see it on that return.

He is not, however, the most forthcoming person in the world.

Read more »

Redskins v. Eagles – LaRon Landry Post Game

Photo by Brian Murphy

One of the best things about this bittersweet victory was seeing LaRon Landry finally playing the way we’ve hoped for all year. There are number of possible reasons for his performance – Greg Blache played the defense a montage of their best plays that he described as “emotional and attitudinal Viagra,” for one – but the most likely seems to be his health.

“This season I got out to a very slow start with this hamstring injury,” he said, “and I just tried to fight through the whole season with it. Probably, like, six weeks ago that’s when it really started coming around, so I’m looking forward to next year, and we’ve got one more game.”

Read more »