The Redskins Blog

About That Andre Smith Thing

The Incredible Mock-Draft-O-Rama over at DC Pro Sports Report has been pointing to the Redskins taking Alabama offensive tackle Andre Smith with their first round pick in this year’s draft. It makes sense, the reasoning goes, because he was a highly rated prospect at a position of need who might still be available at pick number 13. Also, as we’ve noted before, he has something of a bond with current Redskin (and ex-Alabama) tackle Chris Samuels.

It does make some sense, and it’s all well and good as far as it goes. And surely Smith’s atrocious showing at the Combine wasn’t indicative of his actual abilities, right?

Well, the early returns are in from Alabama’s pro day workouts, and … I suppose the good news is that it’s still looking like Smith will be there at 13. The bad news is, that’s because he’s failing to impress. Again.

The Pro Days Blog over at NFL.com delivers the grim report: Read more »

Thursday, March 5: Terrell Owens On The Market, Redskins Fans About To Explode

I first saw the news that the Dallas Cowboys had released Terrell Owens on ProFootballTalk shortly after it was posted at 12:17 last night (or, technically, this morning). Four minutes earlier than that, at 12:13, at least one thread had gone up on ExtremeSkins about if the Redskins should sign Owens or not.

Some sample reactions (with elaborate animated smileys removed):

Slacky McSlackass: I in no way would like for Danny to go out and sign TO. And in no way would I EVER want to see that piece of **** in our sacred burgundy and gold.

NastyBoy: Good Lord we’ve officially spiraled WAY out of control.

Sawyer5500: I just lost my dinner. SAY NO TO OWENS!

wunderhill: Not even if it guaranteed a superbowl win! This is crazy…what the hell is a matter with you people…don’t you have any pride?

NYSkins: no way in ******* hell

So that’s a no, then? Not according to this morning’s complete speculation from, again, ProFootballTalk: Read more »

Tuesday, March 3: Redskins Links Abound

• Yesterday, I noted that a lot of people were using the “stimulus plan” metaphor to write about the Albert Haynesworth signing. Today, Chris Cooley takes a look at how paying exorbitant amounts of money to professional football players actually DOES help to drive the economy. Go figure. (On the flipside, Norm Elrod at Jobless and Less questions the appropriateness of signing guys to big money deals in this economy. I doubt Cooley’s explanation will make him feel better, but you never know.)
• Jarrett Bell of USA Today chatted with Daniel Snyder after the Haynesworth press conference, and found an owner who owned up to past mistakes, claimed to have learned from them, and was confident that Haynesworth would not be listed among them.

  Back in the realm of more traditional football offseason chatter….

Read more »

Some Ways To Kill Time Until 12:01

If you’re trying to keep yourself occupied until the official start of free agency at 12:01 tonight, here are a few things to help you out.

(I don’t know what — if anything — is going to happen Redskins-wise at 12:01, but I can tell from my inbox that plenty of people are going to hang around hitting refresh on their computers until then. So this is just some other stuff to look at while the clock ticks.)

• The guys from TheHogs.net talked to Prime Sports Network’s Pro Football Central Radio to help preview the NFC East in free agency and the draft. Colt Brennan is mentioned, if that sort of thing appeals to you. (Scroll down a bit to the archive of today’s show.)
• The good folks at ExtremeSkins are doing their best to figure out what the availability of former Bill (and former Redskin) Derrick Dockery means to the team’s free agent plans. It doesn’t have any direct significance to free agency, but I will tell you that everyone here — literally EVERY person — I’ve spoken to about Dockery has had nothing but good things to say about the guy. It’s a little eerie, to be honest.

Read more »

Thursday, February 26: ESPN Having Some Trouble Making Up Its Mind On Haynesworth

Well, the rumors of the Redskins signing DT Albert Haynesworth are still going full blast. WUSA9′s Sara Walsh talked to him for an hour yesterday and reports that “he spent much of the conversation grilling me about life in Washington and what the Redskins are like.” (Walsh hosted a weekly radio show with Haynesworth during her time in Nashville.)

Since free agency officially kicks off just after midnight tonight, ESPN.com is getting ready for the flurry of action in those heady first few hours of wheeling and dealing, and their Insider section has Scouts Inc making list after list to analyze the guys who might change teams. So what do they have to say about this particular impact free agent?

Well, he headlines their list of Five Worth The Investment, so that’s good:

Albert Haynesworth, DT, Tennessee
A few years ago he would have fallen more into the buyer-beware category, but after coming back from an unfortunate incident of on-field violence he has turned his career around. The low motor and work-ethic issues of the past are gone. In Tennessee, Haynesworth was a dominant force at the point of attack and the Titans built their defense around him. Their goal was to bring outside pressure and funnel the ball back inside, where Haynesworth was taking on (and beating) double-team blocks and making plays around the line of scrimmage. He was the best unrestricted free agent coming into the process and probably will hit the open market.

Oh, that’s great news. Maybe all the negative reports about him are overblown. I mean, it’s not like he’s right on top of their list of Five Risky Free Agents or anything like that, right? Right? Well…. Read more »

Reactions to the Haynesworth Rumor

Earlier today, Pro Football Talk linked to a report on the Houston Chronicle‘s blog that the Redskins are going to sign Titans free agent DT Albert Haynesworth, and that he’s not going to come cheap.

The Titans could come over the top of the Redskins deal as well, but my guess is that the Redskins will let Haynesworth get the best offer possible from the Titans and then “better deal” it. My source tells me to look for a contract that could break $100 million with an average of $15 million to $16 million per.

This dovetails with Peter King’s observation in yesterday’s Monday Morning Quarterback column that Washington might be the only team willing to pay the money Haynesworth is going to command.

In fact, Washington might be the logical landing spot. Hmmmm. I wonder why Redskins owner Dan Snyder was having dinner with the agent for Haynesworth, Chad Speck, at Morton’s here Saturday night.

This time of year is when PFT is in its glory, and King’s column is wildly popular, so just about everyone has weighed in with their opinions on the move as if it’s already a done deal.

Mister Irrelevant is unsurprised, unimpressed:

That’s from someone named Lance Zierlein who blogs for the Houston Chronicle. So, grain of salt and all that. Although we’re certainly prepared to believe that this is true. As if there was ever any doubt that Snyder would make a play for Haynesworth.

MJD at Shutdown Corner approves, cautiously:

I’d like to go on record as saying that if anyone out there is worth that kind of money, it’s Albert Haynesworth. Dan Snyder’s made his poor free agent investments in the past, but I’d fully endorse the signing of Haynesworth.

He’s 27 years old, and the most dominant player in the league at his position, if not the most dominant player in the league, period. When Haynesworth is on the field he’s going to occupy at least two blockers in the middle of the line, pretty much eliminating the possibility of the opposition running the ball between the tackles. He gets pressure on the quarterback, too. He is a one-man disruption.

Read more »

An Easy Way To Predict Free Agent Destinations

Let’s pretend, just for a minute, that your job is to predict the NFL future. Who’s going to win games, who’s going to get drafted where, what players are going to sign with which teams … all that good off-season stuff. It doesn’t really matter how often you’re right or spectacularly wrong, so long as your predictions have the indefinable air of believability.

Now, let’s say that it’s the time of year when big-name free agents are getting set to move around, and your employer — the TV station, or website, or magazine — has said to you, hey, use your keen insider knowledge and tell us where Guy X is going to wind up. How do you do it?

In some situations, you’ll have genuine information, of course. Whispers from agents, rumors, off-the-record comments … all of those things that you can stir together into informed speculation to reasonably predict what’s going to happen.

OR you can just point to the Redskins, maybe mention some lousy decisions from almost ten years ago, and head out to the mall to get your shopping done.

Either way.

We saw this with the Byron Leftwich thing a week or so ago, and here are a couple more recent examples of what I’m talking about. Read more »

Friday, February 13: Redskins Claim Anthony Alridge, Establishing A Trend

When the Redskins signed RB/KR Dominique Dorsey out of the CFL to a futures contract, I speculated that he might be a bargain version of Darren Sproles. Last night, the Redskins were awarded RB/KR Anthony Alridge off waivers from the Denver Broncos, and it now seems safe to say that “quick little kick returner” is a position that’s receiving some attention.

Alridge had a productive career with the University of Houston Cougars — he averaged 10 yards a carry over 95 carries in 2006; in 2007 he rushed for 1,597 yards (with a 6.2 yard average) and caught 42 passes for 428 additional yards. In fact, his college numbers were strong enough that he was named second team All-Conference USA.

That might not seem particularly impressive — it’s only second team, and it’s only Conference USA — but the three running backs ahead of him were Matt Forte (1,715 yards from scrimmage for the Bears), Kevin Smith (976 yards rushing for the hapless Lions), and Chris Johnson (named to the Pro Bowl for the Titans). So getting pushed down to fourth best in that crew is still pretty darned good. Read more »

Tuesday, February 10: Two More Mock Drafts, Two More Guys To Watch

The draft season progresses apace, and we haven’t yet reached the point where everyone has reached that weird hivemind consensus as to where each guy is going to go. So you get anomalies like Brian Orakpo. Two weeks ago, he’s excitingly predicted to fall to us; now — according to Fanhouse‘s first mock draft — he’s being selected third overall as the first defensive player off the board.

That leaves the Redskins, according to these predictions, selecting DE Aaron Maybin sitting at 13. There are a lot of things to like about Maybin, not least that he already has the whole giving-a-very-serious-interview-while-swarmed-at-his-locker thing down pat.

http://tribeca.vidavee.com/advance/vidavee/playerv3/vFlasher_debug.swf?p19=movie1234298301456&p2=off&p3=off&p4=50&p5=off&p7=on&p8=off&p31=on&p22=http%3A%2F%2Fanalytics.tribeca.vidavee.com%2Fvanalytics%2Fgateway%2F&p13=no&p16=v3AdvInt_pennLive.swf&p17=http%3A%2F%2Ftribeca.vidavee.com%2Fadvance%2Fvidavee%2Fplayerv3%2Fskins%2F&p11=0&p15=http%3A%2F%2Ftribeca.vidavee.com%2Fadvance%2FvClientXML.view%3FAF_renderParam_contentType%3Dtext%2Fxml%26showEndCard%3Doff%26link%3Dhttp%3A%2F%2Fvideos.pennlive.com%2Fpatriot-news%2F2008%2F10%2Fpenn_state_de_aaron_maybin.html%26vtagView%3Don%26skin%3Dv3AdvInt_pennLive.swf%26autoplay%3Doff%26loadStream%3Doff%26width%3D470%26height%3D352%26vtag%3Dyes%26startVolume%3D50%26hidecontrolbar%3Dno%26textureStrip%3Dyes%26displayTime%3Dyes%26volumeLock%3Doff%26watermark%3Dyes%26dockey%3DFFECF0B12A2C5C959FA7EE2ABCAF36AB&p21=http%3A%2F%2Ftribeca.vidavee.com%2Fadvance%2Fvidavee%2Fplayerv3%2Fjs%2FFlashProxyLoader.js&p18=timeDisplay%3Dyes%3Bwatermark%3Dyes%3BshareWidgets%3Don%3BtextureStripe%3Dyes%3BvtagDisplay%3Dyes%3BshowEndCard%3Doff%3Blink%3Dhttp%3A%2F%2Fvideos.pennlive.com%2Fpatriot-news%2F2008%2F10%2Fpenn_state_de_aaron_maybin.html

Oh, and he had thirteen sacks this year, which is probably somewhat more important.

Meanwhile, National Football Post also has a mock draft up, and despite their dire assurances about Jason Campbell from earlier in the week, they somehow don’t have the team selecting a QB in the first round. Instead, they have the team reaching for OT Eben Britton — the fifth tackle off the board in an insanely OT-dense first round of the draft.

They can’t even seem to convince themselves of the wisdom of the pick, though. Here’s their blurb: Read more »

Saturday, February 7: Clinton Portis, Quote Machine Part 2

I use my TV as an alarm in the mornings, and today I woke up to the sight of NBC-4′s Dan Hellie — a frankly terrifying way to start the day. He was jabbering away about something that I couldn’t quite make out, and then the scene dissolved to Clinton Portis in Hawai’i, interviewing Eli Manning for a minute or two. The interview ended with Portis telling Eli just how much he enjoyed it when Eli “blows smoke up my [BLEEP],” and then it was back to Dan Hellie.

Honestly, the whole thing was surreal enough that I wasn’t quite sure if it had actually happened or not, so it was a relief to find the video on Cooley’s blog.
http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=3111778&server=vimeo.com&show_title=1&show_byline=1&show_portrait=0&color=&fullscreen=1

This comes on the heels of Cooley’s earlier video in which a gravelly-voiced Clinton further discusses shark diving and cracks up Michael Turner. So Clinton Portis, human quote machine, continues to provide plenty of amusement from the Pro Bowl.

And not just on Cooley’s blog, either. Read more »