The Redskins Blog

Awards Season At Redskins Park

In the NFL, the big individual honor is a berth in the Pro Bowl; those were announced a couple of days ago, and the one Redskins player who’s definitely going already knows it. The big team honor, of course, is a division title, and the Redskins were eliminated from contention for that weeks ago.

Which is not to say that there are no honors left to be bestowed here. In fact, two separate awards were handed out today.

First up: Lorenzo Alexander was selected as the Redskins’ Walter Payton NFL Man Of The Year. Every team names one; three finalists are invited to the Super Bowl, and one of them is named as the overall winner. The award honors off-the-field-community service as well as on-field excellence; London Fletcher was the Redskins’ recipient last year and became one of the three finalists.

If you just search for Lorenzo Alexander on this blog, it immediately becomes clear how much he deserves this award. The titles of the posts more or less alternate between “Alexander does something nice in the community” and “Alexander levels some guy on special teams and is praised by the coaches.”

The other award is a bit less august but no less serious: the annual Good Guy award from the local media.

Read more »

Redskins Explain How To Discuss Your Teammate's Ongoing Drama

One of the interesting subplots of the Albert Haynesworth saga was watching how different players addressed the topic with the media.

The players are put into an awkward position when it comes to something like this: if they don’t talk, the media gets annoyed with them. If they talk but offer nothing but platitudes, everyone rolls their eyes and keeps asking the same questions until they say something interesting. And when they say something interesting, they risk angering their teammates, their coaches, and even the fans. And that’s just when they’re quoted accurately.

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Carlos Rogers And LaRon Landry Are Out For Sunday's Game

Friday is the day when at least some of the wait-and-see injury news becomes a bit more concrete; when that happened today, the Redskins defensive backfield got markedly less experienced, as head coach Mike Shanahan confirmed that Carlos Rogers and LaRon Landry will both be out of Sunday’s game with their respective injuries.

This means that second-year cornerback Kevin Barnes will be expected to contribute much more; defensive coordinator Jim Haslett has spent the last few weeks praising Barnes’ intelligence and and expressing an interest to see what Barnes could do with a full opportunity; Sunday he’ll likely get another chance to find out.

“This is the opportunity I’ve been waiting for,” Barnes said. Read more »

The Entire Carlos Rogers Transcript From Yesterday

I’m guessing, based on this bit of back-in-forth in the comments to yesterday’s post about the FedExField atmosphere, that not everyone has listened to the entirety of Carlos Rogers‘ comments in yesterday’s open locker room. Rogers was clearly frustrated with the team ahead of anything else — that’s his answer to the very first question, in fact — and that frustration informed the rest of his comments.

It’s no excuse; if you’re part of a professional football team, you’re going to get booed (and sometimes worse) by the home crowd. It’s part of the price you pay for the cheers and positive stuff that gets showed on you when things are going good. But I do feel like people think — as the commenter in that link seemed to indicate — that ALL Rogers had to say after the loss was that he was sad about the fans. And that, at least, wasn’t the case.

So here’s as complete a transcript of the Rogers media session as I could muster. There are still one or two [inaudibles], but I checked multiple versions of the audio trying to get them all cleared up; the questions from the media are also pretty close to verbatim.

Q: What’s the frustration level like at this point for you guys after you’ve had a day to simmer?

ROGERS: “It’s real frustrating. Not counting the losing, just this side of the ball, just the defense. Not playing the way I know we’re capable of playing, being ranked last in the league- that’s frustrating itself, not even just counting the losing record.”

Q: How’s the other hamstring feeling today that you pulled yesterday?

ROGERS: “It’s sore. It wasn’t as bad when I first came in but it’s the first day, so they did a lot of work on it, kinda diggin’ in there. So it’s more sore now.”

Q: But you’re said it wasn’t as bad as it was original injury?

ROGERS: “Nah, it wasn’t as bad as the other one.”

Q: Do you think you’ll be able to practice on Wednesday?

ROGERS: “I don’t know. It kind of depends on how it is. I’m gonna get some more work done on it. Hopefully it’ll calm down some and I’ll be able to go.”

Q: Did it happen on that one play in the early part of the third quarter when [Visanthe] Shiancoe got behind you a little bit?

ROGERS: “No, it actually happened before that. It happened when they ran a boot and I ran to hit the dude on the sideline and I went out of bounds? That’s when it happened. I kind of felt it then but I was jogging and it felt okay, but once I made that step to go back and catch Shiancoe, I felt it real bad then. So, I had to come out.”

Q: Was it overcompensating for the other one?

ROGERS: “I think that’s what it is because I had no problem with a hamstring. I never had a problem with hamstrings period. This is my first one. I guess it was overcompensating for that one. I’ve been working that one off for like the last two weeks and the other one is getting all the load on that one. It probably was taking the attention off of that one.”

Q: Los, how much do you guys think about the playoffs and how you’re in the balance right now? Read more »

Redskins Players On The Atmosphere At FedExField

If you read my quarter-by-quarter in-game updates yesterday (and if you didn’t, boy do I feel sorry for you!) you know I that spent much of the first half of the game wondering what was up with the crowd at FedExField. The stands didn’t look overly empty or overly purple, but I used words like silent, skittish, nervous, muted and odd to describe the way the crowd seemed (to me) to be acting, and I quoted Larry Weisman as saying, “It’s like everyone’s waiting for the roof to fall in.” So it wasn’t just me who noticed.

But when I mentioned this to a few people at Redskins Park this morning, they seemed shocked. The stadium was as loud as ever, people claimed. It was a NOTABLY loud crowd, they said. I must’ve had a different experience behind the press box glass, they suggested.

This was possible, of course, although the press box glass hasn’t changed since the last home game against the Eagles — and I could hear the crowd clearly at that one — so I decided to ask some folks who should be able to hear the home crowd pretty clearly: the players who were on the field.

And they seemed to have noticed the same thing I did.
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Even More On Carlos Rogers' Hands, And Other Links

Yesterday, Carlos Rogers discussed his difficulties catching the ball at great length. Then the commenters discussed his discussion at reasonable length. So when two of Rogers’ coaches offer their thoughts on the subject, I think they’re worth noting.

First, defensive coordinator Jim Haslett:

“He’s done a great job, he really has, of covering guys. Especially in the nickel, in the slot, he’s done an excellent job. He’s hard to throw over. The issue’s gonna be [that] he should have probably five to six interceptions right now. And he makes ‘em out here; he’s just gonna have to concentrate a little bit more in the game. They come and all of a sudden he turns his head around and the ball’s there. He gets his hands on ‘em.

“The other day, the one, he dropped it when he hit the ground, so I can understand it and he actually caught the ball. But he’s working at it and he’s doing a good job. They throw balls to him every day and it’s just something he’s gonna have to fight through.

“I think more of it’s just a mental thing than anything else, ’cause he can do it.”

Haslett also discussed Rogers’ practice regiment — “We do it every day. We throw balls to him every day, we throw the high point, the low ones….” — and what would be if Rogers had managed to haul in those picks. “He should have a minimum of five turnovers himself. Hopefully he can put that away in the second half of the season or these next ten games and help us get a few, because that’s what’s gonna help us win games.”

Next, head coach Mike Shanahan:

“He’s been doing it in practice, so those will come, because he has been much more consistent in practice over the last three, four weeks than he was when we first got here. Doing a lot of ball drills, he works on it. They say they come in bunches, and hopefully they will.

“To kinda give you an idea: with Clinton Portis, when Clinton first came to Denver … I mean, Clinton, you could tell, had not caught the ball very much in his career. And I kinda gave him a hard time when he first got on the field. And he said, “Coach,” he said, “It won’t be long and I’ll be catching the ball extremely well.” And he worked at it and he got very good at it. And that’s what Carlos needs to do, as we’ve talked to him: just keep on catching the ball. You do that, you’ll get a lot more confidence, you’ll come down with those catches.

“And he has worked on it. Hasn’t come down with the catches, but he has in practice very consistently. He got a few this week, so hopefully it’ll pay dividends.”

An interesting side note here is that neither of Rogers’ drops from this past Sunday was a flat-out clean drop. On the first, as Haslett noted, he made the catch and lost the ball when he hit the ground (no matter what the replay review said). And on the second, as Rogers himself noted yesterday, Colts tight end Dallas Clark had a hand in breaking up the catch. So maybe Rogers really is quietly improving and is ready to stun us all with a multi-pick game. Maybe. I mean, I’ll believe it when I see it, but at least there’s a bit of hope.

Other links of note from today: Read more »

Carlos Rogers Discusses His Hands. Again.

It’s been just over two weeks since the last time I talked to Redskins cornerback Carlos Rogers about his frustrating penchant for having potential interceptions bounce off, go through, or otherwise avoid sticking to his hands. But where that last one was a quick one-on-one conversation in a victorious postgame locker room, today’s came during media’s access to open locker room at Redskins Park on the Wednesday after either of two dropped Rogers INTs might’ve made the difference in a close loss.

So before I get to the quotes — and there are a lot of them — let’s conduct a quick thought experiment. Think about your job. Whatever it is, think of all the ways you’re good at it. Then think about your most glaring flaw at work. Really ruminate on it. Focus for a minute and consider just how frustratingly not-good at that thing you are, and how you might even have received a raise or a promotion if you could just do this one thing at a higher level. Consider this until you’re furious with yourself. That’s step one.

Here’s step two: get, say, twenty people. Make sure at least three of them have video cameras, and the rest have audio recorders. Have them surround you while you’re at your desk on a relatively light workday, and then let them ask you repeatedly about this one thing you’re not good at. Over and over again. From different angles. Ideally, have one of them miss the start of the interview, come in late, and re-ask several of the questions that you’ve already answered.

Step three is tricky, but if you have the means, have all of those twenty people publish articles (or air videos on local network affiliates) analyzing your struggles with this one task.

Step four is the toughest of all, though: conduct steps one through three with dignity, courtesy, and professionalism, and — if possible — a smile on your face.

Then you’ll be in the right mindset to read these quotes from Rogers today. It’s rare that I walk away from a media session thinking, ‘Man, I’m really impressed with how that guy handled all that,’ but it was my reaction to Rogers today.

And, with all of that said, here’s what Carlos Rogers says goes through his head after a dropped interception: Read more »

Carlos Rogers Is Frustrated With His Hands

It’s probably a sign that your cornerbacks had a pretty good day when AP Photo has no pictures of them, and only three pictures total of the opposing team’s top two wideouts. And Carlos Rogers and DeAngelo Hall had a very good day indeed, combining to hold DeSean Jackson and Jeremy Maclin to four catches for 34 yards. (On the other hand, that’s why this post is headlined with a picture of Rogers watching his wife play in a charity basketball game on Saturday.)

But it would be a sign of an even better game for the defensive backs if there was a sequence of pictures of Rogers pulling down an interception on the first play of the Eagles’ final drive, then streaking down the field and sliding to clinch the win and avoid getting Nate Clements-ed. Those pictures don’t exist, though, because that fourth-quarter throw bounced off of Rogers’ hands and the Eagles were able to keep driving right down to the final gun.

This is not the first time that Rogers has had an interception bounce off his hands. It’s probably not the tenth. This has become part of the general perception of Rogers’ game, and Rogers, for one, is getting sick of it.

“It’s frustrating, man,” Rogers said in the locker room yesterday. “I was in front sorta jamming [Jackson], actually about to run down the field, and I see the ball. I just tried to stick my hands out and get it, but, you know.”
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LaRon Landry Will Be Talking More On The Field, And That's A Good Thing

When newly-signed safety Tyrone Carter held forth at length the other day about the importance of communication to the defensive backs in a 3-4 defense, I used it largely as an excuse to make an outdated Fred Smoot joke. But as I’ve talked to a few of the cornerbacks and safeties about Carter’s comments, I feel like I may have rushed to glibness on that one.

“Your communication,” Carlos Rogers says, “the back end with the linebackers, linebackers talking to the line, it’s all about communication, ’cause if you don’t, the total defense could mess up.”

Reed Doughty agrees. “Any team that blitzes a lot has to communicate really well.”

And LaRon Landry is even franker: “It’s definitely all about communication,” Landry says, “most definitely.”

It’s a good thing he feels that way, because, Rogers says, much of the discussion around communication has revolved around Landry himself. Read more »

Carlos Rogers Keeps Practice Fight-Free

Carlos Rogers and Devin Thomas didn’t fight today. In itself, that’s not particularly significant: they don’t fight most days, after all. Today, though, they came close. I didn’t see exactly how it went down, but here’s the impressionistic version: Thomas was blocking downfield; he hit Rogers, who went down; Rogers came up talking; they walked away.

Afterward, they both minimized the incident. Here’s Rogers, minimizing: “Devin hit me in my back and I was like, ‘Come on, man!’ I was about to get serious, but it’s practice. It happens. That’s all it was. He says he just hit me from the side, so I’m gonna let him pass on that. It was within the play. It ain’t serious.”

And here’s Thomas, minimizing while still getting in a little jab: “I tried to come down and get him, he stopped, kinda caught his shoulder. You know, he thought I got big on him. I’m about 239 230, now, so I kinda ran him over. And he was mad. You know, he was upset that he hit the ground, you know big DB’s –they’re pretty boys, they don’t like to touch the ground.”

But the whole incident reminded me that this has been a largely fight-free training camp, and some people believe that’s a bad thing.

Fights show SPIRIT, the thinking goes, guys with FIRE fight! If accurate, that would be a bad sign for these Redskins. So I asked around a bit to see where guys weighed in.

“I’ve been a part of both,” DeAngelo Hall said. “I’ve been part of fight training camps and non-fight training camps, and, I mean, we’ve won both ways and lost both ways. I don’t really bother with it, I don’t think.”

“I gotta be honest with you,” defensive lineman Adam Carriker told me, “if you’re fighting in practice, you’re probably more likely to fight in a game. I think it’s more about self-control and discipline, so I would side more on that.”

Rookie tackle Trent Williams sounded like he could’ve gone either way, despite how unequivocal this appears in black-and-white: “It brings out everybody’s competitive juices,” Williams said, “but then again, you know, health is important and we’re gonna need each other. We don’t need to be beating up on each other.”

Basically, there was tremendous uniformity among all the players that fighting is just a dumb, pointless exercise … and, it turned out, there was a reason for that uniformity: head coach Mike Shanahan. Read more »