The Redskins Blog

Redskins Release Clinton Portis

The Redskins have released running back Clinton Portis.

More on this later, of course, but for now here’s the team’s full press release: Read more »

Mike Shanahan On Clinton Portis' Future

One last post from Larry Michael’s wide-ranging interview with Mike Shanahan (and this one comes from part 1 of the interview, so you can watch it for yourself at the 9:25 mark here).

Michael goes through the guys who have notable questions surrounding them coming out of the season (hence the previous posts on McNabb and Haynesworth), and one of those is running back Clinton Portis, a veteran who’s coming off two injured seasons and carrying a big salary number for next year.

And Shanahan’s answer certainly seems … revealing. Read more »

Clinton Portis Explains How He Sees The Media Coverage

Clinton Portis has talked a lot in recent years about “haters” and “doubters” and people in the media who are against him — here’s a perfectly sound example — but to the best of my recollection he’s never given a calm, reflective explanation of what he perceived as “hating” and what he didn’t.

But “reflective” would be a good word to describe Portis’ radio appearance today on the Mike Wise Show With Holden Kushner, as would “elegiac” and “nostalgic”. The hosts focused many of their questions on the possibility that Portis’ time in D.C. has come to an end — although that’s far from certain at this point — and that sentiment infused just about everything Portis said.

So when Wise challenged Portis’ claim that he had “never seen a feel-good story about anyone in this organization,” Portis explained what he meant. Read more »

Clinton Portis: 'Everything In Denver Was Coach Shanahan'

Clinton Portis showed up in the locker room today, looking every bit as in-shape as he’d said he was during his Tuesday radio appearance. And, like Santana Moss, he discussed the possibility of returning next year. And, also like Moss (and pretty much everyone else), Portis expressed how much he’d like to be back in a Redskins uniform next year.

“I would love to be,” Portis said. “I think I did everything they asked. You know, I think I showed all the requirements. I think I showed that I can continue to play. I think I showed that I was actually dedicated to this program and turning this team around and I kind of flew under the radar and moved from the forefront and let everybody else do their thing and I did my work quietly. I mean, it was tough early on. It was just not getting the ball and being healthy. And then all of a sudden, once we established a running game, I was done. So, who knows, man? That’s up to them.”

That, I suppose, was the other theme that guys were putting forth: the decision rests with Mike Shanahan, Bruce Allen, and the front office.

“If they want to keep me, of course they got first option,” Portis said. “If they want to let me go, then I’m okay with that and understand the business side of this. If it’s it, I think it’ll be a bittersweet moment but I think life gotta go on.”

My favorite part of Portis’ long media session, though, came when he was asked to describe the difference between Shanahan in Denver and Shanahan in D.C. Read more »

Tuesday Roundup Of Radiophonic Redskins

If it’s Tuesday — and it is! — then it must be time to see what the various Redskins with paid radio gigs have to say about the team and their situations. It’s rare that the main attraction on Tuesday is the appearance on ESPN 980 of Donovan McNabb, who is notoriously cagey and inclined to give the political answer whenever he can; usually Clinton Portis and Chris Cooley are more closely followed.

But today marked McNabb’s first comment since his agent, Fletcher Smith, sent out a statement criticizing head coach Mike Shanahan and offensive coordinator Kyle Shanahan, and since each Shanahan responded to that statement. So today, for once, McNabb gets top billing (even though what he said really didn’t amount to much, and didn’t really change the narrative on that particular plotline of the ongoing 2010 Redskins soap opera).

McNabb took a somewhat peculiar position with regard to Smith’s statement. It would seem to be fairly clear-cut: either the agent speaks for McNabb, or the agent is out of line. McNabb says that things aren’t that simple. “Let’s put it this way,” McNabb said. “I support my agent. I support my agent in all calls…. I discuss with my agent if he asks a question about what’s going on, or things of that nature. That’s something that we talk about. And, I guess, as you read in the article, he put his thoughts into the whole deal. Not Donovan’s thoughts.”

In fact, McNabb said, what upset him most about the entire incident was “the reaction to the whole deal,” to which he later added, “when I read the whole thing, I didn’t see nothing wrong with it.”

McNabb said that he wasn’t aware that the statement was being released before it came out, but reiterated his support for his agent after the fact.

In the end, this whole line of questioning just continues the he-said-he-said thing that this situation is becoming, now with the addition of the agent as another, apparently autonomous, he-said.

But there were a few other tidbits of note in McNabb’s appearance.

• McNabb confirmed Kyle Shanahan’s account of a meeting between the two following the release of Smith’s statement. “We sat down and we discussed a lot of different things,” McNabb said. “Those are ones I’ll keep between Kyle and I. And I thought we got things out there on the table and we were able to move on.”
• McNabb denied an ESPN report that he would ask for his release at the end of the season — “No, that’s false,” he said. He also specified that he hadn’t discussed the situation with owner Daniel Snyder or general manager Bruce Allen.
• And he reiterated that he didn’t regret the trade that brought him here, didn’t regret teh contract extension, and again said that he’d like to be the QB in D.C. in 2011 — but this time he made clearer some of the things that would need to happen to make that possible. “Things would obviously have to change,” McNabb said. “You know, relationships have to better, conversations have to be better. But that’s something that you do over time. And it progresses over time. When we first started the season, we talked about it. It’s a progression, you know, how you’re building a relationship with each other. You bring in new guys and you’re building a relationship with the guys, and good things happen out on the field.”

So … yeah. Make of that what you will, I suppose.

Meanwhile, the news was a little brighter over in Clinton Portis Land. Read more »

Clinton Portis Headed To IR (And Other Running Back Moves)

Bad news by any measure: head coach Mike Shanahan confirmed today that Clinton Portis is headed to the Injured Reserve list, ending his season early for the second year in a row. Portis finishes with just 54 carries for 227 yards in five games this year — all numbers that would’ve been two solid games in his heyday (although if you ignore the 54 carries, those numbers could’ve been in one game during his early years). He looked strong in his brief return at Tennessee last week, averaging 6.4 yards per carry, but that’s where his 2010 run will end.

“It really is disappointing,” Shanahan explained, “because he’s worked so hard to get to where he was at, a lot of hard work. He’s encouraging all the other players. He’s a big part of this football team. You hate to see a person work that hard and not get an opportunity to finish the season. That’s the case there. He was ready to play and when he did play, he played exceptionally well. Right above the groin area, he tore in the lower abdomen. He’s going to have surgery in that area. It’ll take some time to get that well.”

And that sounds excruciating. The folks at venerable D.C. sports blog Mister Irrelevant — who are among Portis’ biggest fans — are preparing themselves for the possibility that this is the end of his time in Washington by looking back at some of the bloggiest images from Portis’ tenure in D.C. You should check them all out, but this one is unquestionably my favorite:
Read more »

Clinton Portis Had A Good Game On The Sidelines

I’m starting with something positive. Call me Matty Sunshine if you want, but I heard exactly one positive story in the postgame locker room tonight, and I’m going with that one first. There’ll be plenty of negativity out there, and I promise I’ll get to covering some of that myself. But for right now, here’s the one nice story I heard from this absolute abomination of a game.

Keiland Williams would finish the night as the only player named on my Very Short List Of Good Things About This Game — with 139 total yards and 3 combined touchdowns — but he started it as the number two running back on a two-deep depth chart.

When Ryan Torain aggravated his hamstring injury during pregame warmups, that plan changed, and when the team came back into the locker room after warmups, head coach Mike Shanahan told Williams that he was going to be the guy.

That Williams had some success on the field is a small good thing, yes, but he was happy to share the credit, and that was the really nice story.

When I saw the inactive Clinton Portis pregame, he looked like this: Read more »

An Elementary Q&A With Clinton Portis And Brian Orakpo

Yesterday’s NFL Rush event was primarily about honoring Claremont Immersion Elementary as a Play 60 Super School, an award that carries a $10,000 grant to improve their health and wellness resources. That check was presented to the school by Tanya Snyder, Brian Orakpo, and Clinton Portis, and Orakpo and Portis answered questions from selected students as part of the assembly.

These Q&A’s with kids can range from the ridiculous to the redundant to the riveting pretty quickly, as kids’ questions don’t always follow the same line of reasoning as adult questions, nor are they as restricted by social conventions of what’s a worthwhile question to ask. Things can get pretty random, and the players are often more than just a little relieved to answer questions that don’t deal with the Scandal Of The Week.

So of course the first question was about Donovan McNabb. Specifically, it was about if he’s gotten used to the team, and they’ve gotten used to him. (It was asked by a fourth-grader, which is useful to remember the next time you find yourself thinking that the mainstream sports media is acting like a bunch of elementary schoolers.)

Portis fielded that one: “We’re used to Donovan, and I think Donovan’s used to us. I think just as a team, we’re going through the growing pains of learning a new offense, so it’s gonna be better the second half of the season. So look forward to seeing Donovan.”

This was greeted with raucous applause.

Next up was Billy, a fourth-grader sporting a mohawk and a Rock The Red T-shirt, who asked — clearly influenced by the theme of the event, and probably by his teachers — what the best way to stay fit was.

Orakpo answered, without mentioning chains or running mountains. “Well, I think the best way to stay fit is to be active outside instead of playing Xbox and Playstation all day,” he said, causing general chaos and tumult in the room. “I know a lot of you guys like to do that. So you go outside, play basketball, kickball, and at the same time you gotta eat healthy. That’s the most important thing.”

Third-grader Renny asked how many yards each player had run for. Portis’ answer was somewhat surprising.

“I really have no clue,” he said, “but over my career I think I’m at a pretty good pace. I have a nine year career, and I think I’m almost at 10,000 yards. So I feel pretty good about that.” Portis grinned, then added, “And Brian Orakpo, I think he’s got one interception for five yards, so he got a long way to go.”

Another workout question, this one from fifth-grader Sophie, another Brian Orakpo answer. It varies,” Orakpo said. “In the offseason, I would say I work out five days a week. During the season, you kinda want to maintain and break it down, so we’ll say maybe two to three times a week throughout the season.”

And then fifth-grader Bruno offered what was clearly supposed to be an on-message softball — “What’s your favorite fruit or vegetable?” — until Portis misheard it as “favorite food” and ran with it.

“They don’t want me to tell you my favorite food,” Portis said, smiling, “’cause this is about eating healthy and I love pork and [something inaudible that sounds oddly like cantaloupe]. But … Frosted Flakes. They’re great.”

Orakpo took the mic for his answer, and received the largest round of applause for the word “Pineapple” that I’ve ever heard, which ended the Q&A.

“That’s CP bein’ CP, man,” Orakpo said afterward, regarding Portis’ culinary choices. “He’s just being very honest.”

And Portis did clarify one thing to me about his answer. “I mean, I just said I eat pork. I love Frosted Flakes,” he said, but “Not together — at different times, man. I ain’t that crazy.”

It wasn’t until the media got ahold of him that Portis discussed his recovery from injury, and those answers were interesting as well: Read more »

Clinton Portis Says He's "Getting Better"

Clinton Portis made his weekly radio appearance today on The Mike Wise Show With Holden Kushner on 106.7 The Fan, and he kindly avoided saying anything to spark national or even local controversy. (Not for lack of trying on Kushner’s part, but Portis laughed and avoided questions about Brett Favre’s recent off-field drama, saying, “Politically correct answer: I have no knowledge of this situation.” Thank goodness.)

The big news dealt with Portis’ recovery from his groin injury. “This is a tricky injury,” Portis said. “I never thought nine days later I’d still be sore. It still hurts to get up out of bed and roll over and hobble around. But I can tell I’m getting better.”

The “getting better” part is what Portis focused on, and he dismissed the suggestion that he might be done as a Redskin. Read more »

Clinton Portis Out For 4-6 Weeks

Clinton Portis‘s groin injury was a bad thing from the word go, that was obvious, but there’s something about a “groin injury” that lends itself a bit more readily to a bit of lighthearted banter than, say, a knee injury. So somehow it didn’t sound THAT bad.

But when “groin injury” becomes “third-degree groin separation,” as it did today, and “probably not this week” becomes “out for 4-6 weeks” … well, there’s not much to be lighthearted about.

Head coach Mike Shanahan stayed (relatively) optimistic after making the announcement today. “Clinton’s tough,” Shanahan said. “He’ll get a lot of rehab here. Hopefully, it’ll be four weeks rather than six weeks, but a third-degree separation is off the bone, so it’s quite sore right now.”

This makes Ryan Torain the primary ballcarrier for this week, with Chad Simpson his presumptive backup. Read more »