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He'll Speak, But Will We Get Answers?
May 20, 2013 -- 10:57am
So here we are in the home stretch of May, more than four months after Robert Griffin III's reconstructive knee surgery, and we're still not completely clear on the circumstances that made the surgery necessary. While RGIII has made the rounds at various events, including the Kentucky Derby, he hasn't made himself available to the media since his postgame news conference after the Redskins were beaten by Seattle in the first round of the playoffs. We've been left to sort through comments in an ESPN The Magazine story that even the author admits need further explaination and a few quotes dropped like bread crumbs in his varied public appearances. Why the cloak and dagger act? Good question.
Perhaps that question will be asked when RGIII is finally expected to address the media that covers the Redskins on a daily basis. That's expected to happen on Thursday as full-squad workouts continue at Redskins Park. We hope his answers will give us a better understanding of how he stayed in the game while it was clear to experts like Ron Jaworski that he couldn't throw. However, I'm not counting on it. Griffin can be as elusive in news conferences as he is running the read option.
Whatever we learn about the horrific end to the season, though, isn't as important as what it will mean for the future. What Jason Reid writes in the Washington Post may get to the core of how Griffin and the Redskins will evolve in the coming seasons:
"...we know changes are likely because Griffin is tired of being banged around like a pinata in the spectacularly successful - but highly risky - college option-style offense....
Griffin hinted at his frustration in a text to an ESPN host in March (Trey Wingo), writing that "all parties involved know their responsiblities" in the situation that resulted in his second major knee injury. Redskins observers spent weeks speculating about what Griffin meant. At the highest levels of Washington's football operation, there was no need to guess: Griffin wasn't happy about being exposed often on designed running plays. During Washington's draft party for fans last month at FedEx Field, Griffin dropped another clue about potential alterations to come, telling the crowd, "we're working on other things in our offense, so we can open up everything."
Now, it seems that the Shanahans, if they want to maintain a good working relationship with Griffin, must modify an offense that was one of the game's best."
If Reid is correct in saying, "Griffin wasn't happy about being exposed often on designed running plays," when adjustments are made to the offense, will it continue to be as successful? Time will tell, but time is becomming an issue.
Mike Shanahan does have two years left on his contract, meaning an extension isn't urgent, but we're getting closer to the time to talk about it. I have to believe if the working relationship between the Shanahans and RGIII was rock solid, the extension would have been done by now. Consider this; what if there is an adjustment season for whatever tweaks are made to the offense in 2013? Suppose the Skins slip to 7-9 while RGIII becomes more of a traditional pro-style quarterback? Shanahan would still have another year left on his contract, but nobody of his stature goes into the final year of a deal.
The season opener is nearly four months away. With RGIII likely to sit out the preseason games as a precaution, chances are we won't know much about how things will look going forward until at least opening night. Meantime, there's the much-anticipated Thursday news conference that will either give us a better grasp on the situation, or like RGIII in the open field, leave us grasping for air.
Adaptation
It was great to be back at the Mickey Steele golf tournament last week at Queenstown Harbor. Former Redskins quarterback Mark Rypien has hosted the event for the last nine years in memory of a friend. It's also a fundraiser for Rypien's foundation, which helps famlies struggling with tragedy. Rypien himself, lost a son to brain cancer about a decade ago.
The event also draws quite a few Redskins alumni, including former Super Bowl quarterbacks Joe Theismann and Billy Kilmer. Both appeared on the show Friday - separately. Kilmer and Sonny Jurgensen didn't like Theismann as a teammate and nearly 40 years later, there still doesn't appear to be much love between the three.
Kilmer, now in his 70's, is still quite a story teller. In reference to what RGIII did last season with the read option offense, I asked Kilmer about what some believed was a revolutionary offense installed by his then coach in San Francisco, Red Hickey, in the early 60's.
You have to remember that Kilmer had been a running back at UCLA. When he was drafted by the 49ers, there was no need to transition to quarterback since the team already had a couple of good ones in Bob Waters and John Brodie. However, Hickey in what may have been an early form of the wildcat, began using Kilmer at quarterback in running situations.
With a combination of all three at quarterback, the 49ers started rolling over early-season opponents. Kilmer rang up numbers like Adrian Peterson did last year. For a few weeks, they were the toast of league. Kilmer says Sports Illustrated even featured a story of what it called, "The offense of the 60's." All was going well until they ran into the Bears and lost 37-0. That was the end of that.
Kilmer would ultimately wind up missing an entire season a couple of years later with a broken leg suffered in a car accident. That led to a transition to quarterback, several years with the Saints when they were terrible, and some golden years here with the Redskins in the 70's. Kilmer's was a career of adaptations. He saw it all during the NFL's big decades of growth in the 60's and 70's and fortunately shows every year at the Mickey Steele to tell about it.
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A Legacy of Failure
May 14, 2013 -- 10:55am
Next season will be the Capitals 40th in the NHL. It will no doubt be recognized with a special uniform patch and events to honor the great players of the past. The great teams? Yeah....
As I type away on yet another mid-May day when there is once again no more hockey to be played in the Nation's Capital this season, failure rather than success is what comes to mind first in regards to the local hockey team. From the Washington Post after Monday's 5-0 loss to the Rangers:
"This is the latest seven-game gut punch for the Capitals during the (Alexander) Ovechkin era. In the past six postseasons, Washington is now 2-5 overall in winner-take-all games, 1-4 when that game is played at home."
And that's just the Ovechkin era. Some of us go all the way back to the beginning of the franchise in 1974. Getting a team here was a big deal for a couple of reasons. With baseball three decades away from returning to town, we went in two years from a being a one pro sport team (the Redskins) to three with the arrival of the Bullets from Baltimore in 1973 and the Caps a year later. Plus having the Caps ensured the stability of the new Capital Centre.
We were warned about Caps growing pains in the early days and there was plenty of pain. The Caps went 8-67-5 in their first season and went eight seasons without making the playoffs. There was a threat by owner Abe Pollin to move the team which resulted in a "Save the Caps" campaign.
The fortunes of the team finally changed dramatically at the end of the 1981-82 season. Pollin hired 33-year-old David Poile as his general manager and after only 10 days on the job, the young man made the deal that provided instant success. Poile traded Rick Green and Ryan Walter to Montreal for Rod Langway, Doug Jarvis, Brian Engblom and Craig Laughlin. The latter two have made themselves bigger names behind the microphone. Langway, however, Langway became the franchise's first big star. In his first year Langway won the Norris Trophy as the top defenseman and the Capitals finally made the playoffs. They lost in the first round, but at least they'd finally cracked the playoff egg. Since then? Here's my friend Thom Loverro in the Washington Examiner:
"Since then: 14 first round exits. Seven second-round departures. Just two Eastern Conference finals appearances, and only one of them leading to the Cup finals. History is the misery of the Washington Capitals."
Thom is right. You could say the same thing about the Bullets/Wizards, but at least there is a championship to celebrate since the team came to D.C., as old as it may be. And remember, the Washington basketball team has been around only a year longer than the hockey team. You want to point to the Redskins? True, seasons like the last one have been few and far between since their last Super Bowl championship. Realize though, when the Skins won their last title, the Caps were well on their way to establishing a tradition of choking. Unfortunately, that's what defines the history of the team.
So, next fall we'll all be giving well-deserved recognition to the greats of the past including Langway, Dale Hunter, Mike Gartner, Olaf Kolzig, Peter Bondra, Ovie and Ivan Labre, who was a fine player on terrible teams in the early days. All those guys have left behind great memories, none of which are big enough to overcome the overiding one - memory of consistent failure.
Another What If
It was only three years ago this month that the Redskins opened mini camp with a new starting quarterback. Donovan McNabb arrived in an Easter Sunday trade from Philadelphia for a pair of draft picks and seemed to be the immediate future of the team. True he was 34-years old. True it was an odd thing to see a starting quarterback traded within the same division. And true it didn't seem like McNabb would have enough talent around him to succeed here. But what the heck, we thought, he had to be better than the shell shocked Jason Campbell. It was time for a change and McNabb seemed like a decent idea. After all, Brett Favre was even older and still performing at a high level at the time.
It didn't work out. McNabb was benched twice by coach Mike Shanahan - the second time for good. Watching the games, it didn't seem great, but it didn't seem all that terrible. With little help, McNabb still threw for 3,377 yards with 14 touchdown passes and 15 interceptions in 13 games - half decent numbers. The Skins went 5-8 in McNabb's 13 starts, but I'm not sure how much more Shanahan could have expected with the roster that he inherited. Whatever the case, he didn't like McNabb and McNabb didn't like him. Thirteen games is all the McNabb era lasted.
The Redskins dealt him to Minnesota before the start of the 2011 season with some expecting him to regain his old form as the successor to Favre. McNabb's run with the Vikings was even shorter than with the Redskins. After starting the first six games and rolling up a 1-5 record, McNabb was again pointed towards the bench. Late in the season he got the release he asked for, figuring he'd catch on with a contender, maybe even his hometown Chicago Bears. The phone never rang.
This week after more than a full season out of the game, McNabb announced he'll retire as a Philadelphia Eagle. The expectation is that it will happen when the Eagles host the Chiefs on September 19th. That'll reunite McNabb with Andy Reid, his coach for most of his career. It's the way it should be. However, I can't but think what might have been if Donovan McNabb as a Redskin had worked out. It's been only three years, but it feels like a lifetime.
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A Degree of Separation?
May 06, 2013 -- 10:53am
The discussion of the balance between athletics and academics has long been discussed, particularly when it comes to big time athletics. It's been my position for years that academics should be an option when it comes to sports at the highest level in college. It's an easy position to knock down, given the way the NCAA is constantly selling us, "The Student Athlete."
I've just returned from Bloomington, Indiana, where I watched my son Jeremy graduate from Indiana University. Watching a child graduate from college is one of the proudest moments a parent can have. Jeremy spent four years working his way through the outstanding Kelly School of Business at IU. And I know how hard he had to work at it. Although he was in a fraternity and enjoyed many of the fun things that go along with college life, he never held a job during the school year. Jeremy's college experience was similiar to most of the other 9,000 who graduated with him.
Among those 9,000 were basketball players Christian Watford and Victor Oladipo, who received huge cheers from the packed house of parents and family at Assembly Hall, where they brought the basketball program back from the wreckage left behind by former coach Kelvin Sampson. Certainly Watford and Oladipo were worthy of the cheers for their accomplishments, both academic and athletic. Coach Tom Crean, as a guest on the Sports Reporters a couple of months ago said that the program he took over in the spring of 2008 was a complete disaster. The players who hadn't left had a total of 19 f's. It was a complete rebuild. He said he wanted to recruit players who were serious about both basketball and academics.
Based on his first five seasons in Bloomington, you'd have to say Crean accomplished his goals and more. After winning just six games in his first season, Crean put together back-to-back Sweet 16 appearances in the NCAA tournament and the first Big 10 regular season championship at IU in 20 years this year. Watford's fellow four-year team members, Jordan Hulls and Derek Elston, weren't at Saturday's graduation. That's because they graduated last year. They played this year as graduate students. Like Hulls and Elston, Oladipo graduated in three years. It's an academic record that any coach would be proud of.
You could hardly blame IU President Michael McRobbie for proclaiming at the graduation, "We will never sacrifice academics for athletic success." A look at the basketball team seems proof that they haven't had to.
Excuse please if I cast a skeptical eye. These days college basketball players are on campus pretty much year round. They train and play pickup throughout the summer and can certainly attend summer school classes. Graduating in three years with the help of summer school is not impossible to do. Non-athletes do it all the time. But graduating in three years with the schedule of a Division One basketball player is tough. Obviously not impossible, but to think that three players did it in two years at one school makes me wonder how representative their academic experience was in relation to the typical IU graduate. Add up the time for practice, games and travel during the season, it leaves little time for classes and everything else that goes along with a good college life.
A decade ago, Duke's string of four-year players had finally run out. With the NBA money too great to resist it was no surprise that star players began to take it. Corey Maggette left after his freshman year at Duke, where he didn't even start on a team that made it to the title game. That's when Duke invented the three-year degree for basketball players. It sounded good, but was probably too good to be true. A long forgotten ESPN investigation showed, among other things, that Carlos Boozer took a four-week summer school class. No problem with that, but during two of those weeks, Boozer was out of the country playing in the Pan American games. I went to summer school in college. Missing one day is like missing a week of a regular class. Boozer passed it and used the credits toward graduation.
Don't get me wrong. College degrees are earned. They don't just pass them out - even to athletes. And to all the IU basketball players who grauduated this year and last year, they should be congratulated. Oladipo is going to be a rich man in a couple of months as an NBA lottery pick and the other three will probably make a living playing basketball somewhere, maybe even the NBA in Watford's case. Just pardon me for wondering how they fit all those classes and classwork into what amounts to a fulltime job playing basketball.
Spring Optimism
The Redskins have held their first rookie mini camp and surprise, surprise - they looked good. The Washington Post headline, "First impressions are positive for three rookies."
This from coach Mike Shanahan, "It was real impressive to see our draft choices and see their size and speed and their quickness, the things we were hoping for."
Great coach. Let's keep in mind these comments were made on May 5th, roughly four months before the season opener. The "size, speed and quickness" were seen in shorts. Has there ever been a coach who gazed on the players they had carefully drafted and said, "Oy we blew it"? Right.
Tony Kornheiser has often told the story of covering a mini camp when the rookies were added to the veterans. He asked a couple of veterans about Heisman Trophy-winning rookie Desmond Howard. He was told, "can't play." Tony asked, "You mean he can't play right now?" The answer was, "no, can't play in the league."
Of course, Tony didn't hear that from Coach Joe Gibbs or any of his assistants. Here's hoping that David Amerson, Phillip Thomas and Bacarri Rambo bring help to the Skins weak secondary and Jordan Reed becomes a big time pass catching tight end. But let's keep in mind we're a long summer away from finding out.
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Cornerback History
Apr 29, 2013 -- 10:38am
Even the most optimistic Redskin draft observers can't hope that David Amerson, taken in the second round Thursday night, will match the career of Hall-of-Famer Paul Krause. Like Amerson, Krause was taken in the second round of the draft. However in those pre-merger days (1964), that meant being picked 18th overall, not 51st like Amerson. Krause was exactly what the Skins hope Amerson will be - a ball hawk. In his rookie year, Krause intercepted an incredible 12 passes in a 14-game season. Unfortunately, Krause was traded after only four years in one of the all-time head scratchers. Offensive-minded coach and general manager Otto Graham traded Krause to Minnesota for Marlin McKeever, a tight end. Krause went on to play in four Super Bowls for the Vikings while becomming the greatest pass intercepter of all time.
Krause aside, the bar for Amerson is not incredibly high in terms of cornerbacks drafted by the Redskins in the modern draft era. By modern, I mean since the draft was shortened from 12 rounds to eight in 1993. These are cornerbacks only, so the Sean Taylor tragedy and LaRon Landry disappointment is not under consideration here. These are the corners drafted by the Redskins since '93, who managed to make it in to a regular season game.
1993 - Tom Carter, 1st round, 17th overall, Notre Dame - Another Charley Casserly top of the draft mistake. Carter was small and prone to be beaten deep. He played four years here, intercepting 18 passes, mainly because teams were always throwing in his direction. He did manage to squeeze in another six years after leaving here, three with Chicago and three with Cincinnati, with little impact at each stop.
1995 - Darryl Pounds, 3rd round, 68th overall, Nichols State - Was a Redskins for five seasons, but spent most of that time playing nickel thanks to Darryl Green still hanging on in his late 30's. He managed nine interceptions and returned a few punts. Pounds signed with Mike Shanahan's Broncos after leaving here, but lasted only one season.
1999 - Champ Bailey, 1st round, 7th overall, Georgia - Regarded as the best Redskin draft pick of the last 20 years. Bailey was everything the Redskins hoped he'd be. He started as a rookie on their division title team and was a Pro Bowler the next four years. He made 80 starts, intercepted 18 passes and even played a bit of offense. The problem is, Bailey wanted out after his rookie contract expired and the Redskins complied. He was packaged with a second round pick for Clinton Portis. Bailey is going to the Hall of Fame. Portis is not.
2001 - Fred Smoot, 2nd round, 45th overall, Mississippi State - Smoot played in 104 games as a Redskin in two separate stints sandwiched around two years in Minnesota. He picked off 18 passes, played well and played hurt. If Amerson, who was taken in a similiar spot in the draft, has a career that matches Smoot's, the Redskins would be satisfied.
2002 - Rashad Bauman, 3rd round, 79th overall, Oregon - Bauman started only three games as a Redskin, picking off two passes. He was cut in Joe Gibbs' first season in his second-go-round and lasted two more years in Cincinnati.
2005 - Carlos Rogers, 1st round, 9th overall, Auburn - Rogers made 68 starts in his six years here, intercepting eight passes - about half as many as he should have had. Rogers had hands of stone, which was a large contributing factor in the decision not to re sign him. He signed with San Francisco in 2011 and his hands got better. Rogers made the Pro Bowl, which earned another contract with the 49ers. He was a starter on their Super Bowl team last season.
2008 - Justin Tryon, 4th round, 124th overall, Arizona State - Tryon had impressive speed, but not much else. He made only two starts in two seasons here, picking off one pass. After a short stop in Indianapolis, Tryon landed in New York and won a Super Bowl ring with the Giants.
2009 - Kevin Barnes, 3rd round, 80th overall, Maryland - Barnes was a big hitter in college with a history of injury trouble. The history continued as a Redskin. He made only three starts in three years, intercepting 3 passes. Barnes was cut before the start of last season and managed to play in a couple of games for Detroit.
2011 - DeJon Gomes, 5th round, 146th overall, Nebraska - The fact that Amerson was drafted may not bode well for Gomes. He's made eight starts over the last two seasons, picking off one pass.
2012 - Jordan Bernstine, 7th round, 217th overall, Iowa - Bernstine was impressive in the preseason, partcularly on special teams. That's what put him on the opening game roster. Unfortunately, he suffered a severe knee injury in the season opener at New Orleans and was put on injured reserve. How he recovers and how he looks on special teams again will determine if he makes the team this season.
Amerson picked off 13 passes at NC State two years ago, which is tied for second most in NCAA history. With teams throwing away from him last season, he intercepted five. Unlike some of the above, he has size (6 feet 1, 205 pounds). He can't hurt. The Redskins secondary ranked 30th last season, giving up 4,511 yards. In two years, we'll likely know if he's the next Champ or the next Bauman. Only time will tell.
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Best and Worst of Redskins Second Round Picks
Apr 22, 2013 -- 11:01am
Never mind first round picks. The Redskins don't have one this year (actually they do, it wears number 10 and assuming he's healthy is well worth the other two firsts and second rounder it was packaged with last year). This is a list to assess how the Redskins have done in the SECOND round of the draft. It's still too early to make a call on Jarvis Jenkins, the Redskins second-round pick out of Clemson in 2011. His rookie year was lost to an ACL injury, and given that last season was both his first year in the NFL and his first year back from a major injury, he needs another season to prove himself.
So, what we have here on this list is essentially the modern era of the draft. It went from 12 rounds to eight rounds in 1993 and has been seven rounds since 1994. This is the post-1993 list of the best and the worst Redskins second round draft picks:
Best:
5. Fred Davis, 2008, 48th overall - Yes he overslept the first day of mini camp as a rookie. Yes he missed the last four games of his fourth season, suspended for a failed drug test. And yes he missed half of last season with a torn Achillies' tendon. But Davis has managed to play 62 games in a Redskin uniform, catching 155 passes, 12 for touchdowns. Pass-catching tight ends are of value in this league and a healthy Davis means a great deal to a successful passing game.
4. Fred Smoot, 2001, 45th overall - He hasn't exactly been an All Pro off the field, both here and Minnesota. Smoot will probably be best remembered for the "Love Boat" cruise while he was with the Vikings and the report of his lack of bladder control in a recent DUI arrest. However, as player, he was solid and played hurt. Smoot played in 104 games a Redskin, intercepting 18 passes, in two stints totaling seven years. Smoot defintely talked the talk, but he generally walked the walk on the field.
3. Tre Johnson, 1994, 31st overall - A big man who was also an excellent athlete. Johnson carried 340 pounds and carried them well. With Johnson bulldozing a trail, Terry Allen and Stephen Davis were able to pile up thousand yard seasons during Johnson's first seven seasons in Washington. Johnson spent the 2001 season in Cleveland, hurt his knee and managed to get in one more year here in 2002, but the leg drive was gone and so was his career before the age of 30.
2. Ladell Betts, 2002, 56th overall - Playing second fiddle to Clinton Portis would have left some running backs disgruntled, but Betts kept his mouth shut and performed whenever called on. Besides being an effective kick returner, Betts rolled up nearly 3,000 yards on the ground to rank 10th on the Redskins all time rushing list.
1. Jon Jansen, 1999, 37th overall - Major leg injuries in his last few years, pretty much eliminated two full seasons, but when healthy Jansen was just what his nickname suggested, "Rock." With Jansen at right tackle and Chris Samuels at left tackle, the Redskins had one of the stronger offensive lines in the league for most of the 2000's. Despite the injuries, Jansen managed to play 126 games for the Redskins, including most of one season with two broken thumbs.
Worst:
5. Donovan McNabb, 2010, 37th overall - Yes it was a trade, but general manager Bruce Allen thrust out his chest on draft day and said, "I'm happy with our second-round pick, it's Donovan McNabb." You could make the case that McNabb ultimately paid off since he was dealt to Minnesota for the pick that became Alfred Morris last year. However, the quarterback who was supposed to hold down the fort for a few years until the Shanahans could develop a young quarterback to take his place, lasted only 13 games. McNabb butted heads with the Shanahans right off the bat, and was benched twice - the second time for good.
4. Jason Taylor, 2009, 44th overall - Much to the dismay of other general managers around the NFL, this was the last time Vinny Cerrrato was in charge of minding the draft picks. And when Phillip Daniels went down with a knee injury on the first day of training camp, Dolphins president Bill Parcells took candy from a baby when he sent a player he didn't want in Taylor to the Redskins for this pick and a third rounder the following year. Taylor got hurt, played only a handful of games here and essentially paid his way out of town.
3a. Devin Thomas, 2008, 34th overall - Thomas managed to catch only 40 passes for 445 yards and three touchdowns before being dumped for his lack of work ethic by Shanahan. He found his way to the Giants for the Super Bowl season, contributing as a punt returner. He then retired, but after a year out of football, will attempt a comeback in Detroit this year.
3b. Malcom Kelly, 2008, 51st overall - Kelly was a pleasant fellow who had knee problems coming in to the league out of Oklahoma. The problems weren't over when he came here. Kelly's career ended after only 28 catches for 365 yards and no touchdowns.
2. Taylor Jacobs, 2003, 44th overall - Another ex-Gator that Steve Spurrier had to have. The "Old Ball Coach" said some experts had Jacobs going in the first round, though he didn't say who those experts were. Jacobs was here long enough to catch 30 passes for 395 yards and one touchdown.
1. Andre Johnson, 1996 - Johnson wasn't a second round pick, he was a first rounder - the last pick of the first round. General manager Charley Casserly had some late-round hits in his years running the draft here, but he had some big misses in the first round - this was one of them. Having dealt his 1996 first rounder to St. Louis in the Sean Gilbert deal, Casserly somehow felt the need to get back in the first round. With defending-champion Dallas on the clock, Casserly sent the Cowboys his second and third rounders to jump back up and take Johnson, a tackle from Penn State. Johnson was so bad that he may have been the first, and maybe the only, first rounder not to take a regular-season snap with the team that drafted him. Johnson eventually bounced to Miami and then to Detroit, where he was active for a grand total of three games.
2013? - The Redskins will be on the clock, but not until Friday. Keep your fingers crossed.
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Safety Strength, Here and Gone
Apr 15, 2013 -- 11:02am
It really hit me in our daily run through the birthdays a couple of weeks ago. Sean Taylor would have turned 30 on April 1st. Only 30. Had he not been tragically murdered on Thanksgiving weekend in 2007, Taylor would have banked nine years in the NFL and still would have prime years left. Wow!
As the draft approaches later this month, the Redskins go in with an obvious need at safety. We've heard the name Jonathan Cyprien from Florida International, but there is plenty of doubt whether he'll be there when the Redskins first pick, number 51 overall, comes up. Remember, their first rounder went to St. Louis last year in the deal to trade up to the spot to draft Robert Griffin III. D.J. Swearinger of South Carolina and Eric Reid from LSU are two safety possiblities. There's some irony in both cases. Swearinger was of course coached in college by Steve Spurrier (though since he played defense it's possible Spurrier didn't know his name). Spurrier was the coach of the Redskins in the draft immediately before they made Taylor the fifth overall pick in 2004. Then again, unless he was taking an ex-Gator, Spurrier seemed to have little interest in the two drafts he was here for. And Reid comes from LSU, the school that delivered LaRon Landry as the sixth overall pick in 2007.
Sean Taylor and LaRon Landry. Their one partial season of playing together had you believing that this might be the secondary version of Russ Grimm and Joe Jacoby. Here were two stud safeties only a year in age apart (Landry turns 29 in October), who looked capable of playing together for a decade plus. And unlike Grimm (3rd round) and Jacoby (undrafted free agent), the Redskins had invested heavily - a fifth overall for Taylor and a sixth overall for Landry. Sadly, we only got a nine game sample.
With Landry going on to be a pro bowler with the Jets last season, leading to a new free agent deal with Colts, you might second guess letting him walk after five years here. But, after giving the Redskins three good years, Landry suited up for only 17 games over his last two seasons with the Redskins. An Achillies' injury that may have needed surgery was never properly taken care of, in large part due to Landry's problems with the team's medical staff.
Cornerback is also a need position. Yes, DeAngelo Hall has returned and Josh Wilson is still on the roster, but is anybody excited about that? Antoine Winfield was wined and dined, but wound up signing in Seattle. There again, cornerback is another draft investment that didn't work out. Carlos Rogers was the ninth pick of the draft out of Auburn in 2005. After six years of dropping interception after interception, he was allowed to walk to San Francisco. Rogers doesn't turn 32 until July.
Who knows what happens with injuries and free agency, but had everything worked out as planned, the Redskins secondary would have been the strength of the defense, not the weakness. Rogers would have been the old man of the group at 31, followed by Taylor at 30 and Landry and Hall 29. On top of that, gone are three valuable draft picks within the top 10 spots of three different drafts, not to mention the foolish free agent deal that Hall signed. Trying to offload a big chunk of that helped lead the Skins to getting clipped for $36 million in a salary cap hit.
Yet another case of what might have been.
Father Time is Undefeated
It's hard to believe Kobe Bryant is only 34-years old. But that's 34 with 17 years of high NBA mileage on those legs. One of those legs blew out a tire Friday night. It was probably inevitable.
In an all-out effort to change the fortunes of the Lakers disappointing season and somehow guide them into the playoffs, Kobe had been averaging nearly 46 minutes a game in the seven games leading up to his Achillies' tendon blowing out in Friday's win over Golden State. It was just too much.
Some might point to Michael Jordan ringing up titles number five and six after his 34th birthday, but Jordan was 21, not 17 when he came into the NBA and took nearly two full seasons off to play baseball. The body was the same age, but the odometer had far less on it.
Watching the coverage of Kobe's injury over the weekend, I was reminded of Sonny Jurgensen more than 40 years ago. Despite a less-than-average offensive line and a weak running game that had him throwing often, Sonny remained surprisingly healthy during his first seven years as quarterback with the Redskins. He rolled up some great passing stats and scored plenty of points, but a weak defense often had the Redskins winding up on the short end of 28-24 and 35-30 scores.
Finally in 1971, at the age of 37, new coach George Allen had brought in a defense that would give Sonny a much better chance to win. Unfortunately, Sonny hurt his shoulder in a preseason game and his season was pretty much gone. He had to watch while Billy Kilmer quarterbacked the Skins in to the playoffs for the first time in a quarter of a century.
A year later, it finally looked like Sonny's time. The defense was strong and Sonny was slinging it. In back-to-back wins over the Cardinals and Cowboys, the Redskins had rolled up 57 points. Then it all ended. Facing the Giants at Yankee Stadium in late October, Sonny stepped in a hole in the turf after throwing a pass and tore his Achillies'. Season over. He had to watch once again as Kilmer led the Redskins to the Super Bowl.
Banished to the press box by Allen, Sonny had to watch in frustration as the "No Name" Miami Dolphin defense challenged Kilmer to beat them with the pass. He couldn't. The Redskins lost and the Dolphins completed what remains the only perfect season in NFL history.
Many years later, Dolphins coach Don Shula opened his first restaurant to comemorate that season, calling the eatery, "The Undefeated Season." Sonny happened to be eating there one night and noticed the many photos on the wall of players from that 1972 team. Sonny took a drag on his cigar and said, "You know if I wasn't hurt for that Super Bowl, none of this would be here." Maybe so, but we never got to find out.
Though he would go on to play two more injury-filled seasons for the Redskins, like Kobe this year, Sonny's 1972 season was yet another score for Father Time.
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