Smoke Signals: ‘My president is black’ edition

http://dcprosportsreport.com/?p=1716

Injuries are a problem at Redskins Park right now, particularly at the running back position, where Clinton Portis is 50/50 to play on Sunday against the Cowboys and backup Ladell Betts is still trying to come back from an earlier injury. So where do they stand? Here’s Head Coach Jim Zorn on Ladell Betts:

“He’s probably in a little bit better position to be active as the week goes on [vs. Portis]. He is nowhere 100 percent yet, but I think he looks like he’s gonna participate in practice, where Clinton won’t participate in practice for the first couple days. It’s kind of a mixed bag right now. We’re just trying to get our guys ready.”

Clinton Portis spoke about his knee injury yesterday on the John Thompson Show on ESPN980 radio:
 

The good news? “I had 15 injuries two weeks ago,” Portis said. “Now I’ve only got one.”

The bad news? “Right now I can’t straighten it out,” he said of his left leg. “I just started bending it today. So hopefully by the end of the week. We’ve got five days, so hopefully I’ll be ready.”

He said the knee got tweaked twice against the Steelers, once on a hit early in the game and the second time on a pileup at the end of the game. He said he thought both he and backup Ladell Betts would wind up being game-time decisions on Sunday, and that he wouldn’t play if he thought he couldn’t be effective.

“You know, I’d love to be out there, but if I can’t go out there and give the team what they need, I don’t want to hurt the team,” he said. “I want to help the team, so I’m doing everything that I can TO play….I think if I wouldn’t have got hit on the knee I would have been great. The rest of my body healed, but I think that sustaining that injury Monday night was a setback. I mean, it didn’t seem as bad Tuesday when we went and checked with the doctor. So it was just soreness in the knee, so we figured rest would help, but as the week went on it got worse.”

He said the pain increased on Thursday night and Friday, leading to another examination and the sprain diagnosis. He said he thought he could help the team even if he wasn’t the main focal point of the offense merely by being on the field and forcing the Cowboys to account for him, but he also said he wouldn’t put himself out there just for the sake of being out there.

“I mean, I’m not gonna play if I can’t be myself,” he said. “You know, when it comes to playing, I never want to put something on the field that’s not me. I don’t want to sit in a press conference after the game and say, ‘Oh, I knew I couldn’t do this, I knew I couldn’t do that.’ If my knee feels good at the start of the game, I’m gonna play. If it don’t, if something happens during the game and I have a setback, then I’ll have to deal with that at that time. But going into the game if my knee feels good enough to play, then I’m gonna play.”

One thing to keep in mind is that if Portis and Betts can’t play on Sunday, the pass protection will suffer. Portis is the best blitz pick-up back in the NFL and Betts has improved hugely the last two years under Portis’ tutelage. Shaun Alexander is a terrible blocker and Rock Cartwright is only marginally better at blitz pick-up. Coming off a Pittsburgh game that saw Jason Campbell get sacked 7 times, it would be a problem to have Alexander or Cartwright as Campbell’s last line of defense. If that happens, expect the Cowboys to blitz like crazy. They’d be crazy not to. 

By the way, the best part of Portis’ interview with John Thompson came when the coach asked him about the presidential election. Portis responded: asked CP for his thoughts on the election, and the back responded with “my President is black, my Lambo’s blue.” Now, that’s good comedy.

Where is the defense in Big D? It’s there, but it keeps getting smaller so you might miss it.

The Cowboys have given up 26 points or more in all four of their losses this season, and allowed 30 points or more in three of their past four games. They stand 11th in total defense, just 17th against the run, and over the past six games, opposing QBs have thrown 10 touchdowns and only three interceptions. Quarterbacks have a 91.0 passer rating against them, a figure that puts them in the bottom quarter of the NFL.

Okay, let’s discuss the comments Lavar Arrington made to the Washington Times. He really let loose, taking on St. Joe of the Gibbs and The Li’l General, among others. Here is what he said about Gibbs:

“I called Joe Gibbs a coward for leaving,” Arrington said. “You came in, you made some money for your NASCAR team. No one else is going to say that. I’m sure more people thought I was a [jerk] for saying that. Joe wouldn’t call me because he knows. There are a lot of people who know the truth about what went down with me and the Redskins.”

And here is what Lavar said about The Li’l General:

“I think Dan Snyder is scared to death of me,” Arrington said. “He won’t look at me. I tried to shake his hand at that luncheon. He shook my hand and was like, ‘How you doing, LaVar?’ and kept moving. I’m probably the only person that’s ever stood up to him and never backed down. I actually humbled myself to call Dan after Sean passed away to try to bury whatever me and him had going on between us. He called me back, and it was almost like he was reading a script. I root for the Redskins because how I feel about the fans outweighs how the organization treated me. I always take pleasure in taking jabs at Dan because people like him need that. There’s got to be a person out there who’s not afraid to do it.”

I don’t have a problem with people criticizing Joe Gibbs. He’s not a saint, he’s a man and prone to all the foibles we’ve come to associated with our godawful species. He may be a kindly grandfather to his family, but he’s always been as cold-blooded as any NFL coach — which explains much of his success. However, the notion that Joe Gibbs only came to the Redskins to make money for his NASCAR team seems ludicrous to me. Clearly, Gibbs worked his tail off for the Redskins — with mixed results. He wasn’t the coach he had been last century, but a number of his personnel moves paid off, even if they usually cost a lot of money. Gibbs left the Redskins because he no longer believed he gave the team the best chance to win and that fact — as well as his advancing age — drained him of his competitive football spirit. In other words, he left for all the normal, boring reasons people walk away from the NFL — if they are lucky enough to walk away. [Most are kicked out or carried off on a stretcher.] I understand Lavar thinks he didn’t get a fair deal from the Redskins, but making silly and mean-spirited comments like that do not build support for his case. 

As for Dan Snyder, I don’t think he’s afraid of you, Lavar. I basically agree with a lot of what Lavar says about Snyder — I also root for the Redskins despite the owner. But I’m not afraid of Dan Snyder. Why should I be? What’s he going to do to me? I’m a lot more afraid of my wife than of Dan Snyder. Snyder should save his fear for the stock price of his 6 Flags theme park, which is currently residing in the toilet. The fact that Snyder treats Arrington as an afterthought doesn’t indicate he’s scared of Arrington. It’s much more likely to be further evidence that Snyder cares little for anyone who can’t help him now or in the forseeable future. [As if we needed additional evidence of that!]

Okay, enough of all that.

Fred Smoot talks about how the current crop of cornerbacks are superheroes and how he hates the Cowboys. If you think the Redskins-Cowboys rivalry is over, don’t tell that to Fred Smoot. It’s great to watch Fred do what he does even better than play cornerback — yak. Check it out.