Redskins Training Camp Day Seven - Fan Appreciation Day

Yes I have an appointment

Saturday 26 July 2008

WaPo training camp tracker: undrafted rookie offensive tackle Devin Clark, Jim Zorn, Joe Bugel and Buges' shorts

Redskins Fan Appreciation Day was unfortunately overshadowed by injuries continuing to pile up. Starting defensive tackle Anthony Montgomery broke a carpal bone in his right hand, reserve linebacker Rian Wallace also broke a bone in his right hand and free agent signee offensive guard Kerry Brown strained his shoulder. Anthony and Rian will need surgery and will both be out around 10 days. Kerry's injury sounds more serious, he is one to two weeks. An offensive lineman can wear a hard cast on his hand, the shoulder is pretty much crucial to blocking.

A record crowd was on hand to see the injuries for Fan Appreciation Day, 28 thousand fans, people started lining up before dawn, Jason LaCa called it Woodstock, and traffic was a nightmare (op. cit.). Matt Terl at The ORB (Official Redskins Blog) was all over everything all day. The calm before the storm, the floodgates open, the oddest thing you'll see all day, the maximum Chris Cooley, the Redskins practices are more popular than the Washington Nationals, the Redskins cheerleaders, the sheer scope of 28 thousand people watching a practice, the people my god the people, the players and the fans.


In quarterback ville Jim Zorn was happy with Jason Campbells performance in the intrasquad scrimmage in the early session (op. cit.), coach Zorn indicated Jason Campbell needs to quicken his play and improve his mechanics. Good feedback to be sure, the problem here is that it is very hard to get established quarterbacks to change their mechanics at this age. Even if Jason Campbell alters his windup and delivery to coach Zorn's dictates, there is still a strong chance that once Jason is in a live game situation he will revert by nature to his normal delivery. I am not proposing that Jason cannot be coached, I am saying that in the long run coach Zorn will have to work around Jason's mechanics and not vice versa.


Jason La Canfora tried to find some clues about Jim Zorn's plans in the sets and plays in the early scrimmage. Rich Tandler at Real Redskins talks defensive tackle.

Mike Wise does an extended profile piece on offensive line coach Joe Bugel, really the last symbolic connection to all the Joe Gibbs' eras. The piece is really about Joe's daughter who has cancer. Go read it. Joe, my thoughts are with your daughter and your family.

In other human interest news, rookie receiver Malcolm Kelly traveled to Liberia for three days early in July to raise awareness of Mercy Ships, a fleet of floating hospital ships providing relief and medical care to some of the poorest and most disadvantaged parts of the world. Damn, this is a good story and I hope Malcolm works to keep the profile high for this type of thing.

George Solomon in his Sunday WaPo column has such extreme manlove for Jason Taylor that he compares Serbian war criminal Radovan Karadzic to David Beckham. Personally I would not have gone that far. Later in the same column George, who turned me down personally for an interview with the WaPo sports desk in 1995, that was a nice touch and I still have that letter, revives the Jason Taylor Is Bruce Smith meme. To be sure, Bruce was four years older than Jason Taylor is now and although it ended with Bruce being more or less ineffective and just holding on for the sack record, the first season, 10 sacks in 2000, was awsum. Bruce never got into double digit sacks again in the next three seasons with the Redskins.

Chris Cooley (yes he's down here with the writers not up in tight end township) posted a Chris Cooley Day Fan Appreciation Day slideshow at his blog.

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Redskins transactions of note

Released: defensive end JT Mapu (op. cit.), he was signed after Phillip Daniels and Alex Buzbee went down for the season with injuries.



Mikey T the Hogette at the Redskins reception desk from ORB here.