Redskins Training Camp Day Four - Another Lousy Day for the Offense

And that's his unit

Sunday 2 August 2009 | forty-two days until kickoff

Washington Post Training Camp Tracker: longshot defensive tackle Vaka Manupuna, an Arena Football League veteran, was been in and out of Redskins camps and the practice squad in 2006 and 2007; injuries; Phillip Daniels on Albert Haynesworth's ability to bend light around his body, making him look slow even as he is slamming your quarterback ass into the ground.

Washington Times Training Camp Report: quarterback Jason Campbell was the tacking dummy today, getting it from Albert Haynesworth, Brian Orakpo and the other QBs as they went through coach Zorn's pad tossing drill; finally a scuffle, Kedric Golston versus Mike Sellers; another good day for Malcolm Kelly; four questions with Todd Yoder.

Sunday's afternoon practice featured 11 on 11 drills, the defense pasted the offense and keeping them off any kind of momentum. The Redskins continue to shape up as a defensive powerhouse. See bottom of this post for how this could be a problem.

Offense
Second year receivers Malcolm Kelly and Devin Thomas continue to draw rave reviews (ibid.). Marques Hagans, a former quarterback my alma mater the University of Virginia (Wahoowa!) had a great day (op. cit.), he is competing with at least four other players for the fifth and likely final receiver spot (ibid.). Marques made a heads up play to scoop a Marko Mitchell fumble, making himself look good and Marko look bad.

In the morning practice veteran receiver Roydell Williams injuried his pinkie finger reaching for a pass, he wore a splint in the afternoon (ibid.) and did not participate (op. cit.). He will be evaluated, as indicated above he is competing with Trent Shelton, Marko Mitchell, Marques Hagans and Keith Eloi for the fifth receiver spot, if this injury is serious it could take him out of the running and off the team. John Keim has more on receivers.

Offensive guards Randy Thomas and Derrick Dockery are getting tired of going up against defensive tackle Albert Haynesworth. Sucks for them, they will be practicing all season, hopefully it will elevate their game to play against an elite player every day.

Dominique Dorsey, one of the two waterbug super scat backs the team brought in to see if the Darren Sproles model player would work with this offense fumbled, it was not his first (ibid.). Anthony Aldridge, the other little back, muffed two handoffs that wound up as fumbles. These guys know every single play counts. Dominique Dorsey, Anthony Aldridge and Marcus Mason are all competing for maybe one spot. There may not be a fourth tailback roster spot, Rock Cartwright is no ball carrier but everyone keeps stubbornly referring to him as such so I will play along. It is right now that I also notice those three guys all have comic book character names which are always alliterative, like Peter Parker, Lois Lane and Wally West.

Quarterback Jason Campbell, who is not worried about the offense's performance so far and believes the offense is ahead of where it was this time last season, hurled the football sixty yards in the air in the afternoon practice, Devin Thomas was open and just missed it (op. cit.). It is good to see the long ball in there, Jason has an incredibly strong arm. Todd Collins also finally appears in first hand camp coverage... and throws a bad interception (ibid.).

Does the offensive line just need more time to gel? See the bottom of this post for more thoughts on that.


Defense
Rookie defensive endbacker Brian Orakpo does not look like a rookie, at least at this point and does not look lost when lining up at linebacker. We will check back in three weeks, even the top shelf players hit the wall. Not that I am hoping for him to fail, just that I want to measure his performance when he is at the core. Defensive tackle Albert Haynesworth also moved smoothly through the offensive line in the morning practice (op. cit.). Matt Terl at the ORB (Official Redskins Blog) noted an appearent general improvement by a number of defensive players (ibid.), this is obviously exciting, I wonder how much of it comes from the offensive line struggling.

Clearly there is good chemistry with the veterans on defense, in the morning practice middle linebacker London Fletcher and strong safety Chris Horton teamed to tip then intercept a pass (ibid.).

John Keim at The Washington Examiner also thought safety Reed Doughty looked good (ibid.), it was revealed publicly in camp last season that Reed is mostly deaf then he lost his starting spot to then rookie Chris Horton last season when he was down with the flu then the team put him on injured reserve with an injury to the nerves in his back that caused numbness in his legs and he sort of complained that he thought he would have been able to come back had he not been put on IR then the Redskins offered him less than the tender making him an unrestricted free agent before bringing him back. Reed looked good enough in emergency service in 2006 when Adam Arch Deluxe Archuleta flamed out, saw limited action in 2007 when LaRon Landry came on board and I thought was chronically behind the play in 2008 when LaRon moved to free safety until Chris replaced him. Reed is a good guy and I hope there is room for him to make the team. I am going to go ahead and predict there is not.

Later Albert Haynesworth wore a wrap on his knee in the afternoon session and was scheduled to receive an injection of something called Synvisc to reduce the swelling (ibid.) and quote protect the cartilage unquote. What the fuck is up with that? We will be paying close attention to this one, Albert has only played all sixteen games in an NFL season once in his career, his rookie year in 2002.

Free safety LaRon Landry wears a watch to remind himself and others that quote it's my time all the time unquote, another interesting metaphor for how he approaches the game. He says he wears it during games, I have never noticed, I will be looking for it this season and if he wears it under a wristband, Reggie Roby style (RIP).

Cornerback Carlos Rogers' calf strain suffered the previous day kept him out of team drills all day (also ibid.). Reserve defensive tackle Anthony Montgomery also missed practice with a swollen knee, he had missed part of yesterday's session (both ibid.). I am not yet bugging out about injuries but I do need a drink.


Special teams
Matt Terl talked with special teams coach Danny Smith about the new punter, Hunter the Punter Smith and his dual role as the new holder on place kicks. Hunter is an accomplished holder and combined with longsnapper Ethan Albright should give whichever kicker survives, incumbent Shaun Suisham or challenger Dave Rayner, the best chance for consistency.


Coaching
Sally Jenkins at the Washington Post observes that second year head coach Jim Zorn has the attention of the players. So far in his tenure coach Zorn is an interesting study, he arrived here in a convoluted way that easily could have inspired the team to treat him as a lightweight, a place holder until the real coach was found before the 2009 or 2010 seasons, he had a new offense and no experience as an NFL offensive coordinator much less as head coach. But Zorn came in, made himself vulnerable and asked the team to buy in. He did not disrespect the team or the players, the maroon and black comment was the inexperience talking, and frankly though the dustup with tailback Clinton Portis last year could have been handled better, it affirmed that he is the coach and the players work for him not vice versa. Clinton is the diva and coach Zorn is the director.

Now it is year two and coach Zorn's laid back, player friendly methods, his sense of humor and his proximity to the game, he was an NFL quarterback himself and the star of the first Seahawks show, have allowed a bond to develop between him and his players. The risk of course is laid back camp translates to poor discipline and player friendly policies morph into the inmates running the prison. Jim Zorn has this season to show he belongs long term, and he knows that.

Coach also broke out the P word in talking about the 11 on 11 drill in the morning practice, poor, as in some things were very poor. He was talking about execution of the hurry up offense.


Et cetera
It poses something of a quandary when the offense and defense are so structurally at different levels (op. cit.). While every Redskins fan in real America is thrilled at the notion of Washington's defense somehow improving over its stellar 2008, it was not the defense that let the team down last season, the defense cannot simply keep smacking the shit out of the offense for all of camp. The defense needs to give the offense some room to run but at the same time coaches cannot ask the defense to gear down, they will not get the quality reps they need and if you have players pulling up on plays that is how you get hurt.

The simple solution is not so simple: quit treating your offensive line like an orphanage and draft some real players. Yes defensive endbacker Brian Orakpo is awsum to have around, the team could have passed on Brian and taken Michael Oher or one of the other tackles and you could be going through the growing pains of blue chip tackle development and not the reclamation project that is the Redskins right tackle position and all depth positions.



Head coach Jim Zorn looking very concerned about his offense: AP photo from here.