Redskins Training Camp Day Three - Pads a Popping

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Saturday 1 August 2009 | forty-three days until kickoff

Washington Post Training Camp Tracker: longshot rookie free agent offensive tackle Scott Burley, a former University of Maryland player and college teammate of tackle Stephon Heyer; Jason Campbell on the lack of fights between players through two days of camp.

Washington Times Training Camp Report: three out of four for the defensive line over the offensive; Mike Sellers does not like to run; defensive end Renaldo Wynn on begin back with the Redskins after two years away.

The morning practice started in rain and the afternoon session ended in broiling heat and humidity. It is pads on, the real hitting starts today, football payers get to be football players from here on out.

Offense
A granular concern for the team this year is the explosiveness of the ground game. In 2008 the team showed the ability to grind out yards and maintain possession all season though there was no home run threat to break off a seventy yarder, this will continue to be a concern what with tailback Clinton Portis getting up there as far as NFL ball carriers go. For his part Clinton believes he can go another five years. Personally I doubt that, I would rather Clinton concentrate on the next sixteen games. I love that last season's 1487 yard performance was only the fourth best of Clinton's career.

Over at the ORB (Official Redskins Blog), Matt Terl elaborates on the offensive backfield, Clinton Portis and Ladell Betts return in 2009 as options one and two with Rock Cartwright locking up a roster spot as emergency tailback and kick returner, a position at which he has become quite accomplished, in 2008 Rock had the 15th best return average among returners with at least twenty returns and the 8th best in 2007. Curly R favorite Marcus Mason is back for his third try with the Redskins and the team also caught Darren Sproles fever, signing two flyweights, Anthony Aldridge and Dominique Dorsey.

A good practice for Malcolm Kelly (op. cit.), could it be? Is it possible? With both Malcolm and fellow second year receiver Devin Thomas we are already well ahead of last year's progress, keep it up Malcolm, a fearsome receiving corps is something the Redskins have not had since the old old days of Art Monk, Gary Clark and Ricky Sanders.

The offensive line was once again today beat like a redheaded stepchild (ibid.). Barring a significant injury, player signing or other headline grabber, the shitty quality of the Redskins 2009 offensive line appears to be the most worrisome. The competition at right tackle is already appearing perfunctory, Jeremy Bridges is not there and Mike Williams is not mobile enough. It is Stephon Heyer's job, we can go ahead and call it. The 2009 season will something of a make or break for the third year undrafted player, Stephon needs to break through and become an NFL starter.

Quarterback Jason Campbell also had a rough day of practice though John Keim at the Washington Examiner wondered if that had more to do with the lousy quality of the line in front of him (ibid.). I feel it must be reiterated at this point: day three of training camp, practices and drills are light, there is not a lot of contact and players are not yet at the point where they are giving it everything they have to win a starting spot or even simply make the team... and the offensive line cannot handle what is in front of it. I really hope this is more about the awsum quality of the Redskins new defense.

Third string quarterback Colt Brennan looks like he is trying hard to conform to expectations and mechanics of an NFL quarterback. At his size, his listed height of six feet three inches is an exaggeration, he needs to swing the sidearm delivery up, those will get batted down easily in the NFL, and he needs to resist the temptation to bolt the pocket and play sandlot ball. It is that wild nature that fans love about Colt and they will not be able to breed it out of him (get it? A little horse joke there) however if the coaches cannot get a consistent and predictable performance out of him then they will have no motivation to hand him the game. He is still a distant third behind Todd Collins, whose camp performance I have not heard evaluated yet.


Defense
Cornerback Carlos Rogers, in a contract year, injured his calf in the morning practice and did not participate in the 11 on 11 drills at the end of that session, Carlos will be evaluated, he and DeAngelo Hall are the top corners and make a good pair, when he is on Carlos is a terrific zone corner and DeAngelo is a gambling man up corner, he is already trying to make a play on every pass (ibid.), hopefully he is not careless, offenses can set gamblers up to get burned.

Although Fred Smoot may still be a viable starter that remains to be seen and if either Carlos or DeAngelo were to miss significant time it cuold be 2006 all over again with the unproven Justin Tryon and rookie Kevin Barnes standing infor Mike Rumph and Kenny Wright, neither of whom is still in the league.

John Keim saw a great practice out of the aforementioned Justin Tryon. I was not high on Justin last season based on a lackluster camp and nothing notable out of his limited time on the field, in retrospect with Carlos Rogers, Shawn Springs, Fred Smoot and later DeAngelo Hall ahead of him on the depth chart perhaps he was only undistinguished by comparison. We know shadow general manager Vinny Cerrato is desperate for Justin to be good in order to validate his 2008 draft, if things go well Justin should still be buried at number four at best with Kevin Barnes and Byron Westbrook challenging.

Defensive coordinator Greg Blache and defensive line coach John Palermo like to run a tight ship on defense, limit the freelancing, stay at home and let the scheme support the play. Defensive end Jason Taylor's inability by nature not to play by these rules contributed to his problems, when he was on the field that is, and helped make it an easy decision to leave the team in the offseason. New acquisition Albert Haynesworth is also something of a freelancer, so large and fast the Titans basically threw some meat on the other team's quarterback and let Albert go get it. In consideration for his new defensive star, coach Palermo appears willing to balance out the need for discipline with adherence to scheme.

Rookie defensive endbacker Brian Orakpo continues his transition to a new position, he did not participate with the defensive line in drills against the offensive line, instead he lined up for pass coverage with the linebackers. My hope here is that London Fletcher is helping him along.

Is it possible defensive end Renaldo Wynn will not make the team (ibid.)? With Phillip Daniels back and stronger than last year and the addition of in the box players defensive tackle Albert Haynesworth and defensive endbacker Brian Orakpo, the team may be able to make a go with younger players in reserve positions.


Special teams
Something I will bet most Redskins fans did not know: receiver James Thrash and linebacker Khary Campbell were the team's leading special teams tacklers in 2008. They are both gone and it will likely take a platoon to replace them, there is no special teams ace on this team right now.

Special teams coach Danny Smith talked to the media after practice, Antwaan Randle El again looks to be the main punt returner for Washington in 2009 which is a bit disappointing to me, he seems to have lost the ability or interest, his 2008 average was weak, a pitiful 6.5 yards per return, less than half the average of the top regular punt returner in 2008 ranking Antwaan 21st in average among punt returners with twenty or more returns. Equally disturbing was Antwaan's 21 fair catches, more than anyone else in the league last season. Let us see one of these young guys step and challenge. Receiver Santana Moss was great in limited work but every year he has a harder time staying helathy through the entire season, cornerback DeAngelo Hall's name is also in there for punts, I do not know whether this is a good idea. Maybe he has more Deion Sanders in him than we think. Immediately as I typed that I regretted it.

Matt Terl also talked to jack of all trades Lorenzo Alexander aka Scarface about the new wedge rule on punt returns (op. cit.) and I confess it sounds like a show rule that will not affect much on the playing field.

The kicking compeition between incumbent Shaun Suisham and newcomer Dave Rayner looks to be for real (op. cit.), Shaun has to get out there and defend his job. The new punter, Hunter the Punter Smith, has no competition in camp (ibid.). For the first time maybe since Matt Turk in 1999 the Redskins have a top half punter.


Et cetera
The invasion of Twitter has kicked up a storm in the NFL in a way that no other disruptive technology has, not even the advent of the internet itself as a communications platform in the middle 1990s. All these players have great phones and these locker rooms are social networks in themselves, when one player gets or does something cool in a flash everyone is doing it too, once one player fired up the Twitter and started picking up follows pretty soon everyone was doing it, now even the Washington Post is running player tweets in the print edition!

Twitter gives players a kind of freedom of communication that they have never really had and the NFL has no idea what to do with it. Personally the idea of Chad Ochocinco tweeting from the sideline of a game is awesome, the league office should stay out of this bidness and let teams handle the social networking policy, I think coaches will get paraoid quick about players revealing secrets or talking out of turn and put in place policies that will be stricter than anything the league could come up with.



Albert Haynesworth and Derrick Dockery scrapping during 11 on 11 drills: AP photo from here.