WOODY: Skins should sever ties with Portis
AP Photo/Tom Uhlman
Washington Redskins running back Clinton Portis carries the ball in Sunday’s loss to Cincinnati.
If Clinton Portis were a high school student, his report card would contain the note, "A delight to teach."
Portis is bright, funny and entertaining.
From the media's standpoint, Portis is a delight to interview. He's polite and says what is on his mind.
As a running back for the Washington Redskins, Portis is a headache to coach.
Portis and coach Jim Zorn are having a difficult time co-existing. One of them must leave after this season.
It's time for Portis to go.
After Sunday's debacle in Cincinnati, the Redskins can finish no better than 9-7. The playoffs are only a mathematical possibility.
A 7-9 record is a distinct possibility. Even if the Redskins finish 8-8, they can be mediocre and miss the playoffs as easily without Portis as with him.
The distractions he can create are not worth the trouble they cause, unless he is ripping off yards and scoring.
The Redskins have averaged 11 points, and Portis 66 yards rushing, in the past six games. They are 1-5 in that span.
Instead of questions being raised about Portis' role in the Redskins' decline, the heat is on Zorn.
The Redskins' skid, combined with the impatient nature of owner Dan Snyder in dealing with coaches, makes that unavoidable.
This is Zorn's first season as a coach. It wasn't smart to judge him on his 6-2 start -- you're never as good as you look when things are going well -- and it's not fair to judge him on the 1-5 stumble -- you're never as bad as you look when things are falling apart.
Portis is in his fifth season in Washington. The Redskins are 37-41 in the regular season and 1-2 in the playoffs with him.
Portis is not the entire reason the Redskins are about to fall off the face of the NFL earth. But he is one of the reasons.
His complaints about being removed from the lineup against Baltimore on Dec. 7 were understandable. Afterward, Portis had his say. That's where it should have ended.
Instead, it spilled into his weekly appearance on a Washington radio station.
Portis sarcastically called Zorn, the architect of the offense, a "genius." This was after Portis spent the preseason talking about how "wonderful" the new attack was under Zorn.
Zorn had a private meeting with Portis. The players had to deal with questions about Portis' attitude and "star" treatment as they prepared for the Bengals game with both starting offensive tackles out with injuries.
After all that, Portis needed to have a memorable day and lead his team to victory. Instead, he gained 77 yards against one of the worst defenses in the league.
Yet Portis' seat is not even warm while Zorn's grows increasingly hot.
Zorn has not been perfect, and it is far from clear that he is the best coach for the Redskins. But his job is not made easier when a player undermines his authority and questions his intelligence.
Zorn deserves a chance to coach the team on his terms and with as few prima donnas as possible. Then, everyone will see what Zorn really can do.
Everyone knows what Portis can do. It is time to let him do it elsewhere.
Contact Paul Woody at (804) 649-6444 or
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If you read this article, the Redskins linemen themselves will tell you that they have to do a much better job. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/story/2008/11/20/ST2008112004257.html You can call any audible you want and not have time to throw the ball if one of the D line guys is slamming you to the ground. Especially when you don’t have a quality receiving group. Moss is above average but he is too small and has to rely on downfield moves to get open. He cannot get physical on the line. If he has to rely on a move, that takes time. The other receivers we have aren’t even worth talking about. Cooley is good, but slow, again, takes time to develop. These O linemen we have have said they like to run block, but don’t like and aren’t very good at pass blocking. Samuels is great, but plays injured alot, the other guys are just old, small and slow. We have the oldest, and smallest o line in the nfl. Like I said, read that article from the post and they tell you just what I said: First half of season, oline great, second half: suck.
If JC wants to be a professional quarterback, he needs to be able to read blitzes and fight off pressure. Eli (until Sunday) and Peyton Manning, Kurt Warner, Brett Favre, and Tom Brady all do this. That is why they have “audibles”. Defenses have recognized that JC does not deal well with blitzes, so they send 5 or 6 to him.
Until Campbell can start to use screens and slant audibles to get himself out of being blitzed to death, teams are going to keep blitzing him.
And anyway, terrible O-lines don’t produce 1337+ yard backs. There is a distinct correlation between Thomas Jones’ spike in numbers between leaving Chicago and joining the Jets.
Aqua Cadet—
Campbell was fine at the beginning of the Season when he wasn’t getting blitzed all the time. The offense Line is terrible, everyone, except people like you know this. Also we have have one semi talented, small wide reciever who gets doubled all the time, a talented tight end who needs to stay in and block alot because the line is so bad. JC isn’t even to the top of his drop back and he has to get away from half of the defensive line just to read the field. Putting Colt Brennan back there would not change much of anything, unless the opposing team promised not to blitz and played their second string. Just beacuse Colt came into games in the pre-season against 2nd and 3rd stringers and excited you does not make him the answer to the Skin’s problem. We need Zorn to let the rookie recivers play , fire Cerrato, draft some linemen for both sides of the ball and stop letting ourselves believe we are a play off calibur team every year. Stop with the get rid of Campbell talk, it just shows your lack of knowledge about the situation.
I disagree with this articles attempts to lump the bulk of responsibility for the Skins’ decline on Portis (and glad to see others have enough feel the same).
If Woody had ackowledged poor run blocking I wouldn’t think he had an axe to grind with Portis.
If he could point to instances where there were gaping holes Portis did not hit. Or countless dropped passes.
Otherwise, this just sound like someone who is primarily trying to reach a conclusion based on “feelings” (feeling that he likes Zorn and dislikes Portis) regardless of FACTS!
Woody, you need to seek therapy, or something.
Clinton Portis is a poison on the team?
Third in the league in total yards, averaging just over 95 yards per game. That seems to be a poison. It truly is a shame.
Or maybe the blame should fall to Jason Campbell. He has less touchdowns than Tyler Thigpen and Matt Schaub, both of whom have started 4 less games than Campbell. Campbell is averaging less than one touchdown per game. He has not thrown a multi-touchdown game since September, and has only thrown 2 on the year. I know that the Redskins run a run-first offense, but Roethlisberger, Orton, Eli Manning, Delhomme, Ryan, and Garrard all have run first offenses and more touchdown passes than Campbell.
Oh, and as for Portis only getting 77 rushing yards this week, you might want to factor in Jon Jansen being out.
Portis, a distraction? He called out his coach after his coach called him out! Not only that, I think Portis actually handled himself quite well, as opposed to how, say, Owens, or Ocho Cinco, would have handled it. Zorn also had no right to put the blame on Portis.
Oh, and did you forget that Colt Brennan is your third string quarterback? Let’s give him a whirl with this offense. He might be able to scrounge up more than 26 points a game. That was pocket change to him at Hawaii!
Get a grip will you! What the Redskins need is a new owner. That idiot knows as much about foodball as my Jimmy Choos. His hands are always in the cookie jar and they have not had a successful season since he bought the team. We will never have a winning season unless “Danny Boy” decides to remove his controlling hand and allow the competent coach and players to do what they “used to do” best and that’s “WIN!“
Randle El is Portis’ backup, ac? Randle El is a receiver, Portis is a running back. Ladell Betts, actually, is the backup RB and no, he is not as capable as Clinton. While it’s true Portis should have perhaps held his tongue in the recent radio interviews, etc., he is still a premier running back that has been the workhorse of the franchise for some four years now. Woody, have you taken into consideration that with the astronomical contract that Portis has that there’s basically slim to no chance that the GM’s of other programs would even think of touching it (via trade, of course). The Skins simply cannot afford to sever ties with Portis at this time. I figured your seemingly in-depth knowledge of the Redskins would have indicated this to you prior to sitting down to write this column. Michael Phillips has done a commendable job as the new Skins beat reporter this season—perhaps you (and sports section editors) should let him write the opinion columns as well.
I like Zorn. He seems like a class act. Had it been up to me, I’d have benched Portis for a while. I think he showed tremendous disrespect with his radio show comments. I agree with getting rid of him. He’s a minor-league Terrell Owens, and a guy like that is just poison for the team.
I’ve said this for years…the biggest problem with the Redskins is Dan Snyder. He’s a brilliant businessman, but my guess is that he’s a grown-up nerd who never got picked for the team, so he bought one. And as owner, he can do what he wants. When things go wrong, he blames those working for him.
Portis’ backup, Randle El, is probably just as capable without the loud mouth. I agree with jogger that they need to take a good look at Jason Campbell as well. Although I agree that Dan Snyder tends to not give people a chance, Campbell just doesn’t seem to have the ‘it’ that is needed as a great qb. I think Zorn has done well so far, and needs to be given at least 3 years to build the team. You can’t get a new coach every 2 years and expect to have a playoff team every year, as is what Snyder seems to think. Maybe they should just get rid of Snyder?
they should of traded portis 2 years ago when they could of received value for him. now, he’s buddies with cerrato and snyder, and it would cost the organization 20 million to get rid of him, as opposed to 6 million with zorn. do the math.
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