That new bubble out at Redskins Park is awesome. It’s not much fun standing in the rain during a football practice… especially if you have to protect a $3,500 investment in your camera. The rain gear for 35mm digital cameras is bulky and awkward and not very easy to work with. But the team held their first organized team activity (OTA) of 2012 inside head coach Mike Shanahan’s new bubble today because of the rain. For a photographer, it was heaven!
Unfortunately, Shanahan didn’t have a great day today. He got sandwiched between an offensive (Pierre Garçon) and defensive player (Brandyn Thompson) – both going at full speed – during drills and actually got knocked down. It was a scary few minutes. I was watching another part of the turf and, when I looked back in his direction, he was on the ground with people around him and a large number of players were kneeling, some in prayer. He was definitely unsteady when he finally got up. Practice wrapped up shortly thereafter and Shanahan ended up not speaking to the media today.
Everyone was a little shaken by the episode.
“Yea I saw it. It was pretty bad looking,” linebacker London Fletcher said after practice. “Obviously [we’re] concerned about his safety. He wasn’t able to brace himself for the collision. He had his back to the play. Definitely very scary feeling for a while out there.”
Fletcher said he’d never seen a coach get hit like that but complimented Shanahan on his toughness.
“He’s pretty tough. He wanted to stay out there,” Fletcher joked.
“Coach was out there in the middle of the field,” Garçon explained after practice. “We just ran into him. Didn’t mean it to happen, it’s just football. You know, on this condensed field, you can’t get a lot of work in with everybody booking but things happen like that on a football field.”
The team looked sharp today. Granted, it was an OTA and not a game. Neither DeMarcus Ware (Dallas Cowboys), Jason Pierre-Paul (New York Giants) nor Nnamdi Asomugha (Philadelphia Eagles) was chasing Redskins’ rookie quarterback Robert Griffin, III down. Santana Moss did not have to avoid Terrence Newman (Cowboys), Antrel Rolle (Giants) or Dominique Rodgers-Cromartie (Eagles). But the way the guys were working, you would think these opponents were there. A lot of hustling was going on and one could see that guys were making the most of the opportunity to compete.
Several times I saw running back Evan Royster or Roy Helu get the hand-off from Griffin, cut cleanly inside and then burst through the middle of the scrum of blocking and defensive players to continue hustling down the artificial turf. Griffin showed his arm strength and athleticism multiple times. Kicker Neil Rackers was letting some good kicks fly (one of his kicks almost clocked a camera-man in a cherry-picker set up behind the goal post several times). There was a lot of good energy in that bubble.
Griffin looked relaxed and hard working out there. It doesn’t appear that he’s going to have any problem at all getting along with his teammates. The thing he appears to be worried about right now is watching the veterans to make sure they don’t tie him to a goal-post.
Asked if anything had happened to him so far, he said it had not.
“But I’m watching,” Griffin continued. “Nobody has done anything but I’m definitely keeping an eye out for whatever anybody’s going to try to do.”
One would think that with him being so anticipated and welcomed here in Washington, his veteran teammates would leave him alone but he doesn’t think so.
“They don’t care… that’s what makes it worse,” he joked. “Don’t tell them that though. From what Coach told me, most of the time they don’t do it but, like I said, I’m going to keep my eye out just in case.”
Wide receiver Niles Paul took reps with the tight ends today. Offensive lineman Kory Lichtensteiger, running back Tim Hightower, tight end Chris Cooley and promising defensive lineman Jarvis Jenkins all appeared at full speed after going on IR last season with a various serious leg injuries. It was good to see them out there.
Having served four-game suspensions for failing drug tests, it was good to see both left tackle Trent Williams and tight end Fred Davis on the practice turf. I caught up with Davis after practice and he shows every indication that nothing like what happened last season will ever happen again.
“When you do something like that you’ve got to take the consequences and roll with them,” Davis said. “I made the choice to smoke so that’s what happens.”
Reports surfaced last season that Davis had failed three drug tests in a row, supposedly one of the reasons Roger Goodell was so harsh in Davis’ punishment. The tight end took issue with this.
“That’s not how it happened,” he explained. “You don’t want to play with the system either way it goes so I just took it. I didn’t want to fight it because it’s one of those things you could toss in the air and you’d be out for a year so I just took the four games.”
He is such a talented player. The Redskins were smart to trust him enough to franchise him.
There has been so much anticipation for months since Shanahan made it known that he was going to go “get” Griffin, to actually see him out there practicing as the Washington Redskins’ quarterback was almost surreal. His quickness, arm strength, drop backs, ability to move in and out of the pocket, the way he’d get a perfect pass off while under “pressure” from the defense… while not exactly at regular-season game strength and speed, were in evidence as Griffin practiced. I suppose I can’t blame London Fletcher that RGIII being here was one of the deciding factors for him in re-signing with the team.
“Them being able to get that second pick was huge for me,” Fletcher explained. “I’m going into my 15th season and to go into another year not having a quarterback was not very appealing to me, I can tell you that. So, when they were able to make the trade, knowing that we’d be getting either [Andrew] Luck or him, that definitely made the situation a lot brighter as far as coming back here.”
Technically, yes, we are in the off-season. But with all of the players out on the turf together taking part in organized team activities, it feels like the Washington Redskins’ 2012 Season has officially begun.
Hail.