Smoke Signals: 'Portis has time to party' edition

Clinton Portis is adamant that the reworking of his contract, a deal that guarantees Portis big cash over the next three years, was all about wanting to be in D.C. Let me editorialize a bit and suggest it was all about wanting to be in D.C. with a gigantic wad of cash in his pocket.

“I don’t think reworking my contract made me be here,” the running back said Wednesday in an exclusive interview with The Washington Times. “It was the idea of wanting to be here. Maybe I’ve got five or six years left in me. Can I sacrifice partying and traveling for five or six years to focus on what I got to do, get where I want to get and secure my money? When I hit 32 or 33, I can travel wherever I want and go to any party I want to.”

Good attitude! 32 or 33 is still plenty young to party it up! Heaven knows you will have a boat load of money to throwing the wildest parties down in Miami!
On a more somber note, Portis opened up a bit on how the tragic death of former Redskins S Sean Taylor effected his outlook on his job.

“When you lose a Sean Taylor that quick – a guy who gave everything he had to football and who sat next to me every day when I [came] here – and semi-take football for granted,” Portis said. “My outlook is totally different. I put football into higher regard. I don’t take it for granted. I take it as an opportunity to go out and make people happy.

It’s a new season with a new head coach, but the memory of Sean Taylor lingers at Redskins Park. Most of the defensive players were teammates of Taylor and most of the defensive coaches knew him, as well.
And regarding those rumors out there that Portis runs his own show, Stump Mitchell, Redskins running back coach, responded;

“I don’t think he’s marching to his own drummer,” running backs coach Stump Mitchell said. “He’s fallen into line and doing the things we’re asking him to. He understands what we’re expecting of him, and he’s giving us the effort.”

Not quite buying that. Portis has a close personal relationship with the owner and he got a contract his offseason that no other team would have offered him after a season in which he averaged less than 4 yards per carry. It pays to be in good with the boss. Literally.
Matteral Richardson is finding himself in the mix for a final corner back slot. Personally, I think Richardson has outplayed 4th round pick Justin Tryon, but 4th round picks don’t often get cut these days. DT Ryan Boschetti is making an impact as well, with 3 pass deflections last Saturday, but he’s on the bubble again, as he is every year.
Rick Snider writes on new LB and former Terp David Holloway‘s attempt to make the roster. Hollway was just signed a few days ago after injuries caused the Redskins to release LB Rian Wallace.
Speaking of injuries, Gary Fitzgerald reports that second round pick WR Malcolm Kelly may see time on Saturday against Carolina. It appears both he and WR Anthony Mix will be game time decisions.
Jim Zorn will have a chance to meet up with his family when the Redskins head down to North Carolina to play the Panthers this weekend. Art Zorn, the father of the head coach of the Washington Redskins, is a retired GM employee living in Concord, North Carolina, a little over 20 miles from the stadium where the preseason game will be played. Zorn’s father, though, is a homebody who doesn’t like crowd. Ergo, he’ll watch the game from home rather than attend in person.
North Carolina is also the home of former Redskins head coach Joe Gibbs, who lead the team to 3 Super Bowl championships in the 1980s and early 1990s. As he heads to North Carolina, the comparisons between Zorn and Gibbs are inevitable, but Zorn is trying to avoid them.

“I would never, in the same breath, try to compare what I’m doing with what he’s done or anything like that,” Zorn told the Observer in a telephone interview Tuesday. “He sort of stands alone, not only in the history of the Redskins, but also in the National Football League.”

Zorn said he isn’t pressured by Gibbs’ accomplishments.

“I don’t try to blank him out of my mind, but I’m not trying to live up to his era,” he said. “I’m just trying to have a new beginning, and have a clean slate, and to move forward.”

Speaking of Joe Gibbs, you probably know he’s back in NASCAR these days. It comes as no shock to anyone who follows NASCAR that the sport has developed an accurate reputation for being…uh…full of cheaters. Some fans care about that, some don’t. NASCAR officials, though, do care very much and they’ve responded by lowering the boom on Joe Gibbs Racing for using magnets under the gas pedals of their cars to lower horsepower numbers during tests. If you’re not familiar with NASCAR, that’s called cheating.

Orlando columnist David Whitley called NASCAR “America’s most crooked sport.” Indeed NASCAR is beginning to make the Olympics look like a Girl Scout troop meeting.

“NASCAR even puts me to shame,” says the Tour de France.

Yet this latest cheating scandal is about something larger than the disgrace that is becoming NASCAR. It’s about the legacy of Gibbs.

His once pristine image is taking a massive beating and if this scandal grows the Gibbs legend could be injured even more.
…
As the Associated Press reported, Toyota has won 15 of 25 races this season in the Nationwide Series, all but one came in a Camry that Gibbs put on the track.

It’s completely fair for the rational person to conclude that Gibbs’ cars have used this cheating trick (or a variation) for some time.
…
Jack Roush, co-owner of Roush-Fenway Racing, which fields Fords in the Nationwide Series, called the Gibbs team’s actions “extremely detrimental to stock car racing.”

There are going to be Gibbs defenders who will say he didn’t know. But did you believe Barry Bonds when Bonds claimed he thought the substance he received from his trainer was flaxseed oil? You laughed at that, right? Seemed improbable, didn’t it?

It’s just as improbable that Gibbs watched the sheer dominance of his Toyotas and, if he didn’t know outright, didn’t suspect something was amiss. He’s too smart and has been around sports too long not to have that little voice in his head screaming that this doesn’t look right.

Marcus Washington rested his shoulder yesterday, but should be ready to play on Saturday.
Discuss this in Redskins Park with other DC sports fans!