Clinton Portis whined. Jerry Jones pointed fingers. So did Dominic Raiola (literally).
Two players and an owner frustrated that their teams weren’t meeting expectations, even low ones in the case of Raiola’s Lions. All cases of the late-season blues.
Or, in the case of Raiola’s obscene gesture to frustrated Detroit fans, a case of the eight-season blues.
“It’s all about losing,” Redskins coach Jim Zorn said after Portis called him out. “Winning doesn’t bring all of this out. Losing does. You know what remedies all this? Winning.”
Unfortunately, winning is not what the Skins or Lions or even the Cowboys are doing.
The late-season blues reflect the problems with three very different franchises.
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Start with Jones, because he and his Cowboys are the highest-profile disappointment in the NFL this season, a team that will have to struggle to make the playoffs after being anointed before the season as the league’s best team.
toe on his right foot from what turned out to be a loss in Pittsburgh.
“He can play with that injured toe,” Jones said after the game, putting on his “coach Jones” hat. “He can play with the soreness, combination of those things. I see nothing that would have led us to believe that he couldn’t.”
The biggest problem is not whether or not Barber was fit. Wade Phillips, who is supposed to be the coach, suggested that Barber wasn’t.
“I think he has cleared that up as far as what he said,” Phillips said this week. “Jerry and I have talked about it a long time. We know Marion Barber is probably one of the toughest players that we have. So I think all of that came out kind of the wrong way.”
“Wrong way” says a lot.
Barber’s absence was not why the Cowboys lost in Pittsburgh, where rookie Tashard Choice had 88 yards on 23 carries against the NFL’s top run defense. They lost because they blew a 10-point fourth-quarter lead and Tony Romo threw three interceptions, the last one returned by Deshea Townsend for the winning touchdown in the last two minutes.
Beyond that, Jones sounding off just emphasizes why the Cowboys have underachieved. Yes, he’s the GM as well as the owner. And yes, he knows more football than most other owners.
hers – from Barry Switzer to Chan Gailey to Dave Campo to Phillips, turning them into figureheads. It doesn’t help solidify a locker room that already has too many egos.
Dallas may make the playoffs. But an owner suggesting one of his team’s best players is dogging it isn’t the way to win.
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Portis, who singlehandedly has carried the Washington offense this season, has been battered doing it. He was lifted for much of the second half in last week’s loss in Baltimore against one of the NFL’s most physical teams.
So on his weekly radio appearance, he sarcastically called Zorn “a genius.”
“Either you feel like you need to sever ties with me – split ties with me,” he said. “But don’t sit here and throw me out like I don’t pay attention, like I don’t know what’s going on, like I’m making mistakes, like I’m the problem.”
Later he sat down with Zorn and said they had smoothed things out. Still, Portis pointedly expressed more praise for owner Dan “The Fan” Snyder than for his coach. “I think it was just the aggravation of losing four games. Everybody wants to win,” Portis said.
It’s also about Washington.
like the fan he is after the Philly win. Now they’ve lost four of five, including home losses to the Cowboys and Giants, and at 7-6 are a very long shot to reach the playoffs.
Those losses have demonstrated that Washington is not among the league’s elite, in part a carry-over from the only recently ended fantasy style overspending by Snyder on disappointing “name” free agents.
Quarterback Jason Campbell has been forced to learn a new system just about every year since he was a sophomore at Auburn. The offensive line is old and hurting and the receiving corps in average; the Skins still have high hopes for rookies Malcolm Kelly and Devin Thomas, but that’s a position where experience counts.
So only St. Louis, Oakland and Cincinnati, combined record 6-32-1, have scored fewer points than the Redskins’ 218, which is almost 100 points less than anyone else in the NFC East. Those figures suggest that at 7-6, the Redskins are overachieving.
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Raiola was fined $7,500 by the Lions for his gesture, which is about what he would have been fined by the NFL. “They did what they had to do,” he said afterward. “It’s going to charity, it’s fine.”
Do the fans have a right to boo the Lions, a team that looks like it will be the first ever to finish 0-16? Of course.
Does Raiola, the team’s center, have a right to be frustrated? Absolutely.
ound on a team that he joined in 2001. That’s the year Matt Millen took over as president, hired Marty Mornhinweg and the large-scale losing began – 31-94 since, including 20 losses in the last 21 games.
Raiola re-signed in 2005, presumably because someone convinced him that the team would start winning soon. It hasn’t.
Mornhinweg and Steve Mariucci, Millen’s first two coaches, are long gone. Rod Marinelli, the current coach, is almost sure to be gone after the season. Millen was fired this season.
But Raiola remains and will probably be around when the new coach starts rebuilding next year.
Rebuilding usually means more losing.
Hopefully, no more obscene gestures.
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DIRTY DOZEN: The top six and bottom six teams based on current level of play:
1. Tennessee (12-1). Not in cruise control yet.
2. New York Giants (11-2). Don’t be surprised if they lose in Dallas – their most important game will be next week with Carolina.
3. Pittsburgh (10-3). Tough, not pretty.
4. Indianapolis (9-4). Six straight and Detroit up next. Dangerous playoff team.
5. Carolina (10-3). Need to play as well on the road as at home.
6. Baltimore (9-4). Not a team you’d want to meet in an alley.
27. Kansas City (2-11). A young team that occasionally scares one of its betters, as it did in Denver.
r. So maybe one more coming.
29. Seattle (2-11). The best you can say is that the Seahawks are competitive at home.
30. Cincinnati (1-11-1). “Chad” says the Bengals will rebound next year. Will he be there?
31. St. Louis (2-11). On merit. Scored the second-fewest points and allowed the second most.
32. Detroit (0-13). Odds-on to go winless.