MVN - Most Valuable Network

Clinton Portis mans up

The news today is flooded with stories about Clinton Portis. Most of them follow a theme of CP as a new man: older, wiser, and here for the offseason workout.

Richmond Times-Dispatch: Skins Portis: Workout Warrior
Fredericksburg Free Lance-Star: Portis makes his peace with offseason training
USAToday: Portis hopes offseason of work leads to fun season
Mike Wise, The Washington Post: Portis’s Latest Role: Adulthood

These stories appear now, even though Clinton Portis was at Redskin Park throughout the offseason. Is it that he is just now available to the media, or they were covering basketball or something?

But this news isn’t news. Neither is it real news when a man in his mid-twenties realizes he’s a man in his mid-twenties and acts the part. We are seeing these stories because CP is opening up a bit.

Portis says it was easier to train here than fight management on training in Miami with his Hurricanes homies. Jim Zorn says CP had a financial incentive to remain local this offseason.

It’s not said, but I think it would have been more difficult for Portis to train in Miami after the tragic events of last season. Miami it too close to all of his associations with Sean Taylor.

When you’ve suffered a sudden, deep loss, you know the personal effect it can have. You recognize that effect when you see it in others, say for example, when someone calls a double time-out that costs the game. Joe Gibbs left the team after the season. Clinton Portis stayed home in Virginia. Same difference.

Clinton Portis became a father in the offseason. On a Comcast SportsNet interview yesterday, he revealed that he lost another infant child to death sometime during the past year. It’s the first I’ve heard if it.

Lose your infant child and your best friend in the same year and I guarantee you’ll do one of two things. You’ll either break, or you will man up.
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The Redskins move to the West Coast Offense is a very big deal, a very big risk in the short run. You wonder whether downfield offense personnel can make the switch. CP is not one of the ones to worry about. He broke into the league in Denver in spectacular fashion with Mike Shanahan’s West Coast Offense. Joe Gibb’s used Portis as a straight ahead ground-pounder running behind beefy O-linemen.

Jim Zorn says that he intends to keep the Gibbs’ running offense in the early part of the season. I’d believe that more if Zorn kept Ernest Byner as the running back coach. It’s a head-scratcher when you bring in someone else [Stump Mitchell] to coach your old running game.

If the Skins keep the old running game, its a statement about the offensive line, not Clinton Portis. The Redskins line is built to be snot-knockers, to wear down a defense by the fourth quarter. If the O-line has trouble with the zone blocking schemes typical of the West Coast Offense, defenses will penetrate to interrupt the running game.

So, would Zorn and Sherman Smith call for straight-ahead blocking for running plays and zone blocking for passing plays? I think it’s not that simple. The Giants Steve Spagnuolo, the Redskins almost coach, will sniff that out by half-time of game one.

Differences in run blocking and pass blocking are some of the keys to watch for early in the season. The Redskins would be better off implementing the full West Coast Offense and getting past the inevitable adjustment issues sooner. That will be less confusing for both phases of the game.  

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 24th, 2008 at 10:17 am and is filed under Redskins, Clinton Portis, Washington Redskins. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.