Fox says Portis up; Defense down

[BigSKINBauer]

Well i guess we can start calling GW the Magician.

[joecrisp]

Originally Posted by BigSKINBauer

Well i guess we can start calling GW the Magician.

My thoughts exactly.

I thought it was funny how they made a big deal about the Redskins trying to replace Antonio Pierce with Lemar Marshall-- like Pierce was some household name. I guarantee you, whoever wrote up this report had no idea who Antonio Pierce was before last season, and apparently, he didn't happen to notice how good of a job Lemar Marshall did filling in for LaVar Arrington. Of course, Marshall's success manning the outside LB spot might not necessarily translate into success in the middle, but if you pay attention to what "The Magician" has been saying all offseason about his defensive philosophy, ALL of the linebackers must learn ALL of the linebacking roles in his defense-- and be prepared to step into any of those roles should the need arise. So that means that Marshall has spent the past year learning the middle linebacker position, as well as the other spots.

The writer also forgot to mention the other entries in the middle linebacker competition: Brian Allen and Warrick Holdman, as well as the outside possibility that Mike Barrow (whose recovery from knee tendinitis is still questionable) will be available. Not surprisingly, he also overlooked rookie Robert McCune, who will probably spend most of the early part of the season playing strictly on special teams, but will likely see more and more opportunities in the regular defensive rotation as the season wears on. Williams simply won't be able to keep an athlete of that caliber on the bench for very long-- particularly in his linebacker-centric schemes. So to make it appear that Lemar Marshall is the lone hope at middle linebacker (especially when this writer makes him sound like such a significant drop-off from Pierce) is way off-base.

To a lesser degree, I disagree with him on the Smoot-to-Harris transition at cornerback. Harris isn't the athlete that Smoot was for the Redskins, but he's a seasoned veteran whose experience and tenacity will more than likely make up for any disparity in pure athleticism. And it's not like Harris didn't see plenty of action last season (seeing extensive action in 16 games, starting two), despite recovering from offseason knee surgery, nor can I recall Harris getting burned by a receiver, or making any glaring mental errors. Harris will likely be in better physical condition this season, and he brings a physical presence-- particularly on corner blitzes-- that Williams prefers and Smoot simply lacked.

The Rogers injury is definitely a concern, but this writer apparently missed the memo that the stress fracture is not the issue for Rogers (that's an old injury that reportedly has healed), but rather an ankle sprain/bone bruise, and it's expected to only keep him limited-- not necessarily out-- for the early portion of camp. Assuming the Redskins take the cautious route and bring him along slowly, the injury will probably be less of an issue than the mental reps Rogers will presumably be missing early on in camp. However, once healthy, Rogers should be a huge plus for the Redskins' secondary, and combined with the addition of veteran Artrell Hawkins and the year of maturation for youngsters Garnell Wilds, Rufus Brown and Ade Jimoh in Williams's school of defense, the cornerback spot may not require as much magic as one would think.

Finally, this writer seems to have overlooked one of Williams's biggest accomplishments last season (with much credit, obviously, to defensive coordinator/D-line coach Greg Blache): taking a presumably under-talented defensive line, and transforming it into one of the league's finest units. There's a reason the Redskins passed on upgrading the line in the offseason, and it's not because they didn't know that talented D-linemen such as Chike Okeafor, Jason Ferguson, Reggie Hayward, Marques Douglas and Bryce Fisher were available on the free agent market. They simply felt there wasn't enough of a need to spend big free agent money on defensive linemen, when they were pretty damn comfortable with the guys they have. With smart, feisty vets like Cornelius Griffin, Joe Salave'a and Renaldo Wynn returning as starters, and the talented Philip Daniels recovered from last season's injuries and ready to step into the defensive end spot, the Skins' defensive line may actually prove to be as good if not better than last year's "no-name" unit, which helped produce league-best limits of 3.1 yards per rushing attempt and only 67 rushing first downs, as well as NFC-leading limits of 81.5 rushing yards per game (second only to Pittsburgh's league-best 81.2 yards per game), and only 7 rushing touchdowns.

Let the "magic" begin! :headbange