Washington Redskins' Campbell aims to improve
06:38 PM CDT on Monday, August 31, 2009
Jason Campbell is now officially a member of the NFC East Quarterback Club.
He has now experienced the hate portion of the love-hate relationship that exists between NFC East quarterbacks, their franchises and their fans.
In his first full season as the Washington Redskins' starting quarterback in 2008, Campbell did not throw an interception in the first two months and the Redskins raced into playoff contention with a 6-2 record. He was the toast of the town.
But Campbell threw six interceptions in the second half of the season, and the Redskins lost six of their final eight games to miss out on the postseason.
Even though Campbell was a recent first-round draft pick (2005), that didn't prevent the Redskins from attempting to upgrade themselves at quarterback last off-season. Washington explored trading up in the draft to select Southern Cal's Mark Sanchez, then flirted with the Denver Broncos in trade talks for Jay Cutler.
Campbell said he felt betrayed.
"I did early on," he said. "But at the same time you have to move forward in life and put things behind you. You have to understand you're not going to be able to please everybody. Some people will like you and some people won't, no matter what you do."
Which puts him in good company. Start with Donovan McNabb, the quarterback of the Eagles. Philadelphia fans booed him on draft day in 1999 when the Eagles made him their first-round pick.
"He's been to four NFC championship games and taken them to a Super Bowl," Campbell said, "and for whatever reason, he's still not good enough for them."
Then Tony Romo, the quarterback of the Cowboys.
"When he first started off, filling in for [Drew] Bledsoe, he was the king of Dallas," Campbell said. "Everybody was patting him on the back and getting ready to crown him. Then he goes to Seattle, makes one mistake and the people turned on him that fast."
Then Eli Manning, the quarterback of the Giants.
"They were ready to run Eli out of New York," Campbell said. "They couldn't stand him, didn't like him. Then he wins the Super Bowl and it all flips."
Redskins coach Jim Zorn said it was nothing personal – just the franchise doing its due diligence in exploring those quarterback options last spring. Zorn says he's fine with Campbell running his offense.
"I don't have an urgency to replace him," Zorn said. "I never did. The circumstances that came up this off-season created that sense of urgency. The only urgency on players is that you play well now, not the future. The future doesn't matter. That's where the stress level is. It's a performance-based game and he has to perform."
And Zorn expects him to do just that in 2009.
"Jason is headed in that direction," Zorn said. "I think he's very determined. He's revved up the intensity level because of what happened in the off-season. He's very intent on being successful. He has really stepped up his game from where we started a year ago. This off-season he's done nothing but improve."
For his own sake.
"I honestly don't know what they [Redskins] think of me," Campbell said. "The one thing I told my family is that I'm a good quarterback. I'm not going to let things that were said around the organization define me as a quarterback or as a player.
"My approach is to go out there this season, have a great year and help this team win. That's my main goal – to win. Winning cures a lot of ills."
Now, let's take our weekly spin around the NFL. I've hit seven training camps thus far and have one trip remaining later this week to Houston to see the Texans. Of the camps I've visited, the Steelers, Ravens, Giants and Eagles are all Super Bowl contenders.
The Steelers are better than I thought – if it's possible to underrate the defending Super Bowl champions. HB Rashard Mendenhall and LB Lawrence Timmons make the Steelers a better team than a year ago.
College pass rushers need time to adjust to the speed of the NFL game and the quality of blockers. Much of that learning curve comes during training camp and the preseason.
The Jacksonville Jaguars drafted Florida pass rusher Derrick Harvey with the eighth overall selection in 2008. But he held out a franchise-record 36 days before signing Aug. 27. He missed three exhibition games and made just a token appearance in the preseason finale.
Harvey was not ready to start the season – and never did catch up. Harvey was a huge disappointment for the Jaguars, starting only nine games and collecting just 3.5 sacks. Jacksonville finished 5-11 in the standings and 17th in defense.
Now it's Aaron Maybin's turn. The Buffalo Bills drafted the Big Ten sack leader with the 11th overall pick of the 2009 draft, but Maybin missed the first 26 days of training camp in his own contract holdout before signing last week. He also missed Buffalo's first three preseason games.
Like Harvey, Maybin will spend the regular season trying to make up for the lost time of summer. Is the squabble over a few extra bucks worth the concession of your rookie season?
If history can be an indicator, expect the Cincinnati Bengals to struggle this season. The Cincinnati training camp is the sixth installment of the HBO series Hard Knocks. Every other season, the featured team has finished with a losing record – and this is a down year. Here's the recap:
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The Ravens were by far the best version of Hard Knocks. Baltimore was the defending Super Bowl champion when the Ravens were featured. The concept was new, the show was fresh, and the Ravens had swagger. In later versions, so much of the show seemed scripted or staged. The spontaneity was gone. So was the drama. The 2002 Cowboys, Jaguars and Bengals were all coming off 11-loss seasons when they were featured.
The Score Takes Care of Itself, by Bill Walsh, Steve Jamison and Craig Walsh.
This is one of the best football books I've ever read. Walsh has a mystique as a Hall of Fame coach that may be second only to Vince Lombardi. He offers up a nugget of football wisdom in just about every paragraph of this book.
This project was years in the making with Walsh explaining his philosophies of organization and team building to Jamison in between his many jobs. But Walsh died in 2007 of leukemia, so his son Craig gave Jamison copies of Walsh's notes and lectures, allowing him to finish this 242-page book.
Walsh explains the origins of the West Coast offense (which actually was born out of necessity in Cincinnati because Walsh had a soft-armed quarterback there in Virgil Carter), scripting plays and the play-cards held by head coaches on the sideline.
Walsh weaves in anecdotes involving Jerry Rice, Joe Montana, Paul Brown, Howard Cosell, Bubba Paris, Ronnie Lott and Al Davis. He talks about his "standard of performance" for every employee in the organization. When Walsh became general manager of the 49ers, he even scripted how the telephone operators would answer calls.
Here are a couple of his leadership nuggets:
• "Flying by the seat of your pants precedes crashing by the seat of your pants."
• "A leader must see the forest and the trees."
• "A healthy ego is crucial in leadership. It turns unhealthy when self-confidence becomes arrogance, assertiveness becomes obstinacy and self-assurance becomes reckless abandon. This is manifested when communication from leadership amounts to 'Shut up and listen' – when your ego gets bigger than your ears."
Walsh makes several references to the Cowboys in the book. One involves a pregame talk he gave to the 49ers before a Cowboys game in the 1980s: "According to [Tom] Landry, we've never beaten the 'real' Dallas Cowboys. They've always got some excuse: `We had an off day, somebody was injured, the sun was shining...' Always some excuse for us beating the hell out of them."
Let me predict this book will wind up on the bookshelves of most football coaches – high school, college and pro. Walsh has tremendous insights into what makes a championship team – and offers them up in this book to anyone who cares to invest the time. You'll find it time well spent.
Longview's Robert Henson always wanted to play for the Cowboys.
"I was a big Cowboys fan, real big," Henson said. "It's crazy how big a Cowboy fan I was, from the Starter jacket I wore as a kid. I had all the gear. Growing up watching Emmitt, Troy and Michael and that defense ... I was a big Cowboys fan."
Until April. The TCU linebacker became a sixth-round draft pick of the Washington Redskins, the Cowboys' hated arch-rival. Cowboys? Who are they?
"It was an easy transition for me," Henson said. "I'm wearing the burgundy and gold now. The Redskins extended me an opportunity to join their football team and be a part of something special. Cowboys-Redskins is one of the most storied rivalries in the NFL. I'm grateful to be a part of it."
Henson wasn't the only member of the family who had to make the transition, though. Henson is married to Sara Jakes, the daughter of T.D. Jakes, the pastor of the Potter's House in Dallas.
"They tell me all the time they aren't a Cowboys fan or a Redskins fan – their my fan," Henson said of his in-laws. "They went out and bought a [Redskins] jersey. I think they converted easily."
• Washington ranked 29th in the NFL in punting and Pittsburgh 30th last season. Expect both teams to make quantum leaps in 2009 with a couple of Texans stepping in. The Redskins signed Sherman's Hunter Smith away from the Indianapolis Colts in free agency. The Colts ranked 12th in punting last season. The Steelers are bolstered by the return of Daniel Sepulveda. A fourth-round draft pick in 2007, the Highland Park product missed the 2008 season with a knee injury. Smith went to Notre Dame and Sepulveda to Baylor.
• Speaking of special teams, the Baltimore Ravens expect to make a jump in their return game this season. They ranked 31st in kickoff returns and 19th in punt returns with Yamon Figurs in 2008. The Ravens signed Chris Carr in free agency away from the Tennessee Titans. He's coming off a season that he averaged 28.1 yards on kickoffs and 10.1 yards on punts.
• Staying with the Ravens, I like what perennial Pro Bowler Matt Birk brings to the table at center. Birk left the Minnesota Vikings in free agency and gives the Ravens an upgrade in the middle of their line from Jason Brown. The Ravens have leaders galore on defense; Birk gives them one on offense.
• My early frontrunner for "steal of the draft" is Seattle DE Nick Reed. He was considered too small (6-1, 245) and too slow (4.71 in the 40) by NFL talent evaluators, so Oregon's career sack leader slid to the seventh round of the 2009 draft. But in his first two preseason games, he's collected three sacks, a forced fumble and an interception. That reinforces a valuable lesson – study the tape, not the measurables.
Final thought: I've got this feeling that come Nov. 1, Broncos owner Pat Bowlen is going to ask his first-year coach Josh McDaniels, "Tell me again why we traded our Pro Bowl quarterback [Jay Cutler]?"
Rick Gosselin shares his NFL analysis Wednesdays through Fridays on the NFL blog.
Rick Gosselin is the author of GoodFellows, the story of Detroit's surprisingly successful St. Ambrose football teams of the '50s and '60s.