(photo by Brian Murphy)
Long after most everyone else had cleared out of the locker room following the Washington Redskins season-ending 27-24 loss to the San Francisco 49ers, we found ourselves sitting side-by-side with linebacker Marcus Washington.
In the interest of full disclosure, Washington happens to be one of our favorite players currently sporting the burgundy and gold. He’s always been very engaging and highly entertaining whenever we’ve had the chance to chat with him.
After catching him up on the results from the previous night’s UFC pay-per-view, we asked Washington if he’d heard the rumblings that major changes could be happening at Redskins Park this offseason and if/when he anticipates hearing from the organization regarding his future with the team.
“To be honest, I don’t really get into that stuff,” Washington said. “I try not to mess with it much. I have an agent and I pay him to deal with that stuff. Obviously I want to be here and we’ll see what happens.”
As we continued to chat, we asked Marcus about the importance of continuity and told him about our previous conversation with cornerback Fred Smoot, who said that it was the main reason teams like New England and Pittsburgh are routinely among the best in the NFL. That’s when Washington gave quite possibly the best metaphor ever, in a way that only Marcus could.
“I look at it like a typing class,” Washington started. “The first time you take a typing class you always have to look down at the keys and you can’t type very fast. But as time goes on and you get more familiar, things become easier and you can begin to type things without even looking down or whatever. Now imagine if every so often someone came in and changed where the keys were. Now you’ve got the space bar up here and you’re looking around saying, ‘Where the fuck is the semi-colon?’ That’s what it’s like on a defense when you’re constantly changing it up.”
It sounds so simple, but Washington’s perspective on constantly changing personnel forces casual fans to see things a bit differently. If a player has to constantly look over his shoulder to see who is lining up next to him and wonder if that person is going to be where they’re supposed to when the game is on the line, it’s a huge distraction.
Its common sense – teams with the same coaches, players and schemes week after week have a greater chance for success as opposed to teams who have a new defensive coordinator every other year or teams that bring in half a dozen new players into the rotation every season.
So here’s our message, once again, to the front office – resist the urge to make radical changes. If you must get rid of a Shawn Springs or a Jason Taylor, so be it. But try to keep stability on the defensive side of the ball as much as possible. This is a fourth-ranked defense that at times showed flashes of dominance. Just image what can happen once they truly get comfortable and find that fucking semi-colon.
6 comments
December 30, 2008 at 1:12 pm
Whoa, whoa, Ms. Lippy, the part of the story I don’t like, is how the little boy gave up looking for Happy after an hour. He didn’t put posters up or anything, he just sat on the porch like a goone and waited. That little boy’s gotta think, you gotta a pet, you got a responsibility. If your dog is lost you don’t look for an hour and call it quits. You get your ass out there and YOU FIND THAT FUCKIN DOG!…..or semi-colon
Knibb High Football Rules!
December 30, 2008 at 4:40 pm
I know where the fuck is the semi-colon.
December 30, 2008 at 4:42 pm
HAHAHA,MW is awesome.
December 30, 2008 at 4:51 pm
We’ve kept essentially the same defense for the past 5 years that Marcus Washington has been here. During that time, we’ve never gone in and completely “blown up” the defense. We’ve added a couple players at a time as necessary to upgrade to defense. Yes, they were the 4th ranked defense, but they couldnt pressure the QB, create sacks or turnovers and they fell apart in the 4th quarter of every game in the 2nd half of the season…. and you think keeping the defense as-is is going to help things? No. Taylor, Springs, and Washington are old and injuryprone. They need to go. Our DTs cant pressure anyone. McIntosh gets picked apart by good offenses. If there has ever been a defense that needs to get blown up, its this one, right now.
December 30, 2008 at 11:20 pm
Bighairedaristocrat,
You’re on crack or something. Our defense kept this sorry ass coached team at 500. We have a playoff defense. What kind of a fool complains about a top 5 defense?
The real problem with this team is the coach, the scheme and Campbell.
The WCO sucks, Zorn is incapable of adjusting, Campbell is too dumb to read coverage schemes, has no touch and is too slow releasing the ball once he guesses who to throw it to.
Look no further than the Baltimore Raisins. Rookie coach, rookie QB.
December 31, 2008 at 2:42 pm
Fred-
I agree that Campbell and Zorn are a match made in Hell and prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that Cerrato has no idea what he’s doing. The offense is the teams biggest problem, by far.
However, our defense benefitted greatly by opposing offensive mistakes more any redskins defense i can remember in recent memory and they are only going to get worse if we don’t replace guys like Washington, Taylor, Griffin, Springs, Smoot, and McIntosh next year. We have a defense than can play excellent football 3/4 of the game but they killed us when it mattered the most (Yes, i realize that if our offense was even half-competent, we never would have been in close games to begin with). Getting rid of those aging, declining players will clear over 20M in salary cap space — and we can use that space to upgrade both our defense AND our offense.
Hall, Rogers (if he’s not traded), Landry, and Horton give us an excellent starting secondary. Montgommery/Alexander and Carter are half a decent DL. We need dramatically upgrade the other 2 DL spots and then pair two average LBs with Fletcher. We can upgrade those 4 positions for the price of Griffin and Washington alone.