Rich Tandler's Real Redskins

Montgomery out 10 days with broken hand

Defensive tackle Anthony Montgomery of the Washington Redskins broke a bone in his right hand during Saturday's intrasquad scrimmage. He is going to undergo surgery to shore up the bone and he will be sidelined for about 10 days.

As injuries requiring surgery go, this one seems to be pretty minor. DT's hands become banged up early in camp and they don't get better until sometime in March or April. A broken bone is more serious than a bruise or a cut, of course, but it's only a matter of degree.

Montgomery was something of an underachiever in college at Minnesota, not coming close to unlocking the potential that was within his 6-6, 315-lb. frame. He still played well enough to be drafted by the Redskins in the fifth round and to make the team.

Still, he was perceived as lazy until a light went on in between his rookie and second seasons. Montgomery worked on his conditioning and honed his technique and earned a starting job last year. It would behoove both the player and the Redskins if Montgomery were to continue along the same improvement path.

It's likely that Kedric Golston will fill in with the first team while Montgomery is out. In 2006 Golston got several starts as a rookie, but Montgomery beat him out of the first-string job in camp last year.

In the NFL, one man's pain is usually another man's gain. Montgomery's absence will give guys like Matthias Askew and Ryan Boschetti a few more reps to make their cases for either making the team or at least being at the top of the call list should an injury occur.

That's a spot that Boschetti has occupied on a few occasions. He has bounced off and on the roster since coming to the Redskins as an undrafted free agent in 2004.

Campbell catching on

The word I've been getting out of Redskins Park is that Jason Campbell has been struggling somewhat while trying to pick up Jim Zorn's offense.

That's not what I saw today.

Campbell was very sharp in the morning session. On swing passes, he hit backs in perfect stride. While he didn't hit on every long pass, every one of them was a well-placed rainbow, aimed at the outside shoulder of the receiver.

The most impressive pass of the day, however, was his last. He fired downfield to Antwaan Randle El. The pass eluded the outstretched hands of a couple of defenders and found Randle El in the crowd.

The fourth year QB unbuttoned his chin strap, pushed up his helmet, and made a slight nod towards Randle El as the horn sounded to end practice.

Now, I did note that the offense wasn't running particularly complex plays. It's possible the Jim Zorn designed the practice to give Campbell a confidence boost. There weren't many of the inside slant patterns that require absolute precision to hit the receiver in stride. It was Football Passing 101 for the most part.

Still, Campbell had to execute and he did.

The pressure on Campbell to perform ticked up a notch last Sunday. When the Redskins made the trade for 33-year-old defensive end Jason Taylor, giving up a second-round pick and over $8 million in salary cap money in the process, the signal was unmistakable—the organization isn't going to take a mulligan this year. They aren't writing off 2008 due to the presence of Zorn and the fact that Campbell has to learn his third new offense in four NFL seasons. The new coach is expected to get his quarterback up to speed by September 4. Period.

Campbell has two years left on his rookie contact. There has been little talk about an extension since the Redskins really don't know what they have in Campbell at this point. They'd like to write him out a nice, fat bonus check along the lines of the ones that Tony Romo and Marc Bulger received in the past year. But they don't yet know if he's worth it.

And Campbell would like to cash that check but he knows that he has to earn it.

If he has more practices like today's, and if he can translate those practices into solid performances in games, he'll get that chance.

Edit: After I wrote this, I wandered by the official Redskins blog and Matt Terl had posted a transcript of an interview he had with Peter King of Sports Illustrated, who was out at Redskins Park today. Among other topics, the subject of Campbell's practice today came up:

Terl: Okay. Finally: tell us something you saw at camp today that's not going to make it into your Postcard From Camp, but that Redskins fans would want to know.

King: I'll tell you something that IS going to make it into my postcard: I thought Jason Campbell had one of the best camp practices I've ever seen a quarterback have.

Really!

I mean, if he had four balls hit the ground in two hours, I'll be surprised. I mean, the touch on this passes, his accuracy downfield, I was highly, highly impressed.

Now, I've seen him a few times over the years, and I've thought he's okay, but I never saw him like I saw him today.

Not that I'm so insecure as to need affirmation of my analysis from a pretty well-respected writer, but it doesn't hurt.

The Z Man

When practice was over, Zorn gathered the team for a good 10 minutes or so. Instead of just giving the lunch and meeting schedule as I've always seen coaches do, he was using it as a teaching moment for the entire team.

I'm sure that the players would rather be inside hearing all of that, but it loses its impact by the passage of time.

After the group session they broke off by positions and the assistant coaches addressed then for a short period of time before they headed to the ice baths and the locker room.

That's it for now. Later today I'll post some pictures and go into a little more detail about what I saw today, especially the quarterbacks.

Sellers

If these practices are any indication--and they aren't always--Sellers will have a substantial role in this offense. He's been catching swing passes and running the quick hitter up the middle with regularity.
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Goal line - betts ok

The offense and defense are battling to a draw. Sellers poweded in once and caught a swing pass for another TD. A couple of times, though, the back got stonewalled and Andre Carter nailed Shelton for a loss of about seven.

Betts is back in; no more such "reports" unless the cart comes out.

Betts nicked, no cart

No trying to create panic out there but Ladell betts limped off just now. However, the dreaded cart did not come out.
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Here

Here is the scene at Redskins Park. A mob scene, but it's great to be around a bunch of Skins fans again.

Reporting live from. . .

. . . The McDonald's in Merrifield, VA. A change in plans delayed my arrival to Redskins Park. Should be there by about 9:00 or so.

Before even going out there, however, I am officially changing my view that James Thrash faces an uphill battle to make the team. I wouldn't say that he's on the 53 man roster for sure, but he's doing what he does: hustling, doing whatever is asked of him and then some.

That leaves Anthony Mix in a precarious position. He's not been doing much to get noticed and considering that the team drafted two big receivers he needs to do more than just impressively fill out a uniform.

By the way, this is a pretty nice Mickey D's. Some stuffed chairs, free Wi Fi and a TV. Drop by if you're in the area.

Thursday: Training camp live blog

On Friday morning, starting at about 8:00 AM EDT or so, I'll be running a live blog from training camp at Redskins Park.

Armed with my trusty Blackberry Pearl, I'll be taking pictures and sending along my thoughts and impressions as the Redskins toil away in the July heat. I'll also bring along my "real" camera and later in the day I'll post some more pictures and give you a recap of the day.

I won't be able to see comments to the blog posts while I'm out there, so I'll include an email address in my initial article for you to ask questions and send along comments. I'll pass them along into the main blog as best I can.

This should be fun and I hope you can drop by here on Friday to check it out.

The Trade: After further review

This isn't about to become all Jason Taylor all the time, but with things settling back to normal at Redskins Park as the grind of training camp sets in, it's a good time to take one last look back at the trade that brought him to Washington.

The more I think about it, the more I like it.

I'm not yet drinking the Kool-Aid, but it's better than I thought it was at first blush. What I like is that it makes the Redskins better right now. And, if you look at what they gave up the way that the NFL's movers and shakers do on draft day, it's not as steep as it seems.

When trades involving draft picks are made, selections in future years are devalued by a round. For example, when the Redskins traded for the pick to draft Chris Cooley, they gave up a 2005 second-rounder to get the 2004 third. That's standard practice since the receiving team gets the use of the player for a year before having to pay for him.

So, since there is a football season in between now and the time that the Redskins will pay for the pickup of Taylor, you could say that the Redskins gave up the equivalent of a third-round pick (the '10 sixth gets devalued down to an undrafted free agent) for Jason Taylor.

That's a homeristic slant, no doubt, but there is some legitimacy to it.

The Redskins are now in a box

The major negative in the deal is that it's the only one the Redskins can make this year. They are out of cap room. Their stock of '09 draft picks is drying up. Should they find themselves in need at another position, such as cornerback, they're stuck either making do with what they have or they will have to put street free agents into uniform and give them meaningful playing time.

Then again, maybe it's a good idea for this bunch to have its hands tied, what with Brett Favre actively being shopped by the Packers. Plus you never know when the Bengals will tire of Chad Johnson's antics. The Taylor trade wasn't disastrous and now Vinny Cerrato and company don't have any more matches with which to play.

Time will tell

Of course, we won't definitively know if this was a good deal or a colossal blunder until sometime in the future. If Taylor plays for three years and he gets double-digit sacks each year the feeling will be that the Redskins got a reasonable return on their investment of picks and money. If they get less than that out of Taylor, the view will be that they, once again, paid a high price to bring on an aging star just as he started to hit the downside of his career.