After Utter Disaster, A Kind of Hush

By Mike Wise
Saturday, July 28, 2007

"The biggest negative in pro sports is when teams and players think more of themselves than they should."

-- Joe Gibbs, Training Camp 2006

It took a full year to absorb the message.

After one sticky day in Ashburn, it's not the heat or the humidity, it's the humility. It's everywhere the Washington Redskins walk and talk.

"I'm going to mind my own business," Clinton Portis said yesterday. "I'm going to keep Clinton Portis out of trouble."

It's a little disconcerting when the pride-swallowing reality of a 5-11 season has made even Mr. Popoff pipe down. But Portis, the most loquacious among them, is not alone.

Marcus Washington: "We had a couple of pieces of humble pie last year. I think that was good for us. I think we needed that."

"They definitely should be [showing humility]," Jon Jansen said. "There's not much to pat yourself on the back for being 5-11."

The contrast from 2006 was stark. Day one of training camp a year ago, Mark Brunell crowed, "Anything short of going all the way would be a disappointment." Not since he was with the Patriots, the since-departed David Patten said, had he felt his team was going to the Super Bowl. Portis and tight end Chris Cooley also mentioned the big game.

It was part of the lexicon, something they all believed was attainable after they won their last five games and returned to the playoffs in 2005. Gibbs warned his team of its boastful nature a year ago, told them to stop flapping their gums and inciting their opponents before the season began. But that was before they tried to re-invent the wheel on offense, Portis went down in the first preseason game, Brunell kept aging with each snap and the season was very much over after a terrible Tennessee team took them out in mid-October.

And if Gibbs is honest with himself, he knows he contributed to the complacency by essentially proclaiming "Super Bowl or bust" during an offseason team meeting more than a year ago. No more.

If 2006's unofficial motto was "We're in it to win it," it's now a sobering "Buck up and shut up."

They're back to playing possum. Unable to prove themselves and their congregation right a year ago, they're back to proving everybody wrong, circa 2005. Destiny's darlings was too cliche for them; they're better off playing Adversity's Children. The Redskins are using the next five weeks to reassess who they are and what they're about. Day one this year and Gibbs proclaimed his team out of the prognostication business.

"We don't mind our guys being themselves, havin' fun, talkin' to you guys," Gibbs said. "There's just certain things that you don't say. Certainly there's not going to be any predictions after last year."

Walking that line between humility and developing the serrated edge you need to win in the NFL is a difficult task. The Redskins don't want to come across as thinking any less of their playoff chances; after all, many of the players who went 10-6 and two rounds into the postseason after the 2005 regular season were the same guys getting beat deep a year ago. But something happens in the mind of an elite athlete when he doesn't just get his comeuppance, but he's flat-out embarrassed. He retreats inside. He stops talking in platitudes and starts talking about a plain old scrimmage. The process of recovering from 5-11 doesn't begin with any bravado; it begins with spare words and being honest with yourself.

"It's always still your goal, that's everyone's goal in training camp is to make it all the way," quarterback Jason Campbell said. "But the one thing we have to learn this year is we can't look ahead. Last year we came in here off a 10-6 season and we came on probably feeling a little high about ourselves. And we got humbled real early."

Gibbs trotted out his blame-me schtick again, which, in person, actually comes across as genuine. "I was terrible," he said. "I was 5-11." He snickered and added, "I think I'm the one who deserves the most credit for getting us there."

He tipped off his 2007 philosophy a bit, conceding that his power running game near the end of the season far exceeded the passing game that went kaput with Brunell. A decent running attack, he knows, is a neophyte starting quarterback's most reliable friend.

What was most telling yesterday was the promise from Portis that he didn't need to be opining about many more things than his ability to again become one of the game's premier running backs. He said early in the offseason in a BET interview that the Redskins would make it to the NFC championship game. There was no such proclamation yesterday.

"I'm going to keep Clinton Portis focused. I'm going to keep Clinton Portis on top of his game," Portis said. "Outside of that, you can't ask me about the next man. I don't know how anybody feels. I don't know how anybody's thinking. I don't know what anyone else is going through. The only thing I know is what's going on in Clinton Portis's life and that's the only thing I can control."

He added, "You know, we [didn't] get to the Super Bowl, so what they feel like now, bust?"

No. But it's good to tone expectations down. Joe Gibbs, who would need to go 11-5 to get back to .500 in his second stint with the club, appreciates that kind of humility.