Finding Life After Death

"I think people failed to realize how I got hurt, I got hurt on some fluke [expletive], throwing myself around, trying to figure out how to help this team win a preseason game," Portis said of his shoulder injury last season. "All of a sudden I'm not durable. I never worried about being hurt or injury prone. When I get dinged or banged, I'm going to deal with it. I run off for a play or two and I'm right back out there. Other players come off and they're out for the game. I feel like I'm the toughest player on the field and that's how I'm always going to feel."

Let's not forget about the player who called his teammates with the news of Taylor's death, the man who helped shepherd the Redskins through grief as much as Gibbs.

After his 104-yard outing last night, he was asked if he felt like he silenced his critics.

"When I really speak my mind and shut 'em up, let me get a Super Bowl ring," he said. "Then I'm goin' to show you all the real me. I got a lot of [expletive] to say."

After his second touchdown, Portis lifted his jersey to reveal the images of Taylor on his undershirt. He then sprinted toward the bleachers.

"Sean and he were just like brothers," said Rhonnel Hearn, Clinton's mother. Her torso was leaning over the railing of FedEx Field behind the end zone where the players exit the field. She had just finished her postgame ritual for the past four years here, bear-hugging her son as he left the field.

"We would have Sean over for dinner when he first came here," Hearn said. "They were so close. It just seems like he's still here, if you want to know the truth. I feel like Clinton is playing for both of them. I feel like Clinton feels that way too."

Portis's mother stood in a burgundy rain slicker, smiling through the droplets. Her son wiped his hands on his mud-caked pants and began walking toward the home locker room for the final time this season, a season that somehow, miraculously, became redemptive for the Redskins. It now goes on, in the memory of Clinton Portis's best friend.