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Redskins Have A Lot to Mourn
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"I don't know what to say," wide receiver Santana Moss said. "As an organization, yeah, there's been a lot of stuff we've gone through, a lot of stuff we've had to deal with, that you just can't" prepare for.
Just this month, tight end Todd Yoder left the team to attend his grandmother's funeral -- they were very close -- and safety Vernon Fox did the same after one of his best friends died. When it comes to off-the-field losses, conversation is Zorn's coping mechanism.
"I'm not one to try to shy away from that and not talk about it," Zorn said, "because it's a lot easier to deal with it if you try to get an essence of it."
Upshaw's death touched all corridors of the game. Zorn, a former star quarterback with the Seattle Seahawks, played against Upshaw's Oakland Raiders during the height of that rivalry, and was represented by Upshaw in the union, too.
"We didn't like each other when we played against each other, but he was a tremendous athlete and a tremendous leader," Zorn said. "Not only a tremendous inspiration for the Raiders. . . . But just his leadership in the NFLPA and the amount of history that he was involved in changing in the NFL was dramatic to say the least. . . . He was very vocal and very staunch in the stand that the players took early in the '82 strike and the '87 strike, and then to kind of find a working relationship with the NFL owners as well, was, I think, very dramatic as well. So he made a very deep mark in the history of the NFL, and he'll be greatly missed."
With the weekend approaching, and the regular season just two weeks away, Zorn quickly found himself taking questions about Saturday's game, injured players, and rookies on the cusp of making the team. The Redskins will try to comfort Bugel as best they can when he returns, but must tend to football matters as well.
"As bad as we feel today for Buges and Brenda, and you hug 'em and your emotions get the best of you for a moment," said director of sports medicine Bubba Tyer, in his 37th year with the Redskins. "Then you turn around and you've got a meeting. You're going over the injuries and we're preparing for the game. So you just find a way to do it. We're all in the same boat and we all grieve in different ways, but we all find a way to go on because there's a game on Sunday."
