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Blades Stays on Top of It All
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The Redskins take a wait-and-see approach each week with Washington, who also missed four full games and parts of others last season because of hamstring problems. After Washington aggravated the injury in the season-opening loss to the New York Giants, defensive coordinator Greg Blache and linebackers coach Kirk Olivadotti instructed Blades to take the majority of his practice reps at Washington's position.
Since he rarely has practiced at the other linebacker positions this season, "he's Fletch in our meetings," Olivadotti said. "We make him make the calls in our meetings. Obviously, it's different when you're looking at it [on tape]. It's one thing in air conditioning and another thing when you're out in it in the game, but he's communicating the stuff all the time."
Blades, listed at 5 feet 10 and 250 pounds, was a three-time all-Big East performer for Pittsburgh, where he played strong-side and middle linebacker. The Redskins envisioned Blades being a consistent performer on special teams, but the 179th overall pick in the 2007 draft said he believed he was capable of more. "I had a good career in college, and I was kind of upset when I got drafted" in the later rounds, Blades said. "But my dad, you know, he's funny.
"He knew I was upset, but he just kept telling me I got drafted in a good situation. He said it was a good situation to learn from London, Marcus and the guys here. And he was definitely right about that. These guys are the best group of guys I've ever been around. There are no egos here."
Bennie Blades was a safety with the Detroit Lions and Seattle Seahawks, making the Pro Bowl for the Lions after the 1991 season. For most of H.B. Blades's life, his grandparents raised him in Florida, but he spent a few years with his father in Detroit and has fond memories of practices and games.
But it was Al Blades who had the biggest influence on H.B. When Al Blades played safety for the University of Miami (Bennie and Brian Blades also starred for the Hurricanes), H.B., who was then a teenager, tagged along to workouts. H.B. looked up to other Miami stars such as wide receiver Santana Moss, now Blades's teammate.
Al Blades, a father of two daughters, was 26 when the car in which he was a passenger went off a bridge and into a canal in Miami in March 2003, killing him. Blades attended Pittsburgh, in part, because he did not want to play in the long shadow cast by his father and uncles.
"He has a great pedigree," Washington said. "He comes from a great family that played the game the right way, and H.B. does, too. When you see where a guy like H.B. was drafted, that's one of the things about this league that [causes] teams to miss good players. People have that mentality about a certain way a guy should look.
"A lot of times, the best players aren't those specimens. A lot of times, the best players are those guys that you look at sometimes and go, 'How is he doing that?' But you can't measure somebody's heart. They don't have any type of test at the combine to measure a guy's heart. That's what H.B. has. And he's a hell of a player."
