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Skins-Eagles Winners & Losers
By Chris Mottram | December 22, 2008
WINNERS:
Ryan Plackemeier — He leads the “winners” for the second straight week. Yesterday, he was quite possibly the MVP of the game, landed five of his eight punts inside the 20.
LaRon Landry — This was one of the few games all season when LaRon looked like the safety we’d dreamed he could be. He was all over the field, blowing up Eagles and, of course, made the game-saving tackle. That play has to go down as the single greatest moment for a season full of numerous highs and lows.
Jason Taylor — Similarly, this was the defensive end that we had hoped to see all season. Two sacks and forced the fumble that gave the Skins a short field and led to the only touchdown of the game.
DeAngelo Hall — For all the shit we give Vinny Cerrato, we must give credit where it’s due. Hall has turned out to be a great pick-up and arguably the best corner on the team the last few weeks. The only problem now is that he’s gonna want to get paid in the offseason.
London Fletcher — All over the field, as always, and recovered the Taylor-forced fumble. This is not to be overlooked: There is nothing more difficult for a professional football player than scooping up the ball.
Greg Blache – His defense shut down Philly all day, with the exception of the one big Westbrook play on a mismatch. That, combined with the motivational one-liner of the season, makes G.B. a big winner:
“Like I told them, I thought they needed some emotional and attitudinal Viagra,” Blache said during his post-game Comcast SportsNet interview. “We needed to get a little spike out of them today.”
LOSERS:
Shaun Suisham — Repeat: pack shit, get out. Certainly, we can’t expect the worst kicker in the league to make a 54-yarder, but that kick would’ve been short from 44 yards.
Danny Smith — He’s been a dead man walking for weeks. Two more huge special teams fuck-ups yesterday: The aforementioned field goal attempt (Zorn deserves part of that blame, of course) and Kareem Moore with the most blatant block in the back you’ll ever see, negating another big return from Santana Moss.
MEDIUM:
Clinton Portis — He only averaged 3.1 per carry, but his effort is commendable. Suffering from all sorts of injuries, he fought for every one of those 70 yards, especially the three feet at the goal line that was the difference in the game.
Jim Zorn — The 54-yarder is completely inexcusable. Seriously, there is no explanation whatsoever for why he thought Suisham could get it even close. However, his play calling on the (short) touchdown drive was on point, particularly the call to give Portis the ball on 3rd and goal from the one. He clearly learned from last week’s mistakes.
Jason Campbell – Another typical J.C. game: He didn’t make many “explosive” plays, but also made very few mistakes and didn’t turn the ball over.
Topics: Philly Sucks, Redskins, Winners & Losers | 9 Comments »
December 22nd, 2008 at 11:07 AM
Do you know who Jason Campbell reminds me off?
Eric Hayes.
Remember a few years ago when Hayes and Vasquez were freshman. Almost everybody hated Vasquez for his constant turn overs and ill advised shots and loved Hayes for his heady passing and automatic shooting.
The thing is, Eric Hayes will never win a game for the University of Maryland. He won’t. He probably won’t lose any games for us either. Eric Hayes plays to avoid bad plays and because of this never makes amazing plays.
The truth is (and this pains me to admit it) QBs are much better off with a Vasquez type of personality. Look at Brett Favre, there is no way he has more physical ability than Jason Campbell. I also doubt his drug addled brain understands the game any better than Campbell. The only thing he has is a pair of nuts (that he won’t break for nobody). That’s why he has a ring and is a first ballot HOFer.
It hurts to say that because Brett Favre deserves a life sentence at a taint licking factory, but its true.
Campbell is the best back up quarterback in the NFL right now. The problem is he starts.
December 22nd, 2008 at 11:08 AM
/still thawing out
December 22nd, 2008 at 11:54 AM
“There is nothing more difficult for a professional football player than scooping up the ball.”
Ken Hamlin agrees.
December 22nd, 2008 at 1:11 PM
That 54 yard field goal attempt was a joke. There’s no excuse for sending Suisham onto the field outside the 30.
Not to mention the fact that we lined up for it, took a timeout, and lined up for it again! Really? With the extra time allotted by the timeout, Zorn still concluded the best bet was to kick a FG there?
That said, I look forward to year two of the Zorn era and am happy that 8 wins should keep Snyder from blowing the whole thing up.
December 22nd, 2008 at 1:34 PM
I can’t believe there’s only four comments on this. It’s not like this is a week that lots of people take off work or something…weird.
December 22nd, 2008 at 1:37 PM
From the stands, that play at the end was especially gut-wrenching, mostly because they didn’t show one replay in the stadium, even as the refs were reviewing it.
December 22nd, 2008 at 3:36 PM
Thawing out as well…had free tix, brought a philly fan with me, too bad we rolled out early!!!
December 22nd, 2008 at 5:47 PM
Not in the skins game, but just wanted to say:
LOSER – Rob Parker. Poor timing and just not funny.
December 23rd, 2008 at 9:14 PM
May I add the Philly loser who screamed “He’s dead” to my as I passed him wearing my Sean Taylor jersey. Philly sucks.