One Little Hit. So Much Controversey.

Imagine all the ink that would have been spilled if Campbell had blown an ACL.  The Washington Post wrote an article criticizing the Redskins for the lack of organizational depth on the o-line which allowed Campbell’s left side to be covered by a rookie and a journeyman this weekend.

The article makes some reasonable points but I would argue that the Skins have had quite a lot of o-line injuries besides Samuels and Wade. Injuries to Fabini and Whittacker have caused us to shuffle more than we’d like.

At any rate, Coach Gibbs fired back today on Redskins.com. I love that coach is standing up for his guys and he is doing it with flair and fire:

“There was a newspaper article [Tuesday] morning about Stephon, and I want to say that [article] was inaccurate. I don’t know where the information came from.

“Stephon is a great story. He’s a local guy who has started in place of a Pro Bowl player at left tackle and he against some real good pass-rushers. He has been outstanding.

“Over that period of time, [Heyer] has given up no sacks.”

The quote goes on to argue that Heyer wasn’t at fault on the hit that was heard around the Redskins world. Right or wrong (and we’ll get back to that) about whether Heyer was at fault on that play, Gibbs is certainly right that Heyer should be applauded by the Post for his incredible work thus-far. The man is an undrafted free agent who has been asked to step in during a tough time. Why the Post decided to make an example of Heyer is beyond me.  Even if the Skins need more depth at o-line (which maybe they do), to criticize the play of Heyer in the process is sloppy journalism.

One last thing, you may have seen this already at other Skins blogs, but Dillweed at postgameheroes.com does a really impressive job of breaking down the play that apparently nearly ended the career of the best QB since Theismann.  OK, so I’m exaggerating a little. But here is his breakdown.

The first verdict (and mine as well) here is that perhaps Heyer took a pretty deep drop in order to seal the corner and got caught on an inside move.  Interestingly, Joe Bugel (who knows more than I do about this by perhaps a gazillion percent) said, “Pittsburgh ran a good stunt and the guard [Pucillo] didn’t deliver him enough to Stephon.”

Fair enough, Joe.  I’ll buy it.  Sounds basically like “stuff happens.”  In fact, that’s the end of the quote.  Joe again: “You can’t blame either of them for that. That happens. But Stephon’s improving in leaps and bounds since OTAs.” Yup, stuff happens. 

In other words, if we go back into the film of all the games Chris Samuels has ever played, we’ll probably find one where that happened, too.  Good to know…except a bit scary, too.

-DW