Who Is Policing These So Called Football Experts

Don't get me wrong, as a lifelong fan of the Washington Redskins it makes me happy to see the nation's sports writers finally give the team some credit.

What bothers me is that none of these "experts" seem to actually watch the sport they write about.  This leads me to three questions that I have for all the DC area beat writers and national sports network analysts.

1) Why is anyone surprised that Washington is going to make the playoffs and contend for a Super Bowl title?

In the past three years only the New York Giants and Seattle have made the NFC playoffs more times than Washington.  Only Tampa Bay, Dallas and Chicago have made it an equal number of times and of that list, only Chicago and Washington have actually won at least one game.  

Not the anointed darling of ESPN the Dallas Cowboys, not the power ranking starlet Carolina Panthers or New Orleans Saints.  

Also take notice that if you factor in what is most likely to happen this year you would have to conclude that over the last 4 years the NFC the Rankings are clearly: 1) NY Giants 2) Chicago Bears 3) Seattle Seahawks 4) Washington Redskins.  

So anyone who has any respect for the "how far you go is how good you are" concept could not be surprised.  The Redskins have a defense that lines you up and hits you squarely in the mouth and a run centric offense that is the epitome of calm, cool and collected.  It’s no surprise they will be in the playoffs three of the past four seasons.

2) Why is anyone surprised Jason Campbell is adjusting well to the West Coast offense?

Jason Campbell is a 6’ 5”, 233 lb. first round draft pick hand selected by Hall of Fame coach Joe Gibbs (who probably knows a little something about quarterbacks as he won three Super Bowls with three different ones).  

He saw something in Campbell that caused him to trade three draft picks for him. I'm guessing that his senior year at Auburn, where he led his team to a 13-0 finish, might have has something to do with it.  

Auburn’s offense outscored opponents 417-147 that year and as for Campbell, well he just completed 69.8 percent of his passes while throwing for 2700 yards, scoring 23 touchdowns and throwing only seven interceptions.  

Oh yeah, he was also named SEC Player of the Year and MVP of the SEC Championship game that year and holds the Auburn record for career completion percentage with 64.6 percent

3) Why is anyone surprised that Clinton Portis is leading the league in rushing?

Clinton Portis was just the second true freshman since 1975 to start for the University of Miami.  That year he set a freshman record for five 100-yard rushing performances. 

Two years later he would rush for 1,200 yards and 10 touchdowns.  He shares the record for 100-yard rushing games with Edgerrin James (14).

In the NFL, CP has never rushed for less than 1,250 yards in a season where he played more than eight games (His 2004 season was truncated by injury) and has rushed for more than 1,500 yards in three of his previous 6 seasons. 

Barring injury he will break that barrier again. 

So in only seven years, his team will have made the playoffs four times and he will have run for 1,500 yards in four of those seasons.  In fact, only Barry Sanders, LaDainian Tomlinson and Jim Brown have rushed for more yards per season in their career than Clinton Portis. 

Only Eric Dickerson (4), Barry Sanders (5), Walter Payton (4) Edgerrin James (4) have more seasons over 1,500 yards than Portis and CP is 27 years old! 

Clinton Portis is clearly the second best active running back in the NFL and an argument can be made that he has better upside than LT given he will have more seasons with more than 1,500 yards rushing after this year (LT has three but only 500 yards this year).

These "experts" (yes I plan to put it in quotes every time I refer to these knuckle-heads) bother me because they not only get paid for their analysis, but that some media outlet actually gives them space to publish their poorly thought out and under-researched drivel.

One last note: a perfect example is Chris Collinsworth, or Captain Bonehead as I like to call him.

He was on ESPN First Take this morning and said "The teams that we just knew were going to be there are just not there."  

Here's why Chris: The NFL is designed for parity and it's no longer 1980 so a team can totally rebuild itself into a playoffs staple in three years or less as long as they run the football, stop the run, maintain consistency in the locker room and coaching staff and don't pick up "low character guys."