Portis Says Skins Were Too Loose

Over the past month, the Redskins provided some of the greatest and strangest blogging material imaginable for the first month of an NFL season. As the days went on, they seemed happier and happier, more and more relaxed. Still, before today's game, one player and official after another insisted that they would not overlook this Rams team, that the focus would remain the same. Vinny Cerrato even said on ESPN 980's pre-game show that this week's practices were some of the team's best of the year. But after the stunning loss, Clinton Portis quite pointedly disagreed.

"I think it was loose," he said during a searingly honest post-game press conference. "It was people smiling everywhere: us, coach. Coach really got on us a lot this week, and in previous weeks he didn't have to. You know, I think we came in and we had a great, probably our best Saturday practice all year long, as far as knowing the game plan and knowing the stakes, but Friday I think we had some mistakes and coach had to get on us Thursday and Friday. We kind of just got loose."

Later, he was asked whether today's offense seemed snake-bit, with the weird turnovers and the costly penalties, and he again pointedly disagreed, steering the conversation back to the issue of focus. Which is maybe not what you'd expect from a player who recently dressed up in camou to hunt fake Rams on Chris Cooley's blog.

"I think it's a focus thing," Portis said of today's offensive performance. "You know, the previous four games the focus was there. We knew that we couldn't go out and put ourselves in that position. We come out today and all of the sudden you start to get patted on the back and you feel like you're a better team, 'Ok, let me try to do this.' And we turn the ball over, and 'Oh, don't worry, we can come back.' And that didn't work."

More from Portis:
On Pete Kendall taking his fumble hard: "I mean, I think we should all take it hard, because we have a golden opportunity to establish ourselves and we let it slip away. We're playing up and down to our competition week in and week out. We come out and play tough games, and every game shouldn't be tough. You know, it's some games that we really should come in and dominate. I think this was one of those games. We came in, we dominated as far as stats. And point-wise and turnover-wise, we lost the battle. We can't turn the ball over. As we say every week, we're not good enough to overcome turnovers and penalties."

On whether he thinks the Redskins are better than the Rams: "Well, I mean, I think so, but it don't matter what I think, they got the win. So I really think we just need to go back to ground zero and keep the media away from Redskins Park and focus back in. And I think the headlines got good, guys started high-fiving and yelling, 'We here!' And, you know, we got three games that we could win, and we hadn't thought ahead all season long until this week. And that's gonna hurt us.

"You know, we overlooked a team that came here ready to play. And me, honestly, we've been the underdogs since I've been here. And we came out with fight every game we was the underdog. Win, lose or draw, we came out to fight. So for us to expect St. Louis not to come out and fight, I don't know how we let them shock us like that."

(washingtonpost.com)