Redskins-Bengals

I’ve been out of town the past few days, as I took a trip up to the Bay. It was a nice trip. I caught the Redskins game last night against the Bengals, and I actually thought it went pretty well even though it seemed many were down on the Redskins’ performance in a 19-3 loss. To me, the Redskins’ starters looked better than the Bengals’ starters, and that’s the most important thing to evaluate in the pre-season. They played very well early, apart from an interception by Mark Brunell and a flea flicker by the Bengals. Trick plays and bad breaks are the exception, not the rule to NFL football, and scores don’t matter in the preseason. There were, however, four points of concern. Two were the injuries to Clinton Portis and Chris Clemons. The Portis injury got more discussion, but the Clemons injury seems more serious, and he’s an important defensive backup. As for Portis, it sounds like he will be fine. He’s a phenomenal player, but the Redskins should be fine anyway with Ladell Betts, who is a quality running back. I’m not too worried about that, although obviously I hope Clinton is fine and is healthy for the entire season. I would feel differently were I worried about that. The third point of concern was Todd Collins, who looked awful. He doesn’t look like he can be relied upon at quarterback, so the Redskins better hope Jason Campbell is ready if Mark Brunell goes down. Otherwise they may regret trading away Patrick Ramsey for pennies on the dollar. On the plus side, I thought Campbell looked good, so it was an encouraging showing from him. There is potential there. The fourth concern was nickel cornerback Kenny Wright, who did not look good. A bad cornerback doesn’t have to play much for you to notice, because he will get burned the few times he is in. I hope Wright turns out to be better than he looked, and he does have experience that would suggest he’s not that bad. But he has to play much better.