Retire In Peace Clinton Portis

the highest stepper of a low period

The great and wonderful Clinton Portis announced his retirement from the NFLs yesterday, to little fanfare, and personally I am highly disappointed there was not a one-day contract signed with the Redskins so he could retire as one of us. But let’s make no mistake about it – in the Dan Snyder-era Washington Redskins (which is sort of like King Joffrey’s reign, just with less success), ol’ C.P. aka Southeast Jerome aka Sheriff Gonna Getcha aka Coach Janky Spanky aka Bud Foxx (always one of my favorites) aka Mr. Straight Pockets has been the rare highlight. Sad thing is, he’s probably not as well-loved by Skins fans as he ought to be, partially because of the aforementioned tomfoolery with little team success to support such nonsense’s usefulness, and partially because of the whole Dan Snyder thing and how it was well-known Portis had a backdoor into the owner’s office, which helped undermine a couple of coaches along the way. But I also think there’s a certain amount of racialism behind it as well, as Portis was always too negro-ish and scary and not a serious enough professional-style black man to be truly embraced by an NFL fanbase like the Redskins have, especially when it came to the fact Portis was challenging for the beloved (and white) John Riggins’ team rushing record, which Portis never did get, due to injury.
But let’s throw all the shenanigans aside, for the sake of assholes, and be clear about a few things. Few featured tailbacks in the dying era of NFL featured tailbacks were willing to block like Portis. The dude was tough, and unafraid, and also double tough. Part of the reason he suffered so many injuries was his bruising style, put on display by a smaller frame. He never got the credit as a smashmouth player because of all the wacky shit he did. He also was burdened by the comparisons to Champ Bailey, who he was traded for back in the day, and who is still playing as an elite CB in the NFL. There are Redskins fans, albeit not too many, who still complain about that as a sign of how this team stopped building and started splashing their way to prominent team status.
The thing is, as I attempt to teach my goats football in the spirit of my Football Metaphysics for Enlightened Degenerates manifesto, you can’t throw out the wackiness. Clinton Portis was a rare breed, and in Denver, under Mike Shanahan, he was never allowed to blossom fully as an individual. In Washington, under Joe Gibbs, he not only blossomed but excelled both on the field and in the quotable category. One of the greatest things about Joe Gibbs is how he respected these personalities, so long as they added and not subtracted from the team. I’m not sure all head coaches are able to pull off such tolerance, but Gibbs could.
So unfortunately, the retirement of Clinton Portis, which was not done as a day-long Redskin to end his career as it should have, becomes a brief compare-and-contrast on Joe Gibbs vs. Mike Shanahan, as I am 39-years-old and the only playoff games they’ve won in my entire life have been under Gibbs. Shanahan has won playoff games and Super Bowls, just not here, where he’s struggled and never cleared 6 wins in a year. Granted it’s only been two years, but for an alleged coaching genius, that’s not so great. Part of why Shanahan was willing to get rid of Portis in Denver was this Ray Kroc/Henry Ford belief that the system dictates success, and he could plug-and-play whoever he wanted into the position, so long as they were somewhat competent, and success would be had. This has meant in the two-year period under Shanahan, which started with Portis as the #1 RB, we’ve seen Ryan Torain, Keiland Williams, Tim Hightower, and Roy Helu Jr. as the #1, with Evan Royster and Alfred Morris promising to full that spot shortly as well. Now I understand the usefulness of having a two-man rotation to handle the abuses of NFL, but four- or five-headed monster. Monsters like that are good for battling with irregular dice and swords forged by wizard alchemists, not for winning Lombardi trophies. That is a sign of throwing a bunch of shit at a wall and hoping something sticks.
The Clinton Portis wacky character parade was part of a more free-form locker room, where personality was not a hindrance. Mike Shanahan is very much a vanilla corporate speaker type who would prefer all his players be quiet and not stand out. I mean let’s face it, Shanahan is a curmudgeon of a coach whose mouth is permanently transformed into the shape of an anus. If I’ve learned one thing in my 39-years on this planet, it’s that you should not trust anus mouthed men, because they will speak lies and self-important fallacies. And this will be the case with Shanahan eventually, as he is slowly being exposed as a fraud without an Elway.
I don’t know what we’ll do afterwards though. Like I said, Snyder-era Redskins are great as splashes, but not at building, so Dear Leader is going to try and find a huge splash that would create more ripples than Shanahan. Not sure where he’ll find that, perhaps some sort of cyborg built from scientology robots and Vince Lombardi DNA. But I would guess very little building will go on, as very little building has gone on for a while. The Redskins seem to be more about making people think things are different than actually making them different. This is why we’ve had our Haynesworth and Donovan McNabb and fuck man Deion Sanders and Bruce Smith and now Robert Griffin III, who seems like a wonderful young man, but is already all over Subway commercials and in magazine ads and yeah it’s great and all but goddammit man, fuck potential and promise at this point. I want delivery.
And granted, Mr. Clinton Portis had his shortcomings, but even with all that he’s one of the top three official Redskins of the Dan Snyder era. For the record, that list is Sean Taylor, Clinton Portis, and Chris Cooley. None of those guys have ever won a playoff game, much less competed for a Super Bowl title. One of those guys is dead, the second hobbled (and perhaps on the roster chopping block, to be honest), and the third is now retired. So the high watermark of a low-period in a franchise is now moving deeper into our collective memory banks. And what wonderfully great awesomeness is lined up to take its place? Not a whole lot, because of lack of building. But the great Mike Shanahan will continue throwing shit at us and hope something sticks, until our crazy owner gets worried about diminishing returns on his financial investment and makes some sort of ridiculous splash of Kool-Aid that retarded ass Redskins fans will happily sip up in long, thirsty gulps. It happens every year. But more on that next time.

And as an addendum: it does seem that Portis will retire officially as a Redskin tomorrow, but all my points still stand, because he ain’t get no fuckin’ parade.

The End of An Era

(could've picked a million wacky pics of C.P. but chose this one where he scored a TD on their run to the playoffs at the end of 2007, against the Cowboys, and pulled up his jersey to reveal a tribute shirt to Sean Taylor, who had died a couple weeks earlier... shit almost made me cry just thinking about it)

It is a sad day in ol' D.C., as Mr. 1000 Characters Clinton Portis has been released. This had been expected, and Coach Trannyhan made mention of it last Friday at the combine, how they'd like to keep the ol' boy, but the price was just too high. And then C.P. himself said it was happening today on the radio this morning, giving the actual word of the actual release, which somehow is fitting. If there was ever a dude who did not hold his tongue, it was Clinton Portis.
I am sure once he is on the way out, there will be those who cheer his jettison, and talk of a selfish player more concerned with calling attention to himself than being part of an actual winning team. These are the idiot fans that Dan Snyder is able to dupe every spring into thinking that one shiny new part for a broken and busted up machine is going to make it all run right again. I've watched all the games, and C.P. was a head-bussa. He was not afraid to hit a rabid rushing OLB in the fucking face. And he got yards. Sure, he's not as spry as he once was, and the dude broke down the past couple of years. But that's part and parcel with the way he has played. I actually wanted Clinton Portis to break John Riggins' team rushing record, and to this day I still worship John Riggins. That should tell you how highly I think of Portis.
All the wacky characters and strange quotables, that was simply icing on the cake. Clinton Portis has been the single-most enjoyable player on this team since Dan Snyder took over. I mean, that's not saying a lot. I could probably outrun a bunch of crippled kids on Salvation Army crutches, but that doesn't mean I'm fast. But I have loved C.P.'s time in D.C., and I can understand the plight of the fading pro athlete not ready to relinquish his high-dollar role, even though he's probably going to be forced by the NFL market to do just that. Still though, I hope C.P.'s pockets stay tight. And I hope he is happy wherever he lands, and that the folks that get him, who see an aged and potentially washed-up NFL RB refusing to accept the end, realize what a fucking awesome dude he is, and give the dude love.
And now there is another useless fucking football jersey in the closet of our collective Redskins heart. Sometimes I am thankful for Sean Taylor because #21 will always still be #21. They won't run him out of town due to salary cap mistakes made by previous management stooges. They won't condemn him to the bench after main paging his jersey four months earlier on the team website. #21 will always be #21. And knowing how C.P. was the first big-name that Joe Gibbs brought in on his second stint (which I did not dislike then and do not know - Champ Bailey wanted WR money, and wasn't worth it, even as a shutdown corner), and it was C.P. who pestered Gibbs that drafting Sean Taylor was the right thing to do. In four years of Gibbs 2.0, they made the playoffs twice, the second run coming after Taylor's murder, Portis's best friend dead, and the team played shaky but like beasts for the right copule of weeks. Portis mentioned the Gibbs year on the radio this morning, how that was the one time he was here when dudes played for 60 minutes, when no one gave up.
This is a poisoned team, a deeply deeply poisoned team. As sad as I am that Clinton Portis will no longer be a bright spot in my falls, following these goddamned Redskins, I am glad he was cut loose for his own good more than whatever salary cap issues were the real caues of it. You have made a wonderfully sweet lemonade of this poison for far too long, Mr. Portis. Godspeed you twisted fucking freak, both physically and psychologically. You will always convert the 4th downs of my heart.

the Ryan Torain Era begins

Well, although he is officially listed as out 4 to 6 weeks, I think it’s safe to assume the Clinton Portis era is over in D.C. And while Redskins honks will line up in the coming offseason to offer up C.P. as the prime example of what has gone wrong under Dan Snyder in D.C., let me just say right off the bat that I think Portis is one of the few highlights that have come under Dan Snyder. He is a solid motherfucker, hilarious, and the one NFL player I’d have in my back yard. Seriously, when they did that Get an NFL Player in Your School bullshit a few years back, I had my daughter write about how she was a homeschooler and loved the Redskins, hoping C.P. would come down to central Virginia and kick it with the homeschooled kids at the library one afternoon. The only thing that makes C.P. not as awesome in Redskins history (of my lifetime) as John Riggins is the whole Super Bowl thing. They really are two very similar guys, just from slightly different eras.
But let this not be a Clinton Portis lovefest (although I will probably do an elaborate one filled with 37 youtube clips should he officially be gone from the Redskins), because let’s face it – there are a slew of guys on this roster who do in fact epitomize the Dan Snyder era, and all ESPN fluff pieces aside, the main goal of Mike Shanahan should be to eliminate as much Dan Snyderies from this team as possible. That’s a tough row to hoe. How do you lie to your owner that you are putting the right pieces in place to win right now, all while thinking in your head you have to overhaul everything from player personnel to how locker room towelboy positions are doled out? The simple fact of the matter is this team will never be Super Bowl successful with any of the following guys on the team: Clinton Portis, Santana Moss, Carlos Rogers, DeAngelo Hall, etc. Shit man, even someone like Chris Cooley, as great a character as he is, has been so deeply immersed in this Redskins “we’re only a piece or two away” bullshit for so long, you have to wonder if he’s not psychologically damaged goods as well. That’s just how shit is.
The past couple years have been frustrating in regards to our RB situation, as pretty much anybody who has ever played more than five minutes of Madden football knows that you usually want to draft a young RB at least every other year, to fill in behind your main starter as a 3rd down speed threat or a guy that can bust a long run now and then just because he’s such a different thing than your starter. For a few years there though the Redskins stuck with Clinton Portis/Ladell Betts as their 1-2 RB punch. This is basically like having a really nice luxury sedan in Clinton Portis, and then having the exact same sedan same year and everything but in a less expensive trim package as your second car. In other words, it was fucking stupid. So watching Ryan Torain cleanse that #46 jersey of Ladell Betts memories by freight training an Eagles defender to score a touchdown last weekend, that brought a joy to my heart that this football team rarely does. Actually, that was probably the highlight of the year so far, because the other great moments are more by default – Cowboys guy gets a holding penalty so we win, or Kevin Kolb throws stupid pass so we intercept it and win. This team doesn’t really manufacture highlights nearly as well as they manufacture excuses. That shit was primetime, helmet first, knock a motherfucker out and get six points. We don’t have nearly enough knock-a-motherfucker-out types on offense. So seeing Torain and having Trent Williams back, considering how well he showed up when he was playing, it’s actually exciting for the first time in… well, probably nearly ten years. You throw into the mix Anthony Armstrong, who as an unheralded unknown has already shown in four games 100 times the legitimate potential that Devin Thomas, Malcolm Kelly, and Fred Davis combined have shown since being the 3 2nd Rd. Amigos a couple years back. Hell man, even little ass Brandon Banks, who is only 155 pounds and like 5’ 7” when standing on a stack of National Geographics, made a huge punt return and could offer up that sneaky midget speed in heavy WR sets. It’s like something is actually being put together for once.
That being said, I don’t expect anything to gel anytime soon. This is a work in progress, and I secretly hope they aren’t so successful that they trick themselves into believing their own hype yet again. But Ryan Torain man, he makes my dick hard for Sunday afternoons. And for all the great time-wasting highlights Clinton Portis could give me inside of youtubes, he hasn’t gotten my dick hard for a Sunday afternoon in a while.

Corporate NFL = Retarded

(I am no scientist but I can assure you there is a vagina near that tattoo somewhere)

So apparently some hot bitch was a reporter in the Giants locker room and Penthouse letters popped up in everybody's heads, so it - in the age of the internet - has become one of those non-issue issues that pop up and fizzle out in three days time. My main man Mr. 1000 Characters Clinton Portis now has a radio interview spot on D.C. sports talk radio shit, and had this to say about the hot bitch reporter in the locker room thing:

"You know man, I think you put women reporters in the locker room in positions to see guys walking around naked, and you sit in the locker room with 53 guys, and all of the sudden you see a nice woman in the locker room, I think men are gonna tend to turn and look and want to say something to that woman. For the woman, I think they make it so much that you can't interact and you can't be involved with athletes, you can't talk to these guys, you can't interact with these guys."

"And I mean,you put a woman and you give her a choice of 53 athletes, somebody got to be appealing to her. You know, somebody got to spark her interest, or she's gonna want somebody. I don't know what kind of woman won't, if you get to go and look at 53 men's packages. And you're just sitting here, saying 'Oh, none of this is attractive to me.' I know you're doing a job, but at the same time, the same way I'm gonna cut my eye if I see somebody worth talking to, I'm sure they do the same thing."

The NFL immediately responded with a PR statement saying his opinions do not represent the league and have no place in the NFL. "The comments are clearly inappropriate, offensive, and have no place in the NFL," is the exact words of NFL mouthpiece Greg Aiello.
Seriously, what the fuck? Is this what corporate NFL has come to? I mean, it's a billion dollar industry built on dudes butting heads and shortening their lifespan. Let's not act all high and mighty here. But beyond that, how is the above offensive at all? Find me a man alive who if he were in a room with 53 naked women would not find at least one attractive? Same goes for women, just probably not as animalistic as men (they are natural nurturers, we are natural fuckers). It's simple human sexuality. This is the crap that pisses me off about the modern world, that you are supposed to suppress your internal molecular reality and pretend you are somehow some God-like magical creature with complete control over your every emotion and desire. Really, all this is is science continuing with the dominion over the earth thing religion started. We may not be God-ordained special, but still, scientifically we are somehow superior to everything else and a beautiful woman can walk amongst 53 physically impressive naked men, and the very sexuality that has allowed us to even exist on this planet for all this time to get to a point where we have giant building where thousands of people pay highly valued pieces of paper or plastic (that is not supported by any gold or jeweled wealth or any tangible object, I should mention) to sit amongst each other and watch collections of well-trained men focused on one solitary game with a thick stack of odd rules and regulations. Without people wanting to fuck, which we all do (or if not, oh well, survival of the fittest), we would not have any of this.
And to pretend like what he said is the equivalent of saying, "Yeah, I think stabbing babies is an okay thing if that's how you were raised," or "I don't know, crack shouldn't be illegal in the NFL because it doesn't really hurt anybody except the user," it's ridiculous. Fuck you NFL. We are elevated animals, each and every one of us, and we all want to fuck, and if we don't it's because your goddamned HAARP beam has put too many Peyton Manning commercials directly inside our brains and we are confused on a molecular level.
Props to Clinton Portis for saying what he thought, what many people think, and I'm sad to see he was corporate bullied into apologizing yet again for speaking natural free-flowing thoughts. In the modern NFL world of commercial interests and brand positioning and image marketing, he is a bonafide living, breathing Man. God bless that wacky motherfucker.