[ashvirtually]

Campbell should be offered every opportunity to stay. He has shown that if he has a decent (note, not good, decent; this O-Line is FAR from good, but it IS gelled together much better than in the beginning of the season) that he is a warrior. Okay, he still has issues, like over throwing, and he is not yet a quarterback that can put the team on his back and win a game when it's do or die ... but if his line can at least open up lanes for the run, and at least keep him standing for longer than three seconds, and his recievers can get on their damned routes and stay there - well, he WILL lead and his team WILL play and fight for him.

He's going through his progressions much better, when he's connecting they're for big plays, he was in the top 5 QBs last week, and even after getting pounded into the ground week in and week out behind this just-playably-decent-line, he never complains, he gets up and dusts his arse off, and he goes in there like a damned soldier, and his teammates love him for that.

He and his 'mates have been staying after practice, they have been giving it their all when there is absolutely nothing to play for but pride at this point, when they could just give up and no one would really blame them for it. Give this guy a solid line with some depth, allow him to finish transitioning into this offensive scheme, and he is going to be nasty. Maybe not elite, maybe not Bradyish or Favreish, but utterly reliable and a QB that can win us games because the rest of his team is solid.

I agree with Mike Wise 100%

Jason Campbell was never wanted. He could march his team downfield every week for four touchdowns, like Sunday against the Raiders in Washington's most one-sided victory of the two-years-and-out Jim Zorn era. He could come into the game as the fifth-most sacked quarterback in the NFL, dodging large, menacing men paid to hurt him -- behind a duct-tape offensive line that many of those large, menacing men use like Rock Creek Parkway at rush hour -- and it still wouldn't matter.

He could keep picking himself up, groggy from another hit, and pull his mud-caked No. 17 jersey over his exposed shoulder pad. On a cold and sloppy field in Northern California, he could win a game of last quarterback standing with knocked-out Bruce Gradkowski and JaMarcus Russell, still running from Andre Carter and Brian Orakpo. It still wouldn't matter.

:::SNIP:::

He is the most recent model of the impetuous people in control, enraptured by the sound of the train in the distance because they have no faith the one in the station can take them where they want to go.

Antonio Pierce, Ryan Clark and Brad Johnson, a quarterback once replaced by another big name that didn't pan out, all have something in common. When the Redskins became enamored by someone else, they left and won Super Bowls elsewhere.

Campbell is a restricted free agent in less than a month. Four and nine is 4-9. Understood. But no one can argue his continued progression and improvement the past month, despite losing every genuine offensive weapon he had coming into the season except Santana Moss, not to mention any semblance of experienced protection on his line.

:::SNIP:::

Campbell never so much as pointed a finger at a guy who failed to block for him or blamed Cerrato for looking out for his personal safety by fortifying the line through the draft. Whatever critical can be said about his play, especially early in the season, he kept taking physical and psychological hits and kept going forward. In many ways, he was the resilient character from the "Friday the 13th" films -- only this Jason was the victim.

If the Redskins had shown complete confidence in him to begin with, Moss and others in the locker room sometimes wonder where the team would be.

"You do wonder if he had different things in his mind at that point how he would have performed without all the pressure of him thinking he had to show everybody he belonged -- instead of just going out there knowing he was the guy, you know," Moss said Sunday night. "It's not for me to say, but when you go through how much he has this season, when you get plunged into the ground every week, when other people have tried to show you might not be the guy and all you do is say, 'I'm going to show you I belong,' and, 'I'm going to show you I wouldn't quit on you,' you can't turn your back on a guy like that.

:::SNIP:::

It's why Campbell laughs anytime Sam Bradford or Jimmy Clausen or Colt McCoy is mentioned, why he loves to peek at Cutler's passer rating and hear about Sanchez's recent benching.

It's why, when someone quipped how Campbell had a lot in common with Tiger Woods's wife, Elin Nordegren, he managed a half-smile and allowed himself a moment to relish Sunday's game. "That's a good way to put it," he said. "I like that."

Whether he stays or goes, Jason Campbell has been nothing if not honorable in the employ of the Washington Redskins. The same can't be said about his fickle bosses, forever convinced something better is out there than the quarterback they put through hell, who still managed to stay loyal and, amazingly, upright, in this crumbling, chaotic season.

Amen, Mike. And thank Christ we didn't get either Sanchez or Cutler, despite the stuff I read around here and so many other places about how better off this team would be with either of them instead of The Soup back when the knives were being plunged in his back ... if we'd had either of them behind this line and during this freakshow of a season, things would be so much, much worse.

Now, all that said, I think Campbell is out of here no matter what at the end of this season, due in no small part to the disloyalty the team and the fans have shown him, and the freakshow atmosphere this franchise engenders. He is going to be picked up by a thirsty team ready to make him "THE guy" at the position, they'll give him time instead of suffering from ADD and demanding instant perfection in yet another scheme, and he is going to shine and make us look really dumb for having bailed on him before he could show his mettle.

The damage has been done, and the 'Skins, IMO, as an organization have no one to blame but themselves for what I see is inevitiable at this point. I hope I'm wrong, but I'm still of the same mind I was a month and a half ago that The Soup can't wait to get the eff out of this circus called the Washington Redskins...