Is This Guy For Real?

[joecrisp]

Wow, Lenny sure knows how to stir our pots, doesn't he?

Pasquarelli's assertion that Portis might not be a good fit are waaaaaaayyy off base. He's making this assumption based on misperceptions of Gibbs' past tendencies, as well as underestimating Gibbs' well-documented ability to adapt his system to the athletes he has available. It's impossible to draw any conclusions based on the preseason, because we've hardly seen Portis, and when he has played, it's been in a very scaled-down and basic version of the offense Gibbs will run this season. In fact, I would be inclined to say that most of the plays Gibbs has been running are more reflective of his original playbook, and that when he opens up his regular season package, there will be a pretty heavy infusion of new wrinkles tailored for the strengths of this group of players, in particular the runningbacks and quarterbacks.

Keep in mind, the media has been barred from watching practices since the public portion of training camp closed on August 11th, so any whispers Pasquarelli is hearing could only be referring to Portis' inability to adapt to the way Gibbs lines up his players for stretches-- which is the only portion of practice the media really gets to see, aside from a few special teams drills.

Now as far as the backups go, of course Gibbs and Cerrato will be watching the waiver wire for decent backups-- what good personnel department doesn't do that? There are question marks about the depth chart behind Portis, and Gibbs will certainly want to solidify that area before heading into the regular season. Why? Because Gibbs has consistently made good use of the depth at runningback, spelling the primary runner frequently, while plugging in specialty backs (Mitchell, Bryant, Riggs, etc) based on game situations. If there is a runningback available that offers an improvement in that area, Gibbs will certainly try to get him.