Redskins_P presents Best Training Camp Battle

[KLHJ2]

SI.com - Writers - Third Man In (cont.) - Tuesday May 15, 2007 10:55AM
At defensive meetings each day, Tomlin put two pages on the overhead projector. One was the Loaf Chart, which totaled the number of plays on which each of his players had dogged it during the previous practice. Tomlin preached accountability. The other sheet was called the News, which singled out players for mistakes such as jumping offside or dropping an interception or looking half-asleep. "I'm not telling a story," Tomlin would say, "I'm reporting the news."

"You definitely did not want to be in his newscast," Smoot says. But midway through last season, he was. Eight games into the second year of a six-year, $34 million free-agent contract, Smoot was not playing well: no interceptions and just one pass breakup. Tomlin opened a midweek defensive meeting by saying, "We're going to have a change at cornerback. Cedric Griffin's going to replace Fred Smoot, and if Fred does not come and compete for the job, Cedric's going to be the corner the rest of the year."

Recalls Sharper, "The feeling in the room was, Wow! But Mike was so blunt, so honest, and he had said at the beginning of the year that's the way it was going to be."

"[Smoot] had to be replaced," Tomlin says, "and if you're going to have a tough time doing that, then don't take the job."
The boastful and supremely confident Smoot did not take his demotion well. But he rebounded to play better down the stretch. Now with the Washington Redskins, Smoot said last week, "When it happened, I was never so shocked. My heart fell to the floor. Understand the last time I didn't start a game was in 10th grade. But it worked. Mike ruffled some feathers, and it was good for the team. Mike made the right call. It woke me up. It made me a better football player, and I think it made me a better man."

When the Steelers interviewed Tomlin, president Art Rooney II asked him about the Smoot story. "We wanted a coach with the courage of his convictions," says Rooney. "We had good, strong internal candidates for the job, and whoever came in from the outside was going to have to jump over that bar. We thought Mike did."

Personally, I think that Smoot learned his lesson. I also believe that he wasn't cut out for the Cover Two. News Flash! The redskins do not run the Cover 2. Every year he was a Skin he played well. Until he falters here, I have nothing but respect for the man. IMO we have 3 #1 corners.