Clinton Portis Discovers a Mad Jason Campbell

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↵If you didn’t pity new Redskins head coach Mike Shanahan already for assuming the unenviable task of working for Dan Snyder, perhaps you’ll feel for him now that he’s inheriting key offensive players engaged in a bitter public war of words. Clinton Portis, who already tussled with fullback Mike Sellers early in the season by calling out Sellers’ blocking ability, spent yesterday griping about the mild temperament of the starting quarterback.↵↵⇥“No disrespect to Jason, but everybody in that locker room can tell you, you’ll never see Jason mad, you’ll never see Jason’s tempo change, you’ll never see Jason get mad.↵⇥↵⇥He going to get up, dust himself off, he going to give you everything he got. But as a leader, you never heard -- it was always, ‘Jason couldn’t take control of the huddle,’ or he didn’t do this or he didn’t do that. That wasn’t Jason’s character.↵⇥

↵⇥↵⇥I think Jason, you can’t place so much on somebody who’s not ready for that situation. I think Jason has enough trouble in getting the plays in and worrying about this, compared to controlling the huddle and making sure, ‘Oh, we do this and we do that.’ But you go and vote Jason Campbell [as captain] -- you know Jason Campbell ain’t go and tell the coach, ‘Well, we need to do this or we need to do that,’ or ‘This is how the players want it.’”↵⇥

↵↵↵Portis may have prefaced that statement with the empty “no disrespect” disclaimer, but there’s no question that that’s a plenty disrespectful thing to say about a starting QB in the NFL. Not that it is entirely inaccurate vis-a-vis Campbell, but still a damning statement and one that probably shouldn’t be made to the press about a teammate.↵

↵↵So what did the supposedly complacent Campbell do in response? Why, he let fly a stream of fiery comments of his own about Portis.↵

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↵↵⇥“How is he going to say I’m not a leader? I mean, that’s just not true. To me, that’s somebody who shows that they don’t know what a real leader is. A leader is not someone who leads by the wrong example. A leader is someone who is trying to do the right thing and trying to lead by example, and not just [being] about themselves. There’s a reason guys get selected as captains, and there’s a reason guys don’t get selected as captains. Obviously, he doesn’t have the respect of the locker room to be a captain. For someone to try to take a shot at me at the end of the season, after they haven’t even been around, only speaks about their character anyways...↵⇥↵⇥How’s he [going to] question anything when for those four or five weeks before he was on IR [the season-ending injured-reserve list], he never even came around. He wasn’t with us. He was never at practice.↵⇥

↵↵↵There you go, Clinton. That’s a mad Jason Campbell.↵

↵↵All this could ultimately be moot. Campbell is a free agent, and the team was already clearly eager to displace him last year (openly sought trades to acquire Jay Cutler and Mark Sanchez) when he was still under contract. While Portis is under contract through next season, he has also hinted at retirement recently. Not that he’s been proven to be a player who can withstand a full season with his brutal type of play.↵

↵↵Still, depending on how you look at it, it’s either a very unfortunate or highly fitting way for the two players to end their tenure with a team that is never at a lack for turmoil. ↵

↵↵(H/T to Shutdown Corner) ↵

↵↵(Editor’s note: Campbell says they’ve squashed their beef now, but it might not matter if they never have to play together again.)↵

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