WPost Email: Jansen, Arrington Watch Helplessly

[MTK]

Injured Washington Redskins Jon Jansen and LaVar Arrington said they feel helpless as another season appears to be slipping away. Neither player has enjoyed much collective success since being drafted by the team, and Washington (3-6) faces a difficult task of even returning to .500 this season.

Jansen, the longest tenured Redskins who was drafted in 1999, suffered a season-ending Achilles' tendon injury in the first preseason game and Arrington has missed the last seven games with a knee injury and is likely at least two weeks away from a return. Both are among the best at their positions -- Jansen is a right tackle and Arrington a three-time Pro Bowl linebacker -- and spend much of their time around Redskins Park trying to rehabilitate their injuries and encourage their teammates.

"It feels the same as the guys on the sidelines," Jansen said. "You just can't do anything and I've always had control over at least my position on the offensive line or our offense and sometimes the team, and right now I've got no control. I've got nothing I really can control and it's hard to see the guys struggle and you can't be there with him."

Jansen had started every game in his NFL career before getting hurt and said he is trying to resist the urge to push too hard in his recovery. His objective is to be back on the field for the start of mini-camp in the spring.

"The doc keeps saying, 'Don't rush it, don't rush it,' " Jansen said. "And I keep saying, 'Let's go, let's go,' and it's just a matter of time right now and I'll be ready for mini-camp and that's about it."

Arrington, selected second overall in 2000, said he has become emotional watching his team lose on several occasions.

"I was in tears [Sunday], man," Arrington said, "seeing dudes out there like that fighting and then saw guys on other side of the ball [on Cincinnati's sideline] like smiling and laughing and all kinds of crap. I got so filled up that I welled up a little bit. It's just tough. This is probably one of the toughest things I've had to deal with in my whole life. In some instances its, like, if this is the toughest thing it's not that bad, but it means the world to me to be able to get out there and compete with the guys and help get us wins."

-- Jason La Canfora

[Sheriff Gonna Getcha]

Jesus that depresses me. Thanks Matty, I'm going to kill myself now. jk

I want to scream hang in there. I feel like Gibbs' return gave us more than good coaching, it brought our sideline a sense of pride and credibility that we haven't had in years. I hope the players return next year with the same commitment.

I know many think, "these guys get paid millions, they'd better be working their asses off!" But put yourself in their shoes. They've been treated like royalty since they were in high school because they had great abilities (plus they'd kick your ass if you laughed at them). They've been the best as what they do for years now. They were used to winning nearly every game by a landslide.

Now, they've been struggling to get to .500 for the past several years, joked about in the press, laughed at by the friggin Bengals, and watch their hard work go to waste 6 out of every 10 Sundays. It would be hard not to get down.

[Riggo44]

Come back as soon as you can Lavar. We miss you.
I hope Arrington can play in Pittsburgh!

[sportscurmudgeon]

Pardon me if I don't get all choked up here.

Let's see if I understand this correctly:

LaVar Arrington was standing on the sidelines with the losing team in a football game and realized that the guys across the field - on the winning side - were a lot happier than he and his teammates were. This is a novel insight on his part?


Memo to LaVar: You've been on enough losing sidelines now to realize that is the way it goes in football. The best cure for that is to win games instead of losing them.


He says this is one of the toughest things he has had to deal with in his life. Wow. I hope he never loses a parent or a spouse or a child in a car accident or to some awful disease. THAT is tough to take; losing a football game and seeing the victors smiling and laughing is a piece of cake.

[aehs77]

how about his cousin dying of cancer right when he got hurt.

[MTK]

Alright so let's fault LaVar for actually giving a shit about his team and what happens to them.

[sportscurmudgeon]

aehs77:

Precisely my point. If I lost a family member to cancer - as I have - I would NEVER say that anything related to a football game was "one of the toughest things" I ever had to deal with.

A former colleague of mine had his teenage son commit suicide in his home. THAT is tough to deal with. If LaVar has trouble dealing with a loss on a football field, I can only hope he never has something like that come into his life because it might render him catatonic.


Matty:

I'm not faulting him for caring. I just don't want hear this kind of exaggerated siliness. Yes, the Redskins/Bengals football game is important to fans and team members and coaches. But this is not life and death; this is not war and peace.

And I don't see the need for Lavar to denigrate the guys on the other side of the field because they were "like smiling and laughing and all kinds of crap." That is precisely what LaVar and his teammates have done and will do when they are the winners in a football game. It's what the winning team does.

[MTK]

SC, have you ever overexaggerated something?

Like having a bad day at work and complaining to a co-worker that you're having the worst day of your life today? Obviously having a bad day at work isn't the worst day of your life.

Or how about when you're really hungry and you might say to someone you're starving, of course you're not really starving in the true sense.

I think you're looking too far in to this and taking him too literal.

[sportscurmudgeon]

Matty:

Since I listen to LaVar on WTEM just about every Monday afternoon (I miss it when I'm out of town), this is not unusual for him. Everything is the "toughest thing he's ever had to endure" and every loss is the "worst in my life".

The problem is that LaVar is like the little boy who cried wolf; he's losing his credibility as a font of reason. And in the vast majority of cases, leaders need to be reasonable. That applies to sports teams and to real life. Leaders who are irrational tend to be "cult figures" - or worse - who usually do not lead people/organizations to glorious ends.

Examples of irrational leaders might be:

Jim Jones
David Koresh
Adolf Hitler
Charles Manson

Obviously, the Redskins need leadership but they need leadership of the rational kind. And LaVar is spending his "rational coins" fast and furious...

[MTK]

He's a passionate guy, I wouldn't look any further than that.

[MTK]

Originally Posted by sportscurmudgeon

Matty:


Examples of irrational leaders might be:

Jim Jones
David Koresh
Adolf Hitler
Charles Manson

How exactly did you get these guys worked in to a comparison of leadership styles with LaVar Arrington, who is just a football player as you say?

A little bit of an irrational comparison in my opinion, or perhaps an overexaggeration?

[SmootSmack]

Yeah I don't get how you compare LaVar to Hitler, Manson et al.

[joecrisp]

LaVar takes losing to heart. In this day and age where you see losing players laughing and chatting it up with the opposing players after a game, it's good to see that LaVar has a real emotional investment in the outcome of the game, and he takes it personally when he sees opponents having fun at his and his teammates' expense.

I think any ultra-competitive person knows how much it hurts to lose; how it can make your blood boil to the point that you feel like you could explode [/exaggeration]. LaVar's expressiveness about that pain and anger naturally takes on a hyperbolic tone by virtue of how much he really cares. I think that's a positive thing, and I hope his teammates feel the same way.

Heck, Dick Vermeil cries all the time, but I don't think you'd find anyone in the organizations he's been associated with that would say he's an irrational or poor leader. That kind of passion is precisely what makes a leader great, in my opinion. It inspires a passionate response in those around them.

[MTK]

Speaking of Vermeil I know people make fun of him, personally I think he's great. I'd love to play for a guy like that.

As for LaVar I don't have a problem with him getting emotional over losing. In fact I wish we had an entire team full of LaVars.

Nice post by the way, Joe.

[sportscurmudgeon]

Let me call time out here for a moment.

I did not say that LaVar Arrington had ANYTHING in common with Hitler or Charles Manson or any other people on my list of irrational leaders. What I said was that rrational leaders usually are "cult figures" and they usually don't wind up in a good place. That was an explanation as to why reasonable and credibile and rational leadership was important and valuable. So in case anyone still misunderstands:

1. Hitler, Manson, Jones and Koresh were BAD leaders and probably BAD people at heart.

2. LaVar Arrington is NOT a BAD person at heart and so far has not shown enough leadership skills for us to know if he is skilled at that or not.


It is fine for him to react emotionally to losing a football game. After all, he gets paid to win football games; football is probably what he has spent more time on than anyuthing else in his life. But it begins to stretch credibility when he says that this was one of the worst things he's ever had to endure - - especialy when he says virtually the same thing every Monday on the radio after the Skins lose. And doubly expecially because he's been through enough of these horrendous times to begin to put them into perspective as a rational and thinking adult.

What I said was that losing a football game is not pleasant but there are tragedies that fall into people's lives that are so significantly greater than losing a football game that it makes LaVar sound either irrational or shallow or self-absorbed or whatever for him to say that over and over again.

I know that LaVar Arrington is a fine football player and therefore it behooves all Redskin fans to want to believe that everything he does and says is noble in its intent and gracious. Unfortunatelly that is not always the case.

I'll go out on a limb here and draw another analogy. Buffalo Bills fans adored OJ and many of them never wanted to believe that he could ever do something that was dastardly or destructive. Same with Panther fans and Rae Carruth. But "stuff" happens.

NOTE: I did NOT say LaVar is or ever will be involved in a murder situation nor do I think there is much of chance that he will. What I am trying to illustrate is that people who are good athletes tend to be turned into heroic figures that can do and say no wrong by adoring fans. But in the real world, sometimes the fans are - horribly - wrong.