Redskins 360 says Davis apologizes:
Davis said that after switching rooms the previous night to get his own room, he awoke the next morning and practice had already begun. He reached front office boss Vinny Cerrato and then came in later that day to meet with coach Jim Zorn.
Ditto over at Redskins Insider:
"I just wanted to let everybody know that I'm apologetic about what happened," Davis said in his first public remarks since the incident. "I want them to know that when I come here I'm going to work hard and try to make as much progress as I can on the field and off."
The Redskins were not aware of Davis's whereabouts as the team took the field on the morning of May 4. Several members of the organization have said privately that there were rampant rumors that Davis was partying in downtown Washington Saturday night, but he has denied those allegations to team officials, sources said, and reiterated again yesterday that he did not leave the Ashburn area on the night he went missing.
What I like is the fact that he's denied rumors of partying the night before contributing to his absence/tardiness. That being said, I am frankly, absolutely, and totally unwilling to blame a 20-something kid for going out partying the night before minicamps, especially since it is shortly after he was drafted to play the game he loves... for a living. If I were the least bit talented (at anything) and were drafted to do that exact thing for a living, and I happened to love doing so, I'd go out and tie one on big time. Do I want players doing that? No, I think they need to learn, very quickly, that professional pay comes with it professional responsibility, and not partying balls the night before showing up to practice with the team is quintessential professional behavior. But I was and remain unwilling to crucify a kid for getting housed irresponsibly once. As far as I'm concerned, you get one bite. From one twenty something to another, if drinking and celebrating is wrong, I don't want to be right.
But Fred Davis didn't (apparently) go out saucing up the night prior, he says he was in the area not rampantly partying like the rest of us might. Good, wonderful, great, and that's cause enough to put this entire Fred Davis thing behind us. A rookie missing one day of practice was really only news because he happened to have maturity and behavioral question marks above him coming out of college. If this becomes a pattern of bad behavior on his part that continues through his tenure as a Redskin, then maybe we'll talk about losing the forgiving attitude (unless he turns out to be really, really good at football, in which case he can join the ranks of fellow party animal/Redskins greats Riggins, Theismann, and Manley). Until then, I'm behind you Davis.
Except for this nonsense of not wanting to share a room with one of your teammates. I don't know why coaches so desparately want you guys to spend time with one another, but they do and they might know something about it. Team unity, team chemistry doesn't just make itself, and if having a cellmate furthers the end, I say bunk up. At a minimum, having a roommate would make it virtually impossible for him to miss any more practices. One broken alarm clock is plausible. Two is suspicious and qualifies as either user error or lie.
I am sufficiently impressed with Davis' response not to spend additional time on it. He seemed genuinely contrite, he expressed a willingness to fix the behavior (by bunking up) and he denied the apparently unseemly rumor that, gasp, a young soon to be rich person doing what he loves for a living was celebrating that fact. God help us all.
In other news, with a hat tipped towards the blogging institution that is Dan Steinberg, I would like to congratulate Chris Cooley on his upcoming Friday marriage, which he took the time to post about over at The Cooley Zone (at Shutdown Corner):
As we moved through the season, I fell in love with her. We went through a lot of weird stuff, but it never fazed either of us. Maybe her dad brainwashed me one of the nights I passed out at her house, because no matter what happened, I was crazy about her. More likely it was her mom, since I was usually trying to impress the old man by drinking him under the table.
Consider me among the impressed, Chris. As someone who likewise went through the courtship process intoxicated much of the time (and making great excuses for it) I can only say, Mr. Cooley, your unconventional approach to amore, like your unconventional approach to just about everything, has my approval. If I could tomorrow redefine traditional social mores as more forgiving towards healthy, non-destructive drinking, it would be done. Amen.
As I've just hap-tipped to Dan Steinberg I might as well get out of the way the perhaps relevant to bloggers but not Redskins fans but maybe Redskins fans news of the week: Redskins.com apparently is going to hire a blogger, soon, and had Dan Steinberg at the top of their candidate list:
A couple weeks ago I got a call from Redskins Minister of Information Karl Swanson. He wanted to talk about the team's idea to create a blog on Redskins.com. In theory, he wasn't talking about a collection of press releases and bad video clips published using blog software, but rather a real honest-to-goodness blog, filled, theoretically, with behind-the-scenes nuggets on Chris Cooley's drug testing tales, Fred Smoot's energy drink business and DeShawn Stevenson's beard. Yeah, that's right, the concept is an all-D.C. sports blog, to include posts about whatever its author deems fit, including artisanal cheese when necessary.
I agree with Michael David Smith, paint me impressed that the Redskins were going after someone with the journalistic background of Steinberg. I think he is probably the best sports blogger, period, but certainly the best sports blogger I've read with his name attached to a newspaper. The team could have done a lot worse, could probably not have done much better, than Steinberg, and I'm happy they tried. I do look forward to the future Redskins blog because a) they are taking the task seriously enough to look for qualified candidates and b) it will mean one more blogger close to the team with crucial access to provide the likes of us with the great content we love and crave.
There's been enough links above to just finish off the gig. First up is Newest Episode of Blog Show over at Mr. Irrelevant. Click the link just so I don't feel bad for stealing Mr. I's content, but they put it on youtube so I'm posting it:
This is as much to highlight the great work Greg Trippiedi is doing at Hog Heaven as it is to ask what, what you 6 readers, do I need to do to get 15 comments? Anyways, be sure to check out Hog Heaven and a great post over Why Colt Brennan fell to us so late (slash why don't pro scouts like him). I'll take issues concerning his mechanics and performance against Georgia as the chief reasons, combined with the fact that his positives have been consistently overlooked under the familiar (to some of us, anyways) claim of system! system! system!
As an unflinching Texas Tech Red Raiders partisan, this parrot-call of system quarterbacking is all too familiar. My beloved CFB heroes just can't get a fair shake because my alma mater happens to throw a lot of touchdowns -- a lot, I really mean a lot -- per annum.