I love the fire coming out of Lavar. Anyone who saw him play recognizes that fire. Unfortunately for Clinton Portis, Lavar is both hard to ignore and hard to doubt. It is unsettling to think we will be dealing with this all offseason, but I guess now is better than September.
Check out Dan Steinberg's rundown of the ongoing exchange between CP and Arrington.
What (if anything) does this mean for CP? I worry that he is orchestrating his departure, but I can't quite tell if it is intentional or not anymore. He has dropped some serious bombs in the last month and a half. On the one hand, it would be easy to imagine Drew Rosenhaus (I assume he is still Portis' agent?) helping his client make it real hard for a team to keep him with the prospect of one more contract to sign somewhere else. On the other hand, how many legitimately good players (Portis is legitimately good) would want to live in these kinds of piles of horse crap? It borders on lose-lose, which leads me to believe that this in fact unorchestrated and therefore very sad.
As for Lavar, he has clearly found the path to maximizing this series of events. His show is bound to explode now. His popularity will soar. I hate to see that the root of such a positive result for Lavar is based on such a negative public spat with two long-time players.
Part of what has driven all of us so crazy in recent years is the unnecessary drama that has surrounded this team. I really liked Lavar's response to all of this, and the truth of the matter is that he was kind of called out by CP. Given Lavar's history with this team, as well as his job on the radio, it is next to impossible to think he would have let this one slide. The ball is in CP's court now it would seem. My advice would be to quietly approach Lavar through private avenues and get this thing cleaned up fast. I can't see Portis winning over much public opinion at this point and he needs Lavar to calm down a bit.
Jeez...two days into the NFL offseason. You gotta love it.