Brian Orakpo was on ESPN980's The John Thompson Show yesterday talking Grossman and the fans' lash back. I wish the Redskins fan base had one third the resolve Rak does, but we are just not groomed that way:
Orakpo: "[Rex] had a bad day. There's no reason to go ahead and make changes and all this other stuff that goes along with it. Everyone has a bad day and that's my honest opinion. We're not a team that's rebuilding. We're a playoff caliber team. We're a team that's trying to win games and reach that pinnacle of the Super Bowl. We're not a team that's just going to throw someone in and hope for the best. Right now we're in a good position.
Quarterbacks are going to have a bad day. He had a bad day. Obviously he wishes he could have it back. We just have to move past it, move forward, and get ready for Carolina. I just feel like we should keep the same guys and let's keep rolling. We'll be fine."
And Orakpo tells it like it is for fan reactions.....
(laughs) Everybody's gotta understand. We're right there with everyone. All of our fans. We're right there with them. We're disappointed we lost the game. Everybody has a right to be on the team. At the same time we all mourn after it after the game. But then the day after that it's time to move on. This is a long season. We have what? 10-11 games left? We're still in a good position at 3-2 with plenty of football left.
Preparing ourselves for utter letdown is what we as Redskins fans are conditioned to do. Rak hasn't lived through the Spurrier and Norv eras. Does he have a point? I think so. But either way, Super Bowl teams have the ability to blow out other teams, especially bad ones. Redskins can't do that. As for the Panthers:
For some reason we play great on the road on challenges like this. We're going to be ready and focused.
Doc Walker then asked Rak about Trent and Kory going down. Rak, who has been going against the new OLine in practice, had high praise for Sean Locklear and Will Montgomery saying Locklear has been a long time starter and knows this game. Rak was very confident that the coaching staff can have this OLine ready. If I may pour some Kool-Aid, all off-season we were all very concerned about the OLine. "It's made up of all backups: Montgomery, Lictensteiger, Chester, Jammal." And yet Shanahan got them playing at a very high level. Let's take a deep breath and put some faith in this coaching staff.