| | ASHBURN, Va. -- Never bashful about their talents, Michael
Westbrook and Albert Connell have abandoned all modesty these days.
With the Washington Redskins on a four-game winning streak and
boasting the league's top offense, not even the prospect of facing
Dallas' Deion Sanders, the game's best cornerback, is reason to
start getting humble.
| |  | |
| Connell |
| |  | |
| Westbrook |
"I don't think Deion can cover me," Connell said. "He's been
in the league 10 years. He's a good corner, All-Pro, but I feel
right now I'm at the stage of my game where I can just get by
anybody."
That's brave talk from a third-year player with just 11 NFL
starts, but Connell has enjoyed a series of breakout performances
this year. He's already had three 100-yard games, and his 26
catches for 485 yards puts him in top 10 in the NFC in both
categories.
Connell's eight-catch, 110-yard game at Arizona on Sunday moved
him slightly ahead of Westbrook, at least statistically. Whether
Connell's bravado is up to Westbrook's level is a matter for open
debate, for Westbrook was holding court in the locker room just
minutes after Connell.
"I want to go to the Hall of Fame -- because I know I have the
ability to," Westbrook said. "But it's going to be a long road
for me if every week we get a decent defensive back and we go, 'OK,
we're not going to throw to Mike.' "
Westbrook, who finally is having a healthy and productive season
after four years of injuries and off-the-field problems, was
stewing because he had only three catches for 25 yards against
Arizona's Aeneas Williams. Furthermore, he was not pleased by the
thought that he may draw Sanders in Sunday's NFC East first-place
showdown -- and thus get even fewer passes thrown his way.
"Deion is Deion, and I'm not excited any more than I am every
week," said Westbrook, who has 24 catches for 467 yards and four
touchdowns. "It's frustrating, because I know that I'm better than
these defensive backs. But the coaches don't care. They figure if
they got a weak DB on one side and a strong DB on the other side,
then let's pick on the weak DB who is more than likely not going to
be covering me.
"But I'm going to play my role. We're winning, so let's go
ahead and keep winning."
The assistant coach in charge of marshaling these egos is
passing game coordinator Terry Robiskie, who admits that he, too,
was young and cocky when he played for the Raiders and Dolphins
some 20 years ago.
"I was perhaps a little like Albert Connell and Michael
Westbrook," Robiskie said. "I see things in a different light
when they've been reared by their grandmother. I was very, very
close to my grandmother for a long time. ... Those grandmothers are
very, very strict. They raise you with a strict upbringing and
there's a lot of pressure there to live up to what your grandmother
sees. That's pretty easy for me to understand."
As a result, said Robiskie: "There's a warm part in their heart
somewhere -- it's just a matter of being able to find it."
Westbrook, raised by both his mother and grandmother, sees where
Robiskie is coming from.
"The grandmother, especially from single-parent homes, she's
the backbone of the family," Westbrook said. "She's the one who
made it possible for the mother to raise the son to be strong."
And pretty self-confident.
| |
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