The Rock Returns, Part 1

If pent-up frustration has anything to do with how hard a football player hits someone, there are few who would want to be lined up in front of Jon Jansen on the Redskins first running play in 2005. Given what Jansen has been through the last couple of seasons, that player could well end up in the far reaches of the upper deck at FedEx Field. (Part 1 of a series)

The most recent source for disappointment for Jon Jansen was his Achilles’ tendon rupture, which cost him all but a few preseason plays of the 2004 season. We’ll cover that in Part 2 of this series. The frustration dates back to the 2003 season, Jansen’s fifth with the Redskins and the team’s second and last under Steve Spurrier.

Early in the season, the team was having some success in spite of itself. Of particular concern were numerous false start penalties called on the offensive line and, in particular, Jansen. He was supposed to be the Rock, the steady one who didn’t repeat dumb mistakes.

In a Week 3 loss to the Giants, the Redskins committed 17 penalties and lost to the Giants in overtime. Among those were a couple of false starts by Jansen. After the game, he struggled to come up with an explanation for what was going wrong. Here is a montage of his comments, set to appropriate music.

Jon Jansen 9/21/03

What certainly made things worse for Jansen and his teammates was the apparent inability of the head ballcoach to do anything to fix the problem. Here are some of Spurrier’s postgame comments, also set to a fitting tune:

Steve Spurrier 9/21/03

Fast forward to the end of November. The Redskins were playing the Saints at FedEx Field. Tim Hasselbeck was making his first NFL start. In the 24-20 loss, the Redskins averaged 6.2 yards per rushing play and just 5.5 per pass. The problem was that Spurrier called just 23 rushing plays and 42 passes. Neither team ever had more than a seven-point lead during the course of the game. Was it mentioned that it was the Redskins’ quarterback’s first NFL start?

In the locker room afterwards, Jansen exploded. Well, for the urbane, always-in-control Jansen it was an explosion. Here’s a quick montage of his comments. You’ll notice a theme.

Jansen 11/30/03

Note: none of the instances of Jansen uttering the key word here were looped or repeated. He said the word that many times over the course of about 15 minutes in four Q&A sessions.

To get some context about the source of Jansen’s frustration, here’s a quick clip that puts it in context.

Jansen2 11/30/03

Six weeks later, Spurrier was gone and Joe Gibbs was back. Before things got started for Jansen, they ended. In Part 2, Jansen on what happened and his road back.