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Join Date: Sep 2006
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Fletcher's Mentality Good Enough for Huff
washingtonpost.com
Quote:
Before London Fletcher came to play in Washington, he says he watched tape. But not just any tape. Grainy NFL Films footage, circa the 1950s and '60s. There, trapped in celluloid, roamed another quick-responding middle linebacker.
"Sam Huff was something," Fletcher said, and he told the Hall of Famer so when he met him. Fletcher had left Buffalo in the offseason to help Gregg Williams fix his once-proud defense, and he figured he'd start from scratch, from the beginning.
"We had a great conversation," Fletcher said. "I let him know I had seen some tape on him from the past."
Which just about floored Huff.
See, players of his generation are used to being forgotten by today's Madden 2008 kids, who think they invented the game. Most see Huff as the kindly, plain-spoken gentleman who announces the games with Sonny Jurgensen, not the malicious New York Giant or menacing Redskin whose portrait graced the cover of Time magazine in 1959.
"I was impressed that London knows who I am because I sure as hell know who he is," Huff said. He recalled one other player paying such homage: LaVar Arrington on the day he was drafted. "They stay in tune, in touch with the game. They're both one of a kind."
We relate this story today because Huff saw something on Saturday in Nashville that he had not seen in a while. He knows it was only the first preseason game. But the sight of Fletcher's 5-foot-10, 258-pound stubby frame flying around the field -- he displayed the decisiveness that the Redskins lacked on defense last season -- made an old-timer almost believe in spending $25 million on a free agent.
As former franchise linebacking greats go, Huff said Fletcher reminds him more of Neal Olkewicz than himself. "He's already in tackling position," Huff said. "He's not big like [Chicago's Brian] Urlacher. He's not very tall. You might call him a little squatty. But he's a run-stopper, exactly what the Redskins need."
And he's something else: a leader. He is the stable, mature force in the middle that Williams has wanted. There are Sundays when Fletcher will shine on the field, but he doesn't physically have to be Lawrence Taylor or Mike Singletary to make a major difference
He can be that someone who gets in the grille of young defensive tackles such as Anthony Montgomery or Kedric Golston. Someone to make sure Sean Taylor becomes a great football player and not just a headhunter who gets beat deep because he's so concerned about making a scintillating hit. Someone Williams wanted Mike Barrow to be in 2004 before injuries curtailed his career and hoped Lemar Marshall would be: that calm veteran amid the chaos, someone who will speak up when it's needed.
"I'll say it: I'm a vocal guy," Fletcher said. "When I feel the need to talk, I'll talk. Sometimes I might be talking to get myself to where I need to be from a motivating standpoint."
Fletcher is not a perennial Pro Bowl player. But he makes the people in front of and behind him better. He knows and likes Williams, having played for him in Buffalo. More important, he understands Williams's hard-core motives -- enough to communicate them to any potential dissenters on a defense tired of being beaten down.
"I see myself as being an extension of Gregg out there on the field," Fletcher said. "Getting guys lined up. Understanding the weakness of a defense. Having the ability to check us into a better defense. Gregg has given me the leisure to do that.
"And obviously, from a physical standpoint, making plays from the middle linebacker position. I see myself doing all those things."
His first coach was Dick Vermeil, whom he helped win a Super Bowl in St. Louis during Fletcher's second year. He was undrafted out of Division III John Carroll in his native Ohio, yet has started all but one game since the 1999 season. Fletcher hasn't missed a game in his nine seasons, and has racked up at least 89 tackles in each of the last six. His back story, poignantly chronicled by The Post's Les Carpenter in April, makes you wonder what the big deal is about Vince Papale. He's invincible?
Fletcher's tale -- from a neglected kid who had to parent his own family at 12 years old to a consummate NFL professional at 32 -- might be too rich and raw for Disney.
"Having to take a leadership role in my own family at 12, it makes you grow up fast in ways you don't really think about it -- you just do," he said. In other words, being down two touchdowns to the Patriots or Bears hardly constitutes a crisis.
If injuries to the defensive line and blown coverages in the secondary amounted to the Redskins ranking 31st in the NFL defensively last season, so did their lack of intangibles. They weren't proactive like they were in 2004 and 2005. There almost seemed to be a malaise when it came to instant decision-making on matters such as when to hit and when to swarm.
Wherever those qualities come from, they reappeared in the form of Fletcher in Tennessee -- and his energy was contagious.
"I could sense it," Fletcher said. "When you have that passion -- when you have that energy -- and you've got 11 guys swarming to the football, that's exciting. That's intimidating for an offense."
Huff doesn't want to get carried away with superlatives too early. "But I was impressed with the way he moves," he said. "The quickness that you have to have, he's got it."
One preseason game, and something about Fletcher made one of the game's greatest middle linebackers feel better about Gregg Williams's defense. Now that's paying homage.
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Fletcher's Mentality Good Enough for Huff
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