What's with these Miami guys?
Tony Kornheiser of the Washington Post, while criticizing Redskins safety Sean Taylor for not returning Hall-of-Fame coach Joe Gibbs' calls, wonders if the player's pigheadedness is a Miami thing in this column (quick & free registration required) that I'm posting a day late.
An excerpt:
But I wonder about the University of Miami players -- the guys from the place they proudly call "the U." They don't seem to be happy where they are. Portis was terribly unhappy with Gibbs's offense last season. Taylor is unhappy here now. Edgerrin James is threatening not to report to the Colts. Jeremy Shockey wasn't happy working out in New York with the Giants, the team that pays him. So he left and went back to Miami to work out with "the U" guys. Look at Kellen Winslow Jr., a U guy who so famously said he'd make the Redskins regret not drafting him. Winslow's contract specifically forbids him from riding a motorcycle. But he rode one anyway, wrecked it, and now he's out for the whole season.
Me again: Is he on to something here? "The U" has cleaned up its image considerably since the Jimmy Johnson/Dennis Erickson outlaw-program days while continuing to turn out more pros than any other school. But these guys haven't exactly been ideal NFL employees in many cases.