Bye Bye Salavea

[salavea]

www.redskins.com/news/newsDetail.jsp?id=21964

Salave'a Among Four More Players Cut
By Gary Fitzgerald
Redskins.com
August 28, 2007



The Redskins have reduced their roster to the league-mandated 75 players by releasing four players, including veteran defensive tackle Joe Salave'a.
The team also released offensive lineman Ross Tucker, fullback Pete Schmitt and wide receiver Jason McAddley.

Salave'a's release comes as a mild surprise--the native of American Samoa was a popular players in the locker room and among fans.

This preseason, the Redskins appear to have uncovered some quality depth along the defensive line.

Last year, Salave'a was replaced in the lineup by Kedric Golston, a sixth-round draft pick who started 13 games.

Anthony Montgomery, a fifth-round draft pick, has shown steady progress this preseason.

And first-year player Lorenzo Alexander has impressed coaches.

Defensive ends Phillip Daniels, Renaldo Wynn and Demetric Evans can also shift inside to play tackle if necessary.

Salave'a is a 9-year NFL veteran who entered the league as a fourth-round draft choice with Tennessee. He also played one season with San Diego before joining the Redskins in 2004.

Salave'a played three seasons with the Redskins, serving as a run-stuffing defensive tackle. His best season was 2005, when he started 13 games and recorded 50 tackles a half-sack and a forced fumble.

Tucker had signed with the Redskins last March as a reserve offensive lineman.

He entered the NFL in 2001 as an undrafted rookie free agent with the Redskins. He went on to play for the Dallas Cowboys, Buffalo Bills, New England Patriots and Cleveland Browns before returning to Washington last offseason.

McAddley, a 4-year NFL veteran, signed with the Redskins in early June and hoped to earn a roster spot as the fifth wide receiver. He was previously with the San Francisco 49ers.

Schmitt was an undrafted rookie out of Wisconsin-Whitewater. Through training camp, he was competing with Brian Bell, another undrafted rookie for a backup job to Mike Sellers.

Last week, the Redskins signed fullback Fred Beasley, an 8-year NFL veteran who adds more experience behind Sellers.

[The President]

I am sorry to see him go, but the D has looked good so far so I'll trust the coaches.

Need to sign Cooley here soon.

[salavea]

the thing that pisses me off is that Salave`a played hurt and did anything that was asked of him
He was a locker room guy that got people motivated and we're going to be screwed if Corny can't stay healthy. It's not like Salave`a was due to make a lot of cash.

asp.usatoday.com/sports/football/nfl/salaries/playerdetail.aspx?lname=S&player=1984

Year Team Base Salary Sign Bonus Other Bonus Total Salary Cap Value
2006 Redskins $ 710,000 $ 0 $ 4,400 $ 714,400 $ 881,066
2005 Redskins $ 540,000 $ 500,000 $ 5,720 $ 1,045,720 $712,386
2004 Redskins $ 535,000 $ 0 $ 4,300 $ 539,300 $ 459,300
2003 Chargers $ 530,000 $ 0 $ 0 $ 530,000 $ 291,176
2001 Titans $ 512,000 $ 0 $ 3,760 $ 515,760 $ 515,760
2000 Titans $ 358,000 $ 80,000 $ 4,700 $ 442,700 $ 442,700 DT

[salavea]

This article was in the post today

www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/29/AR2007082901660.html

I really wish we could have kept big Joe

Sideline View
End of Summer Brings Cold, Calculated Cuts

By Leonard Shapiro
Special to washingtonpost.com
Wednesday, August 29, 2007; 4:35 PM

The last time I saw Joe Salave'a up close and personal was at the end of the 2005 season. The Redskins had just been knocked out of the playoffs on the road by the Seattle Seahawks, a loss that kept them out of the NFC title game, and Salave'a was sitting at his stall in the visiting locker room slowly getting dressed. Emphasis on slowly.

Salave'a, a 315-pound veteran defensive tackle, had endured what had to have been a season of excruciating pain. He had been diagnosed with a condition known as plantar fasciitis, a foot injury that plagued him most of the year and never did heal, if only because Salave'a kept practicing and playing on a very sore foot as a stalwart on the team's defensive line.

I have no doubt he probably took the occasional pain-killing injection that allowed him to perform on Sundays, but there was a consequence to be paid the other six days of the week. He could often be seen hobbling around Redskins Park when he wasn't getting treatment in the team's training room to get him through the next practice, the next weight workout, the next game.

But Salave'a, a soft-spoken native of American Samoa, never complained. I recall asking him once during the week of a regular season game why he didn't take a game or two off and allow his injury to fully mend. No, he said, his teammates and coaches were depending on him to play, and with a defense that finished No. 3 in the league that season, he did not want to disrupt a very good thing.

On Tuesday, the Redskins decided to cut Joe Salave'a. Perhaps it was justified. After all, the team's pass rush with him in the lineup a year ago hadn't been much, and during the first three preseason games, the defensive line has had major difficulty putting much pressure on opposing quarterbacks. So maybe we should not be all that surprised to see him let go.

News of his being waived did not appear until the third paragraph of a story in The Post that focused far more on quarterback Jason Campbell saying he wants to play in the preseason finale against Jacksonville on Thursday night, and the possibility that injured Clinton Portis, held out of games all summer with knee tendinitis, also might see some action against the Jaguars.

Deep down in the story, there were three telling paragraphs on the cutting of Salave'a. Injuries had "ravaged him the past few years," it said, and the coaches were trying to "establish more youth on the line" so they decided to cut Big Joe loose to help improve his chances of catching on with another team.

Redskins Coach Joe Gibbs said he had coached "no greater person" than Salave'a. Gregg Williams, the team's assistant head coach-defense and the man who helped draft him in the fourth round when he was with the Tennessee Titans in 1998, described himself as "kind of like his stepfather" and that Salave'a had been very close to Williams' children.

How sweet.

But none of the above was enough to warrant keeping Salave'a on the roster, even if he seemed to be injury free for the first time in several years and had what Post reporter Jason LaCanfora described as "a solid camp."

It also wasn't enough that for several years, including the team's only playoff appearance under Gibbs in 2005, Salave'a had sacrificed his body and perhaps even his longterm health for the good of the team, because he felt he had that responsibility to his defensive line mates and his coaches.

I remember another Redskins defensive tackle saying many of the same things more than 30 years ago back in the 1970s. His name was Bill Brundige, a cerebral fellow and math whiz who also suffered a painful foot injury toward the end of the 1977 season when the Redskins were very much in the playoff hunt.

Brundige was on crutches all week before the team's next to last game on the road against the then St. Louis Cardinals. His coach, George Allen, kept saying all week that it would be highly unlikely that Brundige could play in the game. But Brundige made the trip, getting on the plane on crutches. Eventually, he also was asked to take a pain-killing shot, and Brundige agreed.

He lined up as a starter that day, but it would be the last game he ever played. His foot never did recover, though as I recall, the Redskins at least rewarded him by keeping him on injured reserve for the next season at full pay. That happened a lot back then, especially with Allen and his team of over-the-hill graybeards, many of whom were also allowed to be on the dole for an extra year.

The amount Brundige received surely was a pittance compared to what a veteran like Salave'a earns 30 years later, but it was the gesture of paying him back for his loyalty to the team -- whether misguided loyalty or not -- that I'll always remember.

George Allen may or may not have talked him into taking that career-ending injection, but at the very least, the football team acknowledged his contribution and did the right thing, just as Allen did for a number of his old geezers when they reached the end of the line.

In the modern age of football, you rarely see similar gestures of appreciation in a game that has never been more about what have you done for me lately then it is now.

You can argue that the players are well-compensated these days and have no one to blame but themselves if they don't leave football without a huge chunk of change in the bank to allow them to make the transition to the real world. Some of them, in fact, may never have to work another day in their lives.

But I also know that 10 and 20 years from now, many players of this era, just like so many players from eras gone by, will ultimately pay the physical price for their years in professional football. All you have to do is look at the assembled Hall of Famers every summer during the induction ceremony in Canton, Ohio, to understand that artificial knees and hips, crutches, canes and even wheelchairs likely will be a part of many of their futures.

Of course, by the time you read this, Joe Salave'a, the ultimate team guy, may well have been picked up by another club. Perhaps he'll play a few more years, bank a few more dollars, and at least be rewarded financially for all that pain and suffering, past, present and future.

But the next time you hear a club owner, a general manager, a head coach, praise a player for being such a wonderful team guy, an exemplary character guy, a loyal-to-a-fault, stand-up guy willing to play hurt and make the ultimate sacrifice for his teammates, just remember Joe Salave'a, who clearly deserved better from the Redskins than getting cut on a Tuesday afternoon in late August.