No More Mr. Nice Guy, Jason Campbell

Jason Campbell's high class personality may be hurting his career. Campbell get high marks for the way he carries himself and that regard for him went higher as he was under duress from Washington Redskins management this summer. Though he felt like "tissue paper" in route to the toilet drain, Campbell kept his mouth shut, showed up for work and avoided Jay Cutler-like emotional outbursts. Just like Patrick Ramsey. Though it has nothing to do with football skills, Campbell's Type B personality is a risk to trigger an erosion of support. There's something of a personal confession in this. I think Campbell's personality is much like my own and for much the same reason; good old middle class family virtues. If you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all. Respect people. Control your emotions. Stay cool under fire always, especially because you are black. You don't want to be seen as one of them. Sacrifice yourself for the good of the family, or in this case, for the team. It's one thing to fit into a team. It's quite another to lead it. Early in my career, those values stood me well. They got me promoted. As I rose through the ranks, they hurt and I wasn't so quick to recognize why. In my case and in others I observed, it seemed that the more the team's leader talked in team-speak, the more the bosses wondered if he was hiding behind the team. Bosses don't want to hear what we need to do. They want to know what you are going to do. They want to know what you need to be successful and want to hear it spoken with confidence. It doesn't help him that nice guy Campbell doesn't throw his teammates under the bus for not making plays. It doesn't help that he doesn't call out Jim Zorn, who has less experience as head coach than Campbell has as a starter, for calling dumb plays. It would be inappropriate to hear these things in public. But well-tempered assertiveness is called for now. That's where Type B's are disadvantaged. Assertiveness feels rude. It's makes our skin crawl. It goes against what momma said. It's pure Jason Campbell when he says Monday after a loss that he's looked at the game film and everyone knows the mistakes they made. Nice, but does not inspire confidence. We don't need to know that everyone knows what mistakes they made. We want to know what he, Jason Campbell, is going to do about it. No, he doesn't have to throw and catch his own passes while making blocks at the same time, but that's the attitude he has to take. Mr. Nice Guy is no act with Campbell, but it has run its course. Off the field, in the office in my own career and in others I've seen, people judge the validity of one's statements by the way it's said. It's silly. It's petty. It's all too real. The risk to Campbell isn't the Giants' defense. It's the sense that, by not asserting himself enough, Daniel Snyder, Jim Zorn, the players and the fans who still believe in him won't try so hard to help him achieve. Snyder is already a lost cause, but the rest of us sense that Campbell has a gun of an arm and steel in his spine. Now we need to see the fire in his belly. For the record, Jason Campbell will take a step up this season. I look for his number to be 33 percent better than in 2008. Became a fan of Hog Heaven on Facebook. Click here. Follow me on twitter.com/SkinsHogHeaven.