It has been suggested previously that Washington executive VP of football operations Vinny Cerrato’s valuable time could be spent on something other than TV or radio appearances.   Regardless, Cerrato (above) fielded questions from Comcast’s Larry Michael on Thursday’s edition of “Redskins Nation” and in the words of DC Sports Bog’s Dan Steinberg, “you might have thought Portis vs. Zorn would have been Michael’s first question.”  Alas, “sometimes when you ask for transparency you get vodka, and sometimes you get weak veggie broth.”

“Vinny, the practice yesterday, the Wednesday practice, I thought [looked] very crisp for the Redskins,” Michael observed to kick off the show, “especially under the circumstances with, you know, a lot of stuff going on. We’ll talk about it in a moment, but I thought the practice looked good yesterday.”

In the sort of deeply penetrating analysis that only unfiltered team media can provide, Cerrato agreed that the Wednesday practice, indeed, looked good, and that his players practice hard and work hard. Groovy.

Other topics of conversation: the organization-wide frustration at the losing skid, the need to eliminate mistakes, the need to adjust to a new coach’s style, the generally poor health around the NFL in December, the need for big plays, the increasing comfort and confidence of the rookie receivers, the Redskins’ increased chances of success when they have plays of more than 20 yards, the value of forcing turnovers, the folly of drafting according to need, and the importance of protecting the quarterback.

Finally, well into the second segment, they got around to discussing the primary notable topic of Redskins discussion this week. The basic message from Cerrato: both coach and running back are fine, they get along well, the media probably exaggerated the incident, but still, Portis should have dealt with his frustrations out of the spotlight. A sensible conclusion, and one that would have been a nice little quote in all those stories people were writing on Wednesday, back when the Exec VP wasn’t commenting.