ASHBURN, Va. — Perceptions of sports owners often make very little sense.

In Philadelphia, Jeffrey Lurie's Eagles have made it to the playoffs seven of the last nine years and have advanced to the NFC Championship Game five times in the last eight seasons. Yet many perceive Lurie as a cheapskate who cares much more about turning a profit than winning.

Then you have the Redskins' Dan Snyder. His team has made the playoffs just twice in the last nine years. The guy goes through head coaches like Jennifer Aniston goes through boyfriends. He constantly meddles in personnel decisions, even though the Hogettes have a better understanding of the game than he does.

But because Snyder annually spends/throws away tens of millions of dollars on free agents, many inside and outside the Capital Beltway seem to think he's just a swell owner, even if most of the recipients of those tens of millions of dollars usually are over-the-hill or couldn't play in the first place.

After the Redskins lost six of their last eight games last season and failed to make the playoffs for the second time in three years, Snyder decided to meddle some more.

He didn't fire another coach — his latest, Jim Zorn, was just a year into the job — but he did try to fire his quarterback.

The Redskins' disappointing 8-8 finish was enough to convince Snyder that Jason Campbell, whom the Redskins selected in the first round of the 2005 draft, wasn't good enough to get his team to the Super Bowl it will reach when hell freezes over.

So he and his man-servant, Redskins executive vice president/football operations Vinny Cerrato, spent the offseason conducting a very public search for a replacement. First, they made an unsuccessful run at the Broncos' Jay Cutler, who ended up being traded to Chicago. Then they tried to trade up in the first round of the April draft to get USC quarterback Mark Sanchez. No luck there, either.

Needless to say, this all made for a very embarrassing offseason for Campbell, who couldn't walk out to his driveway to get the paper without somebody asking him how it felt to be unwanted by the Redskins.

To his credit, he handled the whole thing infinitely better than his boss. While Campbell admitted that the 'Skins' attempts to acquire Cutler and Sanchez often made him feel "like a bad quarterback or someone who's not wanted," he sucked it up and vowed to prove to the Redskins and anybody else out there who had doubts about him that he is right man for the job.

"You have to try to turn negative things into something positive," Campbell said. "Keep yourself moving forward. I used it all as motivation. I'm at a stage in my life where I just want to enjoy playing football and try to do everything I can to be successful and take my game to the next level."

So far, Campbell's negative-into-a-positive approach has been slow in producing results. In the Redskins' two preseason games, he has completed just four of 13 passes for 48 yards, including an unimpressive 1-for-7 showing Saturday night in three series of work against the Steelers. But it is the preseason.

"He's had every bit of support from inside our team and our coaching staff as far as saying, 'Listen, you're our guy. Don't worry about this stuff. We know you can play. We know what you can do. Go ahead and get it done for us,'" tight end Chris Cooley said.

Campbell played very well the first half of last season. Threw eight touchdown passes and no interceptions, completed 66.1 percent of his attempts and averaged 7.6 yards per attempt as the Redskins went 6-2.

But his numbers took a precipitous drop in the 'Skins' 2-6 finish. Just five TD passes and six interceptions, a .590 completion percentage, and just 5.4 yards per attempt. Finished with the league's best interception percentage, but third-worst touchdown percentage. Finished 25th in yards per attempt.

"Everyone has made a big deal out of last season because we started out so hot and didn't finish so well," Campbell said. "We know that. I got a lot of the blame. Comes with the position. Comes with the territory. You don't say anything about it. You just take it and move on. This season, I'm just going to take everything game-by-game and try to be the best I can be."

Despite Snyder's attempts to replace him, Campbell worked hard in the offseason to improve as a quarterback and establish himself as the team's offensive leader. He has been much more vocal on the field. Before training camp started, Campbell and some Redskins' receivers showed up at Redskins Park two or three times a week to run routes.

"This is my first year going into a season as a starter with the same offense in back-to-back years," Campbell said. "I'm much more comfortable with my understanding of the offense now. I'm the leader of this team. I've become much more vocal. I'm trying to make everyone accountable, including myself, in everything we do."

Zorn would be the first to admit that the Redskins' attempts to acquire Cutler and Sanchez weren't the best things for Campbell's confidence. But he doesn't think it caused any long-term damage.

"I think he knows he's talented," Zorn said. "The thing that we tried to be open with him about is that there are certain things that go on that you don't have control over. You just have to bear it.

"I think that's one of the things he did very well. He bore the burden of the uncertainty. The thing that we can be most proud of and that his teammates can be most proud of is that he prepared himself as though he was going to be the starter. So that if he had the chance to be the starter (again), he was ready to go."

Campbell had a lot on his plate last season for a quarterback trying to learn a new offense. He was responsible for setting the formation on each play as well as calling the protection schemes against blitzes.

"I'm going to help him in a couple of areas this year so that he doesn't have to memorize every single play," Zorn said. "I'm going to help him with a couple of the formations on things we'll be putting in later in the week (prior to a game). Once that takes place, he'll be able to concentrate on the essentials."

That's fine with Campbell.

"They're trying to take some things off of me," he said. "Some of the coaches felt it was a little bit too much last year. But in the long run, I think it helped. It got me a little bit more committed to the offense. But they're trying to lift some things off my plate and give me an opportunity to just go out there and play."

Campbell was often criticized last year for not taking enough shots downfield. The Redskins had just 19 pass plays of 25 yards or more the entire season, the 14th fewest in the league. He expects that to change as his comfort level with Zorn's offense increases.

"The longer you're in a system, the better you know where everybody's supposed to be and where everyone's going," he said.