By request.....the 2010 Washington Redskins?

Okay, I had a request to divert (temporarily) from my Ohio myopia to talk a little Foosball. NFC East style. So here goes with a brief (I hope) take on the Skins.

You have to give the Washington Redskins credit, at least every offseason they have to be the most entertaining team in the league, and this year is no different. Mike Shanahan, Donovan McNabb, Fat Albert Haynesworth, and Santana Moss have been major characters in the 2010 version of All My Redskins. Strangely, owner Daniel Snyder has been curiously quiet. Maybe there's hope for him after all, although I want more owners to go on drunken tirades like Jerrah Jones. (Holy cow that was funny).

So let's take a brief look back before going forward, eh? (Picture Ace Ventura taking a preemptive breath before doing his best car commercial disclaimer reader ....."ewwwwhhhhh"). The Jim Zorn experiment went horribly wrong, and the Skins won the apparent bidding for Team Shanahan (both the unemployed father and the Texan Offensive Coordinator son). The Eagles finally decided they had enough of winning everything but the Super Bowl with Don McNabb and inexplicably dealt him to a division rival. OK. Of course, that meant that Jason Campbell ends up in Oakland with yet another offensive coordinator. Poor guy. I actually like JC, and wish him well. Oakland doesn't deserve him.

The Skins decided not to give up on malcontent Defensive Tackle Albert Haynesworth and signed a $21M check. Haynesworth, in a sign of great appreciation, decided to boycott all team functions and give the owner, the new coaching staff and their new 3-4 scheme, his teammates and the fans the middle finger. Great guy, that Albert Haynesworth. At least he didn't spike Shanahan in the face. Only in professional sports (and Wall Street) do you see a guy who's this big an a**hole getting a bonus this big. Does this guy think he works for Goldman Sachs? For once, teammates did not rally in support of their comrade. Good for them. This guy will never get it. Just look at what the 3-4 did for Kris Jenkins' career with the Jets. Besides, as a nose tackle you can get as fat as you want. Hello Krispy Kreme. The guy is too stupid to see a good thing right in front of him.

For once this April, the Skins actually had a first round pick, and they used it to shore up a dreadful offensive line. Trent Williams was selected ahead of Russell Okung in a slightly surprising move. The talk about Williams is that he has the ability to be one of the best....ever, but he doesn't have that kind of motor or desire. Only time will tell. Shanny drafted Ryan Clady and immediately installed him at LT for Denver, so I give him the benefit of the doubt. The Skins weren't done trying to fix this unit after the draft, trading with the Saints for Tackle Jamall Brown. Brown is a former ProBowler who missed all of '09 with a hip injury, and became expendable with the emergence of Jermon Bushrod. Williams play early and Brown's health will be huge keys to this units success, but wait I'm looking forward instead of back. Bad blogger. Well, in typical Redskins fashion, they had no 2nd or 3rd round picks to work with. At some point, you'd think they'd learn. You have to have a lot of good young players to win titles, and they come from the 2nd and 3rd rounds too.

Santana Moss is apparently a roid head. Yeah, I was a little surprised too. Shouldn't he be bigger? Well, he WAS getting regular visits from Tiger Wood's "doctor", that we know. At least he keeps good company, or bad, depending on which way you look at it. You have to figure Tiger HAS to be getting the good s#*t. Just look how he blew up....and came back from a destroyed knee. Recovery, thy name is HGH. At least that's what Andy Pettite, and just about every other athlete with a positive test says. That or you have a low sperm count. Either way, you're full of it and we all know it. I don't even react anymore, do you?

OK, gotta speed through a little faster now. LB Rocky McIntosh wanted a trade, didn't get it. The Skins picked up Not So Fast Anymore Willie Parker and Larry Johnson, a little out of order chronologically but not in significance. Oh while we're on washed up players with little or nothing left, they signed Joey Galloway too. That was from the "Holy Crap, He's Still in the League?" file. They cut Fred Smoot and signed Phillip Buchanon in a swap of a younger turd for an older one. There were some other moves and some other draft picks, but this is already too long.

So let's take a quick look ahead. The offense may take a little while to gel, but you have to figure the combination of Team Shannahan, a proven veteran like McNabb, and an improved offensive line will make this team better. Chris Cooley is back and hopefully will stay healthy all year. McNizzle loved to throw to TE Brent Celek with the Eagles, so Cooley should have a big year if he's the same guy he was before the ankle injury. Fred Davis had a good year last year, and without one or several of the receivers stepping up, could find himself on the field in a lot of two TE sets. The receivers are below average as a group, although they have some size in Devin Thomas and Malcolm Kelly. If Moss is healthy, another 1,000 yard season is not out of the question. The running backs are old and brittle. Clinton Portis, a Shanny favorite (even if he traded him for Champ Bailey), is back after missing many games with scrambled brains. You can't get surgery for that, ask Merril Hoge. Larry Johnson had some nice games for the Bengals and probably will take a good chunk of carries for what that's worth, and of course, the artist formerly known as Fast Willie. A very interesting name at the RB position is Ryan Torrain. This guy would've started for the Broncos two years ago but was hurt in preseason. Once he got the chance to play he looked really good, but only played in 2 games before tearing up his knee. He missed most of '08 and all of '09, but I'm telling you that this guy was big, strong, and fast. If he can get right, he will take over this position. Overall, this group of skills guys is not as good as what McNabb had in Philly, but is probably going to be better than they were last season. That's really not saying much. One thing you can almost always say about McNabb is that he protects the football. If he can get around 20-22 TD's and stay at or below 10 INT's, this offense can be efficient enough to keep defenses honest.

Defensively, the Skins were a darn good unit last year. They may not have been statistically impressive, but they were very competitive and kept the team in a lot of games. It will be interesting to see how they adapt to Jim Haslett's 3-4 scheme. Last season, both the Denver Broncos and Green Bay Packers switched to the 3-4 and improved over the previous year. It might take a few weeks, but this team has the personnel to be a really good defense. Haynesworth (you'd hope), and Phillip Daniels anchor the front, with Brian Orakpo, McIntosh, first-time ProBowler London Fletcher and Andre Carter at Linebacker. That's a nice front...on paper. Some guys excel in the switch to this scheme and some wash out. Orakpo, for one, I think will be dynamite. He can be the Demarcus Ware, Lamarr Woodley type of guy this defense will need. The secondary is pretty good too. Carlos Rodgers has never quite lived up to billing, but is solid, and while overpaid, Deangelo Hall seems to be back to at least relevance. Buchanon is putrid, but he's a nickelback and we all know Nickelback sucks. Oh sorry, nickelbacks usually suck. Laron Landry is a good hard-hitting safety, although he isn't a ballhawk in the mold of the late Sean Taylor. The other safeties are average. If the pass rush is better from this 3-4 front, it will make the secondary that much better too. It's hard to imagine they will be worse than last season, and could be better, a legit top 10 unit.

The Skins were in the bottom half of the league in special teams, and I can honestly say I don't know anything about their kicking and return games going into this year. Even I'm not THAT big a nerd.

The schedule looks brutal, especially considering this meat grinder division. 5 potential playoff teams in the first 8 games, although the other three should be wins in St. Louis, Chicago, and Detroit. Week 8 bye, then 6 and arguably 7 of the remaining 8 against playoff hopefuls. Tampa being the only gimme (you'd think). Anything can happen in the NFL I'll grant you, and every year teams you think will be good end up stinking, but this is a tough schedule no matter how you look at it. The division is always tough and then you have Indy, Minnesota, Green Bay, and at Tennessee and Jacksonville too. That ain't gonna be easy.

So the $64k question is.....what's the record going to be? Well, the good news is that they WILL be better than last year's 4-12. The bad news is this is still the 4th best team in the division, in my opinion. It is a helluva division though. The out of division schedule is hard, and the 2nd half road games are brutal. .500 on the road for the season is not out of the question, which would be a huge improvement over 1-7 last year, but it's going to come down to the home record. The division games plus Indy, GB, Minn, and Houston could spell disaster. Somehow I see this team playing to a 6-10 record, maybe 7-9. If this team were in the NFC West, they might win the division, but where they are...I just don't see the playoffs. If they surprise me, it will be on the strength of the defense and an offense that doesn't turn it over.

(So much for being brief.....for crying out load, I think I'd make a 30 second commercial take an hour. Don't even let me leave a voicemail on your phone!).