Dallas Cowboys @ Washington Redskins Open Thread

Kickoff: 8:15 PM Eastern at beautiful FedEx field, where the weather looks to be cold with a chance of miserable. Now the good news: Tonight's lunar cycle is the Waning Gibbous variety which, I'm told:

As the moon wanes, the darkness creeps in as shown in the lower line of Xun in the waning gibbous phase. The waning crescent that is two-thirds dark is represented by the two yin/dark lower lines of the trigram Gen. Coming full cycle, we arrive back at Kun and the next new moon.

Saaaaweeeeeat.

Cloudy and cold with 10-15 MPH winds in the evening is the word from some weather website. Low is 31 degrees, so expect modestly dressed Cheerleaders prancing around with smiles and shivers.

All kinds of neato badeato stuff available at Blogging the Boys for the upcoming game. Previews, Q&As, etc. Go enjoy.

Injury Report:

Cowboys: Isaiah Stanback is out. More importantly, Felix Jones is out. He wasn't much of an issue in the first game, but I blame that on poor coaching by the Cowboys as they failed to use him properly. He can play, but not today.

LB Bobby Carpenter is also out. He's a role player, no big shakes. Probable is a laundry list of people, highlights: Leonard Davis, Terence Newman, Tony Romo will play, and Jason Witten. I expect to see them all out.

Redskins: Clinton Portis is questionable and probably will not play. Shawn Springs is questionable but I don't know if he will play, if any reader(s) can update that status as news comes in, that'd be just swell. Anthony Montgomery is out struck down by his achilles heel, which is where his mother held him over the burning hearth to give him his invulnerability everywhere except there. That's why whenever Trojans get Achilles' heel injuries, perhaps by arrows applied directly at, people always think of Anthony Montgomery. I may have this mixed up.

Probable are: Malcolm Kelly who I've read elsewhere will play, Pete Kendall, Santana Moss, Chris Samuels, Jason Taylor -- I've read he'll play, Devin Thomas, Marcus Washington, and Ladell Betts, who we need desparately without Clinton Portis.

Ben will have some info up later on at The Curly R. He managed an interview with Chris Horton earlier this week which is simply phenomenal. Horton sounds grounded and awesome, I really like this kid and couldn't be happier with the way he's playing this year. Redskins.com Gameday. Hog Heaven will have something up later, etc.

Prediction: I'm going to home base on this one. We played them pretty well the last time around but will have to do so tonight without Clinton Portis. We do have our home field advantage back in full effect and I'm absolutely comfortable with the defense against their offense until they prove me wrong. I think we win a close game somewhere in the 20 point range on both sides, so... 27-24 Redskins. Post your predictions below.

This is Dallas Hate Week. Chris Horton says, in the aforementioned interview: "It's [the rivalry] unbelievable. It kind of reminds me of the USC-UCLA rivalary, obviously it's just on a bigger stage. Obviously the fans and, uh, everyone around here can't stand Dallas."

By my lights we're still four wins short of a WC spot as 9-7 simply won't cut it this year. It will especially fail to cut it if, with a loss to the Cowboys, we let their foot into the door for the 2nd spot of the NFC East and get to compete with them for the remainder of the season for limited playoff resources now that they're approaching healthy. All games against the Cowboys are important to Redskins fans. But rarely in year's past have we had the opportunity to so settle their season (I think we kind of did in 2005, that was cool) with a victory. Whether this is a must-win for us, I know the Cowboys have circled that as a game they desparately need to win to keep their playoff hopes alive. If 10 wins is where one needs to be to go postalseason, 5-5 is a horrible spot to be in, especially sitting at 1-3 in division with no possible tie breaker against at least one of the teams in front of you.

So let's win. Post your predictions/thought below and enjoy some Redskins prime time football.