First Cuts

Quick note of thanks to the Hogs Haven community for all the thoughts and prayers as we welcome the newest Redskin fan to the world, my daughter Taylor. Baby and mom are doing great and I am setting up my TIVO so when I am up for the late-night feedings, I can be watching every NFL pre-season game in HD thanks to the NFL Network. For the last few years, I have made it a tradition to tape and watch every pre-season game they put on. It usually turns into me falling asleep after two quarters of a random game like Denver vs. Jacksonville or something. And it inevitably causes me to make one genius fantasy decision and one disaster fantasy decision each year. Among my better moves was making Drew Brees a priority the last few years, though that cat is officially out of the bag. And on the disaster side, I got sucked into drafting Kevin Jones not once, not twice, but thrice. How many times can you be wrong on the same player? Well, he is still in the league, so I guess the meter is running.

On to the Redskins and the opening of camp. I have had the opportunity to listen to a lot of the daytime radio shows this week, watch a lot of the local newscasts, and read the local papers. Suffice to say there will be no shortage of news on a daily or hourly basis until February. What I have found so far to be the common thread in the media since Thursday is the idea that this camp looks to be very well-run. Jim Zorn seems to be very comfortable this summer. In his interviews he demonstrates the calm and control of a head coach who has been around longer than 1 full year. And his demeanor has seemed to define what is being reported on the radio and in the papers. Poise, structure, purpose. Outside of the normal throng of ardent Redskins fans that have gathered to usher in the season, there is little hype or over-the-top fanfare associated with the start of this camp.

With every player now officially in the fold and on the field in some capacity, the early stages of this season have gone as smooth as you could hope for in 2009: no elongated holdouts, no first day injuries, and a lack of organizational confusion that has been synonymous with Redskins preseasons for quite some time.

In short, this is exactly the way a team that has aspirations of shocking the league wants to get things kicked off.