Ken and I are already at Fedex...we'll keep everyone posted with what's going on at Fedex in regards to the Burgundy Revolution. Two young coaches going out....which team will be more disciplined and focused?

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via www.nflgridirongab.com

via photos.upi.com

Mike Smith has his man. Jim Zorn doesn't. Hopefully the Redskins defense can give the offense with some excellent field condition.
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Images via alt.coxnewsweb.com, 1.bp.blogspot.com

A big concern of mine is how Sherman Lewis will handle the onslaught of zone blitzes from Eagles Defensive Coordinator, and Jim Johnson pupil, Sean McDermott. With zone blitzes, the middle of the field should have some holes, so hopefully Cooley and Sleepy can see get the ball with some open room. 

Notes:

- Levi Jones will most likely be active tonight. 
- Brian Mitchell will be inducted pre-game into the Ring of Fame

 vs.  

Images via redskins.com

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.

Kickoff is 1:00PM Eastern though unless you live in tiny pockets of Virginia or Michigan (though not Detroit, insanely) you'll need to find your way to a sports bar to catch the game. Which is where I'm off in short order. I wish you better luck, here are the NFL Distribution Maps for this week.

After the St. Louis game, and even after last week's close contest against the Browns, there's really no such thing as a gimme game. In spite of how bad the Lions have been thus far, this is not a game we can assume to victory. The Redskins have largely played up and down to their competition, which is great when you're on the road at Dallas or Philly, but not so hot when you're at home against the Rams (who might be a much better team under new coaching).

The betting public is on to us. The game opened with us as 9 point favorites but has since moved to around 7.5. I still see books listing the game at -9, so you might want to get in front of that trend ASAP. I have a policy of never betting against the Redskins, so... degenerative gambling will not fail me today.

New Hogs Haven contributor skinsider has an excellent game preview here, and Curly R should be banging around with his gameday open thread at Curly R. I wish I was going to be around to tend to this open thread, but as mentioned, nobody wants to watch our game besides us. Thanks, Lions.

We've played the Lions 36 times in the regular season amassing a 26-10 record against them on 770 points against their 555. Let's extend that.

I'm going to miss kickoff and good crowded bar seating (Austin is not a good town for sports bars, by the way, which is insane. How difficult is it to have good sports bars? How can a place call itself a place if it doesn't have an abundance of good sports bars? I'm angry about it.) if I don't drag out of here, so I apologize for the short gameday thread. Hopefully someone with satellite will be about to tend to this thing in my absence.

Beat Detroit.

HTTR

QUESTION: I think Barry Sanders is the best running back in NFL history. Anyone want to disagree with me?

Here is a video of a snake-oil salesman telling you to take the over (41). Hmmm...

House cleaning.

1) My apologies for not being around at the end of the week. I've been pretty busy this week, though am doing my best to increase the amount of content in this space by, perhaps, bringing in some new writers. They don't grow on trees.

2) Can this be a bounce-back week for the NFC East? The Cowboys are playing a Rams team we just lost to and we're playing a Browns team the Giants just got beat up on. Obviously I hope the rest of the NFC East does not bounce back as that complicates our chase for a division title, but it will be interesting to see how the almost mythically built-up NFC East responds. Big Blue View and I shared some thoughts on the NFC East via email this week. Him on us:

They looked awful against the Giants. Then they looked like Super Bowl material for four weeks after that, which included victories over Dallas and Philadelphia. Then, inexplicably, Washington lost AT HOME to previously winless St. Louis....

Personally, I think last week was an aberration for Washington. Right now this team scares me more than any other team in the division.

I sure hope he's right.

3) Good timing for the Browns, who face us while our...

Redskins are coming off their worst performance of the season against the St. Louis Rams. I know "flukes" happen, but if the Rams are able to take out the Redskins on the road, that should be some encouragement for us. Currently, the Redskins are favored by about seven points.

I thought the Giants game in week one wasn't nearly as close as the score. This isn't to quibble with the notion that last week was our worst of the season, it probably was, but there's at least room for interpreting what happened against the Giants as such. The reality is, if the Rams were half as bad as everyone was trying to pile on them (perhaps doubtful, now) then we aren't safe from anyone, anywhere.

4) This is hilarious, I love THE ONION:

The Cowboys originally sensed something was wrong when Womo threw three straight incomplete passes to begin the overtime after being sacked three times and knocked down 19 times during regulation by meanie-bullies who hate him. Their suspicions were confirmed when Womo blubbered to them on the sidelines while holding up his hurted fingey.

Womo was immediately given an orange-flavored St. Joseph aspirin and a wowwypop while a SpongeBob SquarePants Band-Aid was applied to the pinkie. When this proved inadequate, Cowboys head pediatrician Daniel "Doctor Danny" Cooper inspected Womo's pinkie while trainers distracted Womo by making a spoon into an airplane and "flying" chocolate ice cream into the quarterback's mouth.

"This was more than just the normal boo-boo," Cooper told reporters.

5) Yah so what have you done for the Redskins lately will resume this week.

6) Injury report:

Shawn Springs is doubtful.

7) Click here to see if you get to watch the game at home. I do not.

8) Ben at Curly R should have an open thread up if this one isn't loud. Again, I won't be around to comment on the game, as I do not get to watch the game at home.

9) The Chronic is/was a good album. Malcolm Kelly, Devin Thomas, and I all listened to this album... when we were kids. Awesome. Ditto Santana Moss, though he's a bit older. Since most of my NFL watching life experiences came before I was 22 years old, it's kind of strange to now watch players who are, by volume and effect, younger than I am. I'm not used to it, yet.

10) Braylon Edwards wants you to know how he feels about the Redskins.

This is your gameday open thread, let me know if I missed anything in the comments. If you guys keep this thing active, I'll reward you with something like this, which I think I can figure out. Apparently we can now take Open Thread comment "stats".

Anyways, HTTR.

We're sitting solid at 4-1 and face what many people consider to be the worst team in football. By many people I mean around half of the SB Nation NFL Bloggers that participated in the SB Nation Power Rankings this week, complements The Phinsider.

SB nation Power Rankings, it is an XL document.

Before your head explodes from the bogus ballot that has the Redskins ranked 13th, so stupid, I already fought that battle for you. It's just a wack ballot, I can't be blamed.

One of the bad things about playing St. Louis is that apparently means no one wants to watch, which is false as far as I'm concerned. See this week's distribution map which has Redskins and St. Louis on only in the D.C. and St. Louis area. My hood, Texas, will not get the game, which means I'll be at a sports bar.

What the Redskins need to do to win this game is not crap the bed. I think Coach Zorn's mantra of staying medium will get tested most during these types of games, as we're allegedly talented enough to be favored by two touchdowns. These are games that are lost mentally, which I suppose is a good thing, since it will reveal more about the character of the team than you'd typically expect an 0-4 opponent would.

HTTR, let's go punch them in the mouth.

I hope the Redskins do as best they can. This is the best I can.

And this is your open gameday thread.

It is Dallas Hate week. Not much needs to be said besides: Win. The Ewoks won.

Period.

So, go win, Redskins.

This is your gameday open thread.

Today, 1PM Eastern, which is in about an hour. NFL Distribution Maps say the game is playing in my hood, which means I might even be near a computer to join you pranksters in open threads. NFL Distribution Maps have duped me before, though...

Revenge of the Birds has a helpful injury update, because he's a superior blogger:

The Redskins report doesn't look as promising though with Khary Campbell (Thigh), Kareem Moore (Hamstring), James Thrash (Ankle), Marcus Washington (Hamstring) and Malcolm Kelly (Ankle) all listed as questionable, although Kelly was the only one who was limited in practice on Friday. London Fletcher (Not Injury Related), H.B. Blades (Knee), Carlos Rogers (Groin), Mike Sellers (Hamstring), Fred Smoot (Hip) and Jason Taylor (Knee) are all listed as probable.

Redskins Insider says it is NO on Kelly and NO on Erasmus James:

WR Malcolm Kelly, a second round pick, is out with an ankle injury.
DE Erasmus James, who has not looked very good thus far, is out.

(OMGoose TORB has the full list in easily digestible fashion. That's strong blogging.)

I'm far more worried about our secondary's health in this particular game than anything else, because we need to find ways to at least stop the bleeding from Larry Fitzgerald and Anquan Boldin. If we're lining up linebackers against either of them, I don't think it really matters who it is; that's not a matchup we will often win.

Ben has his own gameday open thread up, so make sure you stop by and type hello, or something. He has strong feelings on a subject we disagree about:

Improve specials teams, somehow which could be tough given there is no one worth risking available for punt returns and the Redskins punter turns out to be green green green. DO NOT I REPEAT DO NOT PUT SANTANA IN TO RETURN PUNTS.

I say do it! Anything that increases the amount of times that Santana Moss gets his hands on the football in space is positive for this football team. He returned punts in College (I'm pretty sure) so it's not as if he is deer in the headlights against a mass of human flesh charging down the field at him with bad intentions. He knows when a fair catch is in order to save skin, and he knows how to move more than 5 yards away from the spot where he catches it, which is more than can be said for Antwaan Randle El. I'm not dogging Randle El, I'm just saying, your 2-3 person dekes are neat and everything, but I'd just as soon you move forward.

Chris Cooley watch: No pre game penis this week, but Chris Cooley is now an executive producer slash wasp slayer. Squatters beware.

Hey, you, HTTR.