In case you didn't know, we've got the two stars of the film on the roster. First up is Devin Thomas, who plays Arnold's Dutch, er, enthusiastically:

Thomas is a serial abuser of the famous Arnold Schwarzenegger lines from "Predator," which Malcolm Kelly finds entirely amusing. "Do it just one time," Kelly requested today, but instead Thomas did it about 73 times. Quoting Thomas:

C'mahn, what are you dooing, get to the chopper. C'mahn, now. Nowwww. C'mahn. What are you waiting for, doo it, c'mahn. Kill me. I'm right here. C'maaaaahn. C'mahn, do it, kill me, I'm right here, now, get to the chopper. Dillon, Billy, Poncho, c'mahn, I'm right here, get to the chopper, what are you guys dooing, let's go.

Who doesn't?

Via Homer McFanboy, and this should surprise no one, Chris Horton plays The Predator:

We’ve got to bring something to your attention. It seems the fans have given you a nickname …

"I think I already know it," Horton said. "The Predator?"...

My guess is, unlike in basketball or other sports, the fans can’t really see your face. They just see the helmet and the hair as you swoop in and make another play.

(Laughs). "It’s a good thing, I guess," he said. "The Predator, his role, he’s a deadly guy. Some of the things he did and some of the weapons he had in the movie were insane. So I guess it’s a good thing."

The helmet thing never crossed my mind, though I suppose it makes sense now (but then every helmeted football player would have a helmet related nickname, yah? Naw man, it's definitely the hair). All that is left is for Devin Thomas to lure Chris Horton into the locker room only to attempt to dispatch of him using rudimentary barbaric forest designed traps and then demand that the Predator kill him, but only if it is like right now.

But who will play Dillon (left)?

via www.favouritefilm.com

Must be Jason Taylor. You show up on my door step from a mysterious group with a checkered past (the CIA, Miami Dolphins, whatever) to aid us in a "rescue" mission? Sure, and then it becomes like totally apparent that the real reason was so you could use destroy the military camp of the NFC East. You know what? I've been used, Jason Taylor, and I like it. Your well-intentioned trickery will ultimately be vindicated when you head butt Tony Romo for a 72 yard loss despite having both your arms dislocated. Will you survive? Maybe, probably not actually, but the viewer will learn to love you.

Mac?

via www.montysminiguns.com

Essay you are erratic like Antwaan Randle El. I don't really know what is up with you through most of the season, as you're too busy going generally crazy by hog-hunting or cutting your face while shaving or dropping passes. But then, right when it seems you've really lost your mind with your crazy whispers, redemption; he's right through them trees! - or defenders, as you squeeze a pass to Chris Cooley in a come from behind victory over the Eagles. I never stopped believing Mac, not after you shot out them trees.

Anna (middle)?

via www.favouritefilm.com

Durant Brooks you escaped the alien or else getting cut only by the skin of your teeth, and now you've got that crazy stare and absolutely surprising ability to speak fluent english of the horror (where did she learn this?). No one is more aware of their own potentialy impending doom as you. You've seen the beast, the headlines, the paper clippings, and you know best that mortality is really just one severed spinal column or botched punt away. Hey, happy ending: Anna makes it through the movie, so will you, guy. Just blame chupacabra or something.

Blaine.

via imgsrv.itm-e72.com

Jon Jansen. You're the seasoned veteran of the team, having survived with your own skill and ingenuity through either an unlivable firefight or 10 years with the Washington Redskins, longer than anyone else on the team. Is this 2008 Redskins trek through the Guatemalan jungle your last? Whatever the case may be, when you spray ordnance into the trees they make way like defensive linemen getting clubbed left and right. I don't care what they say about this grizzled war vet, dude still has it.

Billy.

via chenzhen.files.wordpress.com

Andre Carter fears nothing, including knife fights with alien hunters who rip out the spinal columns of human beings. He would just as gladly challenge Mr. Predator to a mano-a-mano knife fight on a sliver of wooden bridge as he would challenge a double team just to buy the secondary a few valuable seconds of time. Carter doesn't talk much but, when he does, you get the sense that you better listen, because it will be profound. The only thing that distinguishes the two is that Andre Carter would win that one on one with the Pred.

Poncho.

Lorenzo Alexander. Versatile Poncho takes a whole lot of licking but keeps on ticking throughout the entire season. So you may have had your internal organs shattered or your helmet taken off, but Poncho Alexander keeps on coming with a mean pass rush or never letting go of your rifle (which probably killed poor Poncho, Predators don't kill unarmed prey). Safety equipment is for the weak.

Hawkins?

via www.moviesarecool.com

Uhh, yea, Ethan Albright. Listen, someone has to snap the ball and carry all this radio equipment and it might as well be you, Red. But we really appreciate it!

Reader(s) encouraged to do their own. On a personal note, I watched this movie something like 20 times my freshman year of college, over, and over, and over again.

Pet TORB:

[Jason Taylor's] situation escalated into high drama for no immediately apparent reason. Taylor made an impromptu appearance at Redskins Park today, and mentioned that doctors had insisted on doing the procedure on his leg promptly. This, apparently, led people to finally read up on compartmental syndrome — which I mentioned on Monday that “the internet makes sound characteristically terrifying” — and found out that it could have caused amputation or even death if untreated. So Coach Zorn got to explain all about the anatomy of the calf again, which satisfied no one (but was entertaining), and then Bubba Tyer was asked to come out and speak to the media for the first time in ages to explain exactly what had happened. (Very short version: everything was under control, and other players, including a “prominent linebacker,” have suffered this before and returned quickly.)

So it's one of those injuries that results in either death, amputation, or prominence. As much as chicks dig scars, I'm thinking return to prominence is clutch.

No word at the Official Jason Taylor Website on injury updates or how the recently acquired defensive end is feeling, though my guess is he's feeling CLEAN CLEAN CLEAN! Taylor is peddling a new male-only product that "has it wrapped up." Draw your own conclusions. (Or go watch the commercial here.)

Redskins Insider discusses former Dallas Cowboy quarterback Jim Zorn adjusting to learning to hate hate hate Dallas. Best way to develop that seething, irrational, and endearing loathing for the Cowboys? Bubba Tyer:

(My recommendation: Sit next to Bubba Tyer on the flight out there, ask him how much he hates the Cowboys, then listen to him churn for the next three hours. That ought to do it. Nobody hates the Cowboys like Bubba.)

Tyer has been with the team for something like 40 years now. I say something like, because I have to try and piece together his history with the team from old articles because, unbelievably, Tyer isn't listed anywhere on the Official Site that I can find. No joke, search there reveals:

No results for bubba tyer

This is one of the most enduring characters in Redskins franchise history, Ring of Fame inductee, and he can't even get a little blurb on the site? He already retired once, so there's no excusing this on the basis that he's still employed by the team. I mean...

“With George Allen and Jack Pardee, we'd have 15 two-a-days in a row. With all them two-a-days in a row, you don't have a chance to recover from soft tissue injuries.”

That's just science.

The year the former Marine joined the Redskins was 1971 (1971!) -- which happens to be the year our oldest player, Ethan Albright, was born.

He rules.

Phillip Daniels is strong.

Is that what passes for a lead/lede (the debate rages on!) around here? I'm just following the big dogs, as USA Today's Inside Slant demonstrates:

Phillip Daniels is 35.

That is hot off the presses, nine-minute old news, I'm told.

But, unfortunately, very true. Phillip Daniels is old. USA Today might as well have substituted his actual age for a descriptive adjective like elderly, ancient, or antediluvian if they were feeling especially saucy. On the let's-keep-smiles front, battle-tested, seasoned, or familiar would have worked.

Or just old.

The reality in the NFL is that actually quite young human beings can be approaching their professional twilight by their mid-30s, especially when that person's job description says something like: Must outrun or out power a large, probably younger superhuman.

At 35 I'm not certain how much success Daniels will have outrunning his younger opponents, but on this latter challenge there is some reason for optimism. Because though Phillip Daniels might be old in football years -- he's the third oldest on the team, behind Todd Collins and Ethan Albright -- he's strong even by football standards. Really strong:

And Daniels is certainly stronger. In his first competitive powerlifting event since 1999, the 6-4, 290-pound Daniels won his weight class with a 633-pound squat and a 600-pound dead-lift at the American Powerlifting Federation Nationals in March.

"That was in March so who knows what I can lift now?" Daniels said. "I took two weeks off (after the Jan. 5 wild-card loss at Seattle) and I went right into powerlifting. I hadn't done this since just before my last year in Seattle.

Not so coincidentally, that's when Daniels had a career-high 9.0 sacks, which resulted in a hefty, four-year deal with the Bears. And Daniels had 8.0 sacks with the Redskins in 2005, the healthiest of his first four seasons in Washington.

You've hooked me, USA Today, but I learn best with pictures. Six hundred pounds, huh? Consider:

via www.all-creatures.org

I'm told the feller on the left weighs 600 lbs. (Fat ass on the right is beyond even the comic strength of Daniels; he's a 700 pound tortoise.) There are no 600 pound offensive linemen in the NFL. As of this writing, I should add.

I must acknowledge that Daniels hasn't exactly been the sackmaster recently. His sack totals have steadily declined since 2005 from 8 to 3 to 2.5 last season. His tackles haven't moved in the right direction, either, from 48 total in 2005 to 37 in both '06 and '07. But tackling and sacks (and the latter requires the former) is not the only thing a defensive end can do to help the defense.

Sacks aren't some glorious end in and of themselves, even if fans love watching them. They're great because they kill the opponent's down while also taking from them some yards. Even when they fail to accomplish the yardage decrease by any substantial amount, sacks are still extremely valuable for the defense. A negative inches sack is still a useful means towards the ultimate end of forcing the other poor bastard to die three times then punt. Another, comparably debilitating means towards that end is swatting the ball down. It doesn't get the yards, it isn't nearly as sexy a stat as the sack, but it always kills the opponent's down and sometimes leads to an immediate possession change; batted passes sometimes get intercepted.

Phillip Daniels is a ball-hawk. At least in so far as the term can be used for defensive linemen.

See for yourself: Daniels can claim that he had more passes defensed than LaRon Landry last year. Only Shawn Springs, London Fletcher, and Fred Smoot had more. If you combined all the passes defensed by other defensive linemen last season it would be nine, or, the same amount Daniels had. Nine passes defensed.

I am not certain that all nine were swatted balls, but it's doubtful that the Redskins were often putting a 276 pound, thirty-something linemen into coverage. I also know that many of those passes defensed were balls swatted at or near the line of scrimmage, because I watched him do it. (CNNSI says 8 of them were, in fact, batted down at the LOS.)

Would I trade every sack for a ball swatted at the line of scrimmage? No, but it's close, or at least a lot closer than most fans would be willing to admit. And if you counted them as comparable than Phillip Daniels goes from an over-the-hill defensive end in steady decline in 2007 to similarly disposed towards ending the opponent's play as Andre Carter. Carter had 10.5 sacks and 2 passes defensed. Daniels very nearly swapped, with 9 defensed passes and 2.5 sacks.

Admittedly, none of that takes into consideration hurries or pressures or simply presence. At some point trying to turn Phillip Daniels in 2007 into Andre Carter in 2007 is asking reader(s) to deny what their eyes told them; Carter was the better defensive end. But I'm saying it's close, or at least closer than your eyes said.

Phillip Daniels is old. He does have twelve years, almost certainly his best years, of NFL experience behind him. Somewhere in the future a younger player is going to have to supplant him as the starter. But that doesn't mean he's finished tomorrow; the man still knows how to rush a passer with his head up, focused on the only really important thing in dispute, which has been, and always will be, the actual football. Also:

Phillip Daniels can lift a hippopotamus.

Yahoo! Sports has a weekly rundown on all the NFL teams, and the report for your Washington Redskins came out today. Inside it is all sorts of fun information, like how Buges is defending Jansen and Thomas against calls of their untimely demise and how Zorn says that Alexander might have to go both ways... again.

But the best part of the article is the closing quote, from special teams coach Danny Smith regarding Cooley:

"He’s a knucklehead. He messes with me all the time. He’ll say, ‘Do you want to see it? Do you want to see it?’ I say, ‘No, we’ll work it tomorrow’ and he’ll snap three perfect ones, laugh his butt off and go. The kid can do anything."—Special teams coach Danny Smith on Pro Bowl tight end Chris Cooley being one of his emergency long snappers along with right tackle Jon Jansen.

Yes, Cooley is Ethan Albright's backup. Yes, that is Ethan "I'm the worst fucking player on Madden" Albright. This is an interesting part of the depth chart that I didn't know. I wonder who, between Cooley and Jansen, is 2nd string and who is really, really the emergency backup long snapper.

Anyways, that's your Redskins news for now. I've got to go get ready for apartment hunting and then work. Oh, and Danny Smith, yes Cooley can do anything.

This is a post about our kicker (hat tipped to Extreme Skins; if you are on the prowl for Redskins related news, you could do a lot worse than the ES Breaking News Forum).

Patrick Maloney at the London Free Press caught up with Suisham via email and got him to answer a few of the critical questions we've all been waiting for, such as:

SUISHAM SAYS

1) My all-time favourite movie is . . .

Tombstone

2) In the movie about my life, I will be played by . . .

Matt Damon -- according to my wife

3) My favourite food is . . .

Fresh fruit

4) I drive a . . .

F150 SuperCrew

5) I think the best player in the NFL is . . .

Ethan Albright (the Redskins' long snapper)

6) I could retire happy if . . .

Our family was healthy and I didn't have a mortgage.

I, too, appreciate Tombstone and would be played by Matt Damon (it's a looks thing) though I have to part ways with Shazzam on... fresh fruit? Oh really, Shaun? Well then I'm calling you out and demanding you take a giant delicious yikes bite out of a fresh durian which, per Wikipedia per some book can be described something like... this:

... its odor is best described as pig-shit, turpentine and onions, garnished with a gym sock. It can be smelled from yards away. Despite its great local popularity, the raw fruit is forbidden from some establishments such as hotels, subways and airports, including public transportation in Southeast Asia.

Mmmm, I'll have that.

Two other points worth noting from the LFP: First, he's running his second football camp for somewhere around the neighborhood of 200 kids kicking off (like my moves?) June 21st. I find the mere existence of kicker football camps especially worthwhile since God cursed me with no talent yet with the primal urge to see my offspring succeed where I fail. I won't be growing any Skin Patrol defensive ends anytime soon, but maybe, just maybe, if I raise him from day one to obsess, practice, breath, live, and learn everything kicker, my kid could one day be making bank in the NFL as a professional athlete. Kicking the ball. Probably not.

Speaking of making money, consider this a reminder that we resigned Shaun Suisham to a lucrative base salary contract amounts currently unknown, though speculated on in the range of 435K a year (the LFP article cites to "an unofficial fan site estimate"). My salary bible is PC's Contract Page and he puts the base salary at 520K. Who knows.

Ethan Albright is the greatest player in the NFL. I'm on the record.