Looks Like Someone Has a Sixpack of the Mondays

1. You might think this edition is late. I'm not saying you are wrong...per se, but technically speaking, a Sixpack of the Mondays can be enjoyed any ol' day, and seeing as I am in the middle of a little vacation, I find this particular Sixpack right on time. I also especially enjoy the GIFs you guys find to put up on this post when it is late...I mean when it is delayed.

2. I was in the middle of writing this yesterday when the injury news caused me to take a break that ended until today. I thought that I was growing tired of talking about summer plotlines. Holy crap...every year I forget how devastating the news can be for football fans in August. We spend six months (okay, some of us spend closer to nine months) waiting for football season to get here and as soon as we tune in to training camp coverage, we start losing starting players...FOR AN ENTIRE SEASON! It's just cruel, and the stress it puts on me and many of you is difficult to bear. (Please know that I am fully aware of how great life would be if all we had to worry about in this world was football injuries.)

3. Setting aside for a moment the David Amerson situation, which appears to be a minor shoulder scrape, I have been down in the dumps about Bashaud Breeland and Tevin Mitchel. Clearly, I am happy that Breeland is only slated to miss a month or so, despite my unhappiness about him missing important time to gel with new teammates and a new coordinator. I am not saying it will happen here, but this kind of thing can derail a young player's development, and this particular young player was developing at an alarmingly gleeful clip. The good news is that when he is healthy, he will still likely be either the best or second-best corner we have on our roster. That is kind of also the bad news too. In case you are reading this as too gloomy and doomy for your liking, just know that as it pertains to our defense, I am pretty much done painting a million layers of lipstick on it. We all need to see what this group can do...you know, rolling out of bed...au naturel...no make-up.

4. As for Tevin Mitchel...first a bit of brutal honesty: if this team had to rely on its mid-round draft picks from the last five years, it would be...shit...it would likely have won seven or so games over the last two years. But McLovin' is on the job now!!! He has found players you can build around at all parts of the draft. More importantly, he found a pretty solid starting cornerback named Richard Sherman in the fifth round. Hell, he found Byron Maxwell in the sixth round and Malcolm Smith in the seventh. I am not saying Tevin Mitchel will be any of those players...but...

5. Okay....let's swing it around to the positive! I have been beating the drum for our revamped defensive line all summer, and you guys have joined me. Now we are beginning to see some of the fruits of our offseason harvest. John Keim commented how "clean the linebackers are when running to the ball." This is what we want to be hearing about. This is why we have been so over-the-top excited by the arrival of Terrance "Pot Roast" Knighton. Granted, we all want to see it against other teams and other offensive lines, but this kind of report is WAAAAAAAAAY encouraging. Will someone please locate ih8 for me? I am worried that when he sees this news, he will run out of clean shorts.

6. Where's your head at? That is my thought at the start of training camp, and that is the article I am working on right now. I don't know about you guys, but I find myself in a weird place. It is kind of a cross between the normal level of excitement ahead of a football season and a far too easily recognizable feeling of dread ahead of a football season. I intend to fully enjoy everything there is to enjoy about this season. I have no intention of burning too many brain cells fretting about the past, but...it is there. And it weighs on me...at least a little. If I'm being honest, it is rather ever-present when I think about the Redskins these days. Thankfully, I am big dumb idiot and it is easy for me to embrace the newness of the McLovin' Era and some of our positive steps forward. I am all the way in, as usual, but there is something undeniable about the cumulative effect of the last 20 years as a Redskins fan. (Please know that I am fully aware of how great life would be if all we had to worry about in this world was the fate of our favorite football team!)