Rich Tandler's Real Redskins

Blache coveted James in ‘05

About a week before the 2005 NFL Draft, I wrote the following in an article about the possibility of the Washington Redskins drafting Wisconsin defensive end Erasmus James:

Redskins' defensive coordinator Greg Blache has let it be known that he would love it if the Skins would add James to his unit. There's no question that James would be a good fit in virtually any NFL system, including that of Gregg Williams. He could have instant impact when it comes to the pass rush and would be all over the field on every play. With a rotation in place with James, Philip Daniels and Renaldo Wynn, James' durability questions would be less of an issue than they would be in a place where he was expected to play every snap.

It would be a terrific reach to take him with the #9 pick, however, if he falls to #25 that would likely mean that, players such as Marcus Spears, David Pollack and Dan Cody are gone. Would they take James, probably the most talented of the group or pass due to the health concerns? It depends on how much of a voice Greg Blache has in the draft room.

As it turned out, the Redskins did not have a shot at James in 2005. The Minnesota Vikings drafted him with the 18^th pick. After a mediocre rookie season, he suffered from injuries in 2006 and 2007.

The Vikings waived him last week but they rescinded the waivers and traded him to the Redskins for a conditional seventh-round pick.

So, Blache, now the true defensive coordinator after Williams' departure, gets his shot at seeing what he can do with James. There is even less tread on the 25-year-old's tires after a knee injury in 2006. He hadn't yet fully recovered last year and he played in just six games.

As mentioned in the excerpt from the 2005 article, there were health concerns about James during his years in Wisconsin. He missed all of the 2003 season with a hip injury and a portion of the '04 campaign with an ankle problem.

It's a no-risk move for the Redskins. If James can't get healthy or otherwise can't make the team, the Redskins keep the seventh rounder.

The Redskins anticipate that James will be ready to participate fully in training camp.

He is still working off of his rookie contract, which has one more year to run at $1 million.

Since the Redskins are at the 80-player roster limit (this excludes draft picks until they sign), the will have to cut a player to make room for James.

Jason Taylor not on Skins ' dance card

An aging but still effective star player becomes available. Add the player's Hollywood aspirations into the mix and you seem to have a match made in heaven.

Daniel Snyder, do you take Jason Taylor to be your lawfully contracted defensive end?

The answer, apparently, is no. Cancel the caterers and see if you can get your deposit back from the florist.

It appears that the union between Taylor and the Miami Dolphins, his team since the beginning of his NFL career in 1997, is over. According to the team's head coach Tony Sparano, Taylor won't be attending OTA's, minicamp, or training camp.

That Taylor and the Fins are on the outs isn't breaking news. It's well known that they shopped him hard during the draft, including an offer to deal him to the Washington Redskins. At the time, they turned down Miami's request for a second-round pick for Taylor.

Indications are that the Skins' interest in Taylor remains dormant. They don't want to give up the high draft pick that Miami is looking for as compensation and they don't want to pay Taylor some $16 million over the next two seasons.

It's not that Taylor, 34, is done as an effective player. He had 11 sacks on a horrid team last year, following up a 13.5-sack effort that earned him NFL Defensive Player of the Year honors in 2006.

But the age certainly is a factor. While he appears to be in excellent shape and he should be an effective player for several more years, his best years clearly are behind him.

And there are legitimate questions about whether or not Taylor will play beyond his current two-year contract. He enjoyed the Hollywood gig with the Dancing With the Stars thing and nobody would be surprised if he hung up his jersey with some good seasons as a player left in the tank in favor of an acting career.

The Redskins are trying to build through the draft. They aren't one player away from making the Super Bowl. It would be counterproductive for them to expend a high draft pick and a big chunk of cap space on an aging player.

The Redskins were saved from themselves in the week before the draft when the Bengals rejected their offer for Chad Johnson. They appear to be taking their fate into their own hands here by steadfastly resisting the temptation to go dancing with Jason Taylor.

Davis ’ mea culpa

Fred Davis returned to Redskins Park on Tuesday and apologized publicly for oversleeping and missing the third and final day of the team's minicamp earlier this month.

"I want to start by apologizing to [Redskins owner Dan] Snyder, Coach [Jim] Zorn, the players for making a minor mistake, just not waking up on time, something that was irresponsible of me," said Davis, whom the Redskins drafted in the second round out of USC. "I can't believe I did that. I overslept. I felt really bad. It's something that won't happen again ever."

I've said that I thought that too big a deal was made about this in the media—the incident was discussed and written about ad nauseum for the entire following week. He didn't drive drunk, he didn't make it rain, he overslept.

He also denied that he was out in downtown Washington that Saturday night as was rumored at the time.

"I didn't even go out," Davis said. "I was at the hotel the whole night. Just being on my own, it was probably a mistake on my part."

At the risk of being hypocritical by making something out of what Davis said about what I said was an overblown incident, something in his statements bothered me.

Oversleeping and missing an NFL minicamp practice is not "probably" a mistake, it's not a "minor mistake", it's a Class A, big-time, screw up. A high-school type mistake. A calling consecutive timeouts when you should know that doing so will result in a penalty kind of mistake.

Just because the media shouldn't go on about it for a week doesn't mean that Davis didn't commit a doozie. A biggie. Nothing probable or minor about it.

I don't necessarily expect Davis to come crawling on his hands and knees begging for mercy or anything like that. And, at this point, I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt and assume that he knows that he messed up in a major, major way.

At least he didn't say something like, "I'm sorry that this happened" and distance himself from the responsibility for the happening.

As a star athlete in high school and at a high-profile university like USC, Davis wasn't asked to apologize for much of anything. I'll forgive him if his skills in doing so aren't very polished.

Still, his take is something to file away to see what happens if he should be called upon to apologize for something again.

Hopefully, that won't happen any time soon.

LaCanfora on Morocco Brown

On his Redskins Insider blog, Washington Post Redskins beat reporter Jason LaCanfora delivers nothing short of glowing praise for the Redskins hiring of Morocco Brown as their director of pro personnel.

You can read his whole, lengthy post on Brown on the WP website, but here is the nut of the article:

Based on everything I've heard - and my reporting always carries the day in terms on my analysis of anything on this blog - you've got to give Cerrato full marks for making what appears to be an inspired hire.

For anyone to use "Cerrato" and "inspired" in the same sentence is surprising. For LaCanfora to do it is downright shocking.

One could say, as a commenter in another post did, that Brown must be a great hire if even JLC thinks it's a good move.

But if you are one of those who has been skeptical of his notorious "league sources" when they come through with information that is negative in regards to the Redskins, be careful of embracing the positive reviews as well.

Morocco Brown

According to the Washington Post, the Washington Redskins have hired Morocco Brown to be their director of pro personnel.

I haven't posted much of anything about the moves in the Redskins' front office lately. It's important stuff, but I just wasn't sure about what the departure of Louis Riddick from the job that Brown will be taking meant to the future of the franchise.

And I'm not sure what the arrival of Brown means, either. He comes from the Bears where he was the assistant director of pro personnel.

The director of pro personnel is responsible for evaluating talent on other NFL teams as well as judging the value of the players currently on the team.

From what I can gather, Brown is fairly well regarded, a rising star in the business. He has ties to the Redskins; he was a scout in the late 90's.

Roster spot #80 filled

The Washington Redskins got up to the limit of 80 players under contract when they signed defensive back Steve Tate, an undrafted rookie out of Hofstra.

Tate played in 42 games in his four years at the university on Long Island, but he started only 12. According to the Hofstra Chronicle, that's because his versatility:

"Tate doesn't start for us, but he might be the best defensive back we have." Defensive Backs Coach Lyle Hemphill said. "He plays both Cornerback and Safety. We can line him up anywhere."

Hemphill explained. "He actually plays more snaps then anyone else in the secondary. He is always in giving someone a blow."

Tate is 5-11, 184. He tried out during minicamp and got the call to sign a contract.

It would seem that his best shot at making the team is at safety, where his main competition comes from late-round draft picks Kareem Moore and Chris Horton.

The move puts the Redskins at the preseason limit of 80 players under contract. Their 10 draft picks do not count against this total until they are signed.

Corner backup plan

I've been having an online discussion with some friends of mine about the Washington Redskins cornerback position and I thought it was worth bringing up here.

The Redskins have nine corners on their roster:

25	Eubanks, John
38	Holt, Cedrick
32	Jackson, Eddie
22	Rogers, Carlos
27	Smoot, Fred
24	Springs, Shawn
29	Torrence, Leigh
20	Tryon, Justin
34	Westbrook, Byron
40	Richardson, Matteral

Springs and Smoot should start the opener if Rogers isn't yet fully recovered from the knee injury he suffered on October 28 (more on that in a bit).

Jackson and Holt have bounced around the league for a few years; they're hoping to get enough good time on film in preseason games to be able to latch on as injury fill-ins either here or elsewhere. Richardson's highest realistic aspiration as an undrafted rookie free agent is to make the practice squad.

That's where Westbrook spent last year and he'd like to make the 53-man roster this year. The team likely will keep five corners so if Rogers starts the year on the active roster (again, more coming on that subject) that means there are two jobs for Westbrook, fourth-round pick Tryon, and Eubanks and Torrence, who finished up last year as the dime and nickel corners, respectively.

Some of my friends look at that and are scared witless. At a minimum, this line of thinking goes, the Redskins needed to expend one of their second-round draft picks on a corner. Perhaps they should have pursued a free agent corner such as Drayton Florence more aggressively.

Suppose Rogers is on the shelf until October and something happens to the "injury prone" Springs. That probably leaves Torrence as the starter and Eubanks as the nickel. That's a recipe for disaster, they say.

And it may well be. I do think, though, that such a scenario involves some worst-case speculation that isn't likely to take place.

The first factor here is Rogers. We don't know that he won't be ready for the start of the season or not. It's being taken as a given by many that he won't be, given the nature of his knee injury.

Ten years ago, even five years ago, his absence for the start of the season would have been a given. Advances in surgery and rehab, however, have been dramatic. We saw Carson Palmer go down with a devastating knee injury in the playoffs in January of 2006. It was thought for a while that his career could be over. He was back under center for the Bengals the next September.

Just because Palmer made it back doesn't mean that Rogers will. Injuries are different and different players have different healing powers. But it's possible that Rogers will be ready for at least nickel back duty for the start of the season.

If he's not ready, the team will have to make a choice. Assuming that he doesn't participate in training camp because he can't pass a physical, the Redskins could put Rogers on the Physically Unable to Perform list. If that happens, he wouldn't count against the 53-player limit and he would be sidelined for a minimum of six weeks. After that, the team would have a three-week window during which Rogers could be activated. If they don't activate him during that time, he would go on injured reserve for the rest of the year.

If Rogers does go on PUP, the Redskins could choose to fill his spot with one of the younger players and start the year with essentially the same group of corners that got them through the playoff run last year and bring Tryon along in spots.

Alternatively, they could try to pick up an experienced corner who was a late roster cut and go with that player in the nickel spot as a stopgap measure.

But what if something happens to Springs?

I'm not going to say that's not a legitimate concern, but I did put "injury-prone" in quotes above for a reason. Springs' fragility is overblown.

He's been in Washington for four years. In 2004, he played in 15 games. He played in the same number in '05. Last year, he appeared in 16 games. Only in 2006, when he had a sports hernia, a hamstring injury, and, finally, a broken scapula, did he miss significant time and even that year he was in the lineup for nine games.

Springs' track record doesn't exactly qualify him for iron man status or anything, but by the same token it's inaccurate to portray him as a china doll of some sort.

Still, he's 33 and increased issues with injuries often accompany advancing age. Counting on him to stay on the field does carry some risk, just not as much as some imagine.

And if Springs is sidelined for more than a game or two and Rogers is on the PUP list, the defense will struggle, no doubt about it. You can't name more than a few teams in the NFL that wouldn't have problems if two of their three top corners were out.

All that being said, I certainly would have voiced no objection had the Redskins expended one of those three second-round picks on a corner.

In addition to providing insurance this year, a high draftee could start developing to be a replacement for Springs in the near future.

In 2009 Springs will be a year older and he will be carrying a cap number just shy of $8.5 million.

Still, I don't see the cornerback position as one that's in extreme need. Should the Redskins suffer from some misfortune, some younger players will be called on to step up.

If they have to get by for a game or two with Torrence as the starter and Tryon playing nickel, so be it. Coaches get paid six-figure incomes to figure out how to do just that without getting torched.

/span>

The WR picture —Thrash on the bubble?

The Washington Redskins cut Jerome Mathis today, making the roster outlook for the team's wide receivers much more clear.

Here are the 10 WR's currently on the roster:

12	Kelly, Malcolm
80	Mann, Maurice
16	McMullen, Billy
19	Mix, Anthony
89	Moss, Santana
82	Randle El, Antwaan
11	Thomas, Devin
83	Thrash, James
18	Toler, Burl
84	Gant, Horace

Moss and Randle El will start while Thomas and Kelly will see action as the third and fourth receivers. Five receivers on the roster is the norm, so that leaves one spot up for grabs.

The best that Mann, Toler, and Gant can hope for is a spot on the practice squad. McMullen has bounced around during his four years in the league and he'll probably get bounced again.

That leaves Thrash and Mix to battle it out for one job. It will be a classic battle of youth vs. experience.

Thrash, 33, has contributed in a myriad of ways since returning to the Redskins in 2004. He is the hardest worker on a team full of blue-collar types.

Mix, 25, is 6-5 and has the physical tools needed to thrive in the West Coast offense. He also made some standout plays on special teams.

So, there you have it. Thrash has the track record, Mix has the potential.

Depending on how things unfold in training camp and in the preseason games, it may well appear that the Redskins will be better off in 2008 if they keep Thrash and better off in 2009 and beyond if they keep Mix around.

Thrash vs. Mix will be one of Jim Zorn's first big decisions and it will be a very telling one as well.

Mathis cut

The one player the Washington Redskins signed as a free agent this past offseason is no longer with the team.

The Skins cut wide receiver and kick returner Jerome Mathis today.

I don't think that the reasoning for this goes beyond the fact that they signed Mathis prior to drafting a pair of wide receivers in the second round of the draft. One of those receivers, Devin Thomas, is capable of giving Rock Cartwright a run for his money as the kickoff returner as is fourth-round selection Justin Tryon.

With only 80 roster spots the Redskins apparently decided that the one occupied by Mathis could be better utilized.

In the short term they utilized the spot to sign undrafted rookie defensive end J. Y. Mapu. The Tennessee product is on the old side for a rookie. He's 24, having spent a couple of years on a church mission in 2004-2005. Mapu was among those invited to try out for the team during minicamp and evidently Greg Blache liked what he saw.

Some roster changes still possible

The Washington Redskins' roster is about 96% complete.

Of the 53 players who will be on the team's opening-day roster, all but one or two of them currently are with the team.

Don't look for post-June 1 cuts to add that depth at cornerback or along the lines.

This just in—nearly all of the June 1 cuts already have take place.

How is that possible? It's only mid-May.

Don't worry, even a lot of guys who make a living writing about football aren't up to speed on this.

Under the NFL Collective Bargaining Agreement, each team can release two players in the spring and designate them as June 1 cuts. While the cap number for that player stays on the team's book until June 2, the player is free to pursue employment with other teams.

The team gets the benefit of having the accelerated cap hit for the release moved to the next season. In addition, they don't have to include a player who is essentially a dead man walking as far as that team is concerned still participating in minicamps and OTA's.

Brandon Lloyd, who was gone in early March, carried such a designation. The Redskins will eat the bulk of the guaranteed money that they foolishly doled out to Lloyd in 2009.

So, there may be a trickle of activity early next month, but it's highly unlikely that a potential starter or even someone who represents quality depth will be coming available on June 2.

That doesn't mean that there is no way for the Skins to bolster their roster. There still are a few of veteran free agents who have yet to find a home.

Floyd "Pork Chop" Womack is a 29-year-old guard who was a part-time starter for Jim Zorn's old team, the Seahawks. Of course, the fact that there has been no apparent move to get Womack might tell you all you need to know about him.

Defensive tackle Rod Coleman could provide some situational pass rush push up the middle. He posted double-digit sacks as recently as 2005, but he missed all but five games of the 2007 season.

Womack and Coleman, along with the other veterans still waiting for the phone to ring, are out of work for a reason. Usually that reason is that they want more money to play than anyone is willing to pay them. Their asking prices usually drop as training camp approaches.

The Redskins plucked linebacker Randall Godfrey from the ranks of the unemployed in July of last year and he proved to be a valuable contributor, starting when both Marcus Washington and Rocky McIntosh were out with injuries.

Another 2007 starter who wasn't on the roster at this time last year was guard Pete Kendall. In May of '07 he was a very unhappy New York Jet. The Redskins traded a 2009 draft pick for him when it became apparent that Todd Wade couldn't make the move from tackle to guard.

While there are plenty of disgruntled players out there, it doesn't appear that any of them are both on the trading block and in a position of need for the Redskins. That could change, though, so keep an eye out.