SB Nation - Casey Rabach

Hogs Haven Predicts Redskins Final 53

Ken Meringolo — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 15:32:30 -0000

More photos » by Pablo Martinez Monsivais - AP

Robert Henson and Cody Glenn may both benefit from being drafted by Vinny Cerrato. He HATES to cut players he drafts!

First, the obvious: Sugar has been shelved for the time being. I will be tackling a new writing assignment within SB Nation and I was asked to come up with a cooler name to write under. The best I could come up with was "Ken Meringolo". I know what you're thinking...sounds too much like an undercover secret agent of international intrigue. I guess you could say I followed the lead of one my heroes, Lt. Frank Drebin, and decided to use my maiden name.

Not that many tears (besides mine) will be shed over it, but Sugar will most assuredly be back. I will keep you guys posted on when and where my other writing assignments will end up. But on to the issues of the day.

Here is our crack at predicting the Redskins "Final 53". We have all been watching the preseason closely--there won't be many surprises. But we are picking a couple. Have at it (after the jump):

QB (3): Jason Campbell, Todd Collins, Colt Brennan

RB (5): Clinton Portis, Ladell Betts, Rock Cartwright, Mike Sellers, Anthony Alridge

WR (5): Santana Moss, Antwaan Randle El, Devin Thomas, Malcolm Kelly, Marko Mitchell

TE (3): Chris Cooley, Fred Davis, Todd Yoder

OL (9): Chris Samuels, Derrick Dockery, Casey Rabach, Randy Thomas, Stephon Heyer, Chad Rinehart, Mike Williams, Jeremy Bridges, Will Montgomery

DL (9): Phillip Daniels, Albert Haynesworth, Cornelius Griffin, Anthony Montgomery, Kedric Golston, Lorenzo Alexander, Andre Carter, Jeremy Jarmon, Rob Jackson

LB (7): London Fletcher, Rocky McIntosh, Brian Orakpo, H.B. Blades, Chris Wilson, Cody Glenn, Robert Henson

DB (9): Carlos Rogers, DeAngelo Hall, Fred Smoot, Kevin Barnes, Justin Tryon, LaRon Landry, Chris Horton, Reed Doughty, Kareem Moore

P: Hunter Smith

LS: Ethan Albright

K: Dave Rayner

I put Rob Jackson in over Renaldo Wynn, Robert Henson in over Robert Thomas, Rayner over Suisham, and Anthony Alridge in over whomever you want to call the 53rd man to make it.

Why do I continue to keep Renaldo Wynn off my final 53 list? If you think like me, then you think Wynn is not really a guy who is going to get a lot of snaps anyway unless there is an injury. Rob Jackson is still a little young and raw, and I have not heard his name a ton but if you are going to keep a guy around to caddy for the rest of the defensive linemen, why not keep a young guy who has a shot to develop into a serviceable backup instead of a guy at the end of his rope who has played all of his best football already? This is the pick I will most likely be wrong about, as Renaldo Wynn is a pro who knows how to play the game, and was brought in for his leadership and experience this offseason. But I had to stay true to what I have been saying this summer.

The Robert Henson/Cody Glenn/Robert Thomas decision at linebacker is a little more straight-forward. I think Cody Glenn is at the head of the 3-pack. The decision between Henson and Thomas is not so hard when you remember one thing: Vinny drafted Henson. He hates to be wrong about his draft picks. And lucky for him, he is in the position to pronounce his rightness! Henson has made a few mental blunders during games this preseason, and dropping that sure interception against the Ravens hurt him (coming out of TCU, he was actually graded as a sure-handed linebacker.) But in the end, the team will keep the guy they picked in the draft, and drop the guy they signed off the street. Regardless of who is better--though let's not make that out to be a huge deal. Neither Henson nor Thomas factors huge for us this season, and if Henson can figure out to stay on the field for special teams by mid-season, he will be worth the investment. Finally, it says here that Robert Henson will pull off an Alfred Fincher kind of performance against the Jags and earn the spot.

Anthony Alridge...really? Vinny brought him in this offseason and the word from the inside of the building is that Vinny loves him too much to let him go. What's not to love? He is one of those "yards-per-touch" guys. He is going to get the ball in the flat on screens, pitches, and dump-offs and he is going to get upfield in a hurry. I know Marcus Mason has been a fan favorite to make this squad multiple times, but the fact of the matter is he does not give us something we don't already have. Alridge gives us a scatback, speed option off the bench that will prove very useful this season.

I went with Rayner over Suisham even though there seems to be a resounding consensus that Suisham will retain his position. I FEEL LIKE I AM TAKING CRAZY PILLS! How do you hold any benefit of the doubt in a kicking competition when you were last in the league in field goal percentage? Rayner has had the better kickoff leg and neither has blown the roof off with their field goals. If anything, I would be tempted to keep Rayner and then bring in either Mike Nugent (Tampa Bay Buccaneers) or Brandon Coutu (Seattle Seahawks)--helps to watch every preseason game!--to compete with Rayner in the week leading up to the regular season. Coutu has a good chance to make the Seahawks' roster, but if he doesn't, we wouldn't be the only ones trying to sign him.

Practice Squad Predictions: Edwin Williams, Scott Burly, Keith Eloi, Robbie Agnone, Chase Daniel, Eddie Williams

WaTimes 53-man roster [Redskins 360]
WaPost 53-man roster [Redskins Insider]
Redskins Blog [Terl took his link down...I swore it was there?]

What do you guys think?

Poll

Which player that I put in do you think is most likely NOT to make the team?

Robert Henson

113 votes

Anthony Alridge

226 votes

Rob Jackson

263 votes

602 votes | Poll has closed

Boldly Hoping: Redskins Offensive Line

Ken Meringolo — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 04:56:07 -0000

Welcome to all the new folks stopping by HogsHaven. We like to keep up our hopes up here, Boldly Hoping where no hope has helped before. That's right, if you love dealing in "maybes", "ifs", "perchances", and if you love italics, you came to the right place, because here we go with yet another panty-dropping installment of Boldly Hoping.

Pushing 400 votes on the Dockery issue. Over 90% say let's go get him. Let's go a little further down the road. If we sign Dockery to play guard for us, between him, Randy Thomas and Chad Rinehart, we should be set for starting guards for the next 5 years. I like this...mostly because I don't think Dock will break the bank, so it will allow us another move. (Unlike the Haynesworth signing, which feels like an all-in kind of move.)

Are we the only ones who see the value of adding TWO (or more) guys who can start for us instead of one that sucks up not only money this year, but future flexibility? We're just not one player away right now, so dedicating all that dough to one guy seems like a tough call.

So we're set at guard (for the purpose of this discussion). Instead of going into next season with Thomas and Rinehart/Kendall, we go in with Thomas and Dockery/Rinehart. Strong. Rabach might not be the best center out there, but he fits on our team. He is smart, he is fiery, and center is simply not at or near the top of the priority list. Tackle on the other hand, is a different story. Samuels and Jansen are old. Samuels is one of those guys who they are going to trot out there until his wheels fall off. He has not been too shabby, and has mostly deserved this right. Jansen, although generally serviceable, has had lapses on the field in both run and pass blocking that have cost us. Due to his contract, it would seem at this point he is a lock to make our roster. Stephon Heyer is being groomed to step up at tackle for us on the right side. Confidence levels are not at all-time highs here, but he has earned his chance to compete for the starting job next year. But due to the age and health issues of both Jansen and Samuels, we have a great need for a young tackle who will be ready to anchor probably the left side of the line very soon.

So the question today is do we go out and get one of the tackles in free agency, or do we use our first round pick on a stud OT?

Options listed below (former team in parentheses) only include guys with 5 years or less in the league, since we would want to invest in a guy who could be here for more than a cup of coffee without sizable risk of dying of natural causes (old age):

Stacy Andrews, Bengals

Khalif Barnes, Jaguars

Charles Spencer, Jaguars

Ray Willis, Seahawks

Of these, Andrews is the hulk with the size and curb appeal. All these guys look to collect in free agency. You might not have heard these names before (or at least a couple), but these guys are probably all about to get rich. Ray Willis is intriguing. He only had 5 starts with the Seahawks, but at 6'6", 315 lbs and 4 seasons in the league, he could be a guy we add to bring youth and depth to our offensive line and saving our draft pick for the defensive side of the line. Perhaps signing Dockery and Willis is doable given our cap situation, perchance....maybe. I have no idea. But I would take Dockery and Willis off the free agent market and use the draft pick on the defensive line. Imagine having 4 offensive lineman, all between the ages of 23 and 28, all capable of putting pressure on the starting guards and tackles, if not outright starting. Now that is Boldly Hoping!

(Quick Update: Chris Samuels did a post-game interview at Verizon after the Caps game with Smokin' Al Koken and said he wants Dockery.)

Poll

In addition to Dockery, would you prefer to sign one of the younger (relatively unknown) free agent tackles listed in the article, or would you rather draft a young stud OT in the 1st round?

Sign young tackle in free agency

143 votes

Draft OT in 1st round

213 votes

356 votes | Poll has closed

Jason Taylor prepares for surgery by playing violent sports

Skin Patrol — Sat, 25 Oct 2008 15:19:20 -0000

You don't typically expect, in a story titled "DE Taylor will have second surgery" predicting medical procedure next week, to read:

Taylor did not practice but still hopes to play Sunday against the Detroit Lions. He is listed as questionable on the injury report.

At least that's the word from Dr. Taylor:

"There has been talk about it, but to be honest, I don't even know what the gameplan is right now," Taylor said. "I'm going to the hospital now to find out what we're going to do. The only thing I'm really focusing on right now is hopefully playing the game on Sunday and try to help this team beat the Lions. The rest of it doesn't really matter right now. I've been hurt for a month and it hasn't changed. There's been a slight change and that's part of the reason why we're doing all this talking. I really don't know any details."

Coach Zorn said the problem was something like, uh, playing football isn't conducive to healing stabby-like wounds.

“He’s trying to play football on it, but that may not be allowing it to heal fast enough,” Zorn said.

Who'd have thought? To get an idea of how that plays out on the field, apparently Taylor has bloody sock syndrome and is bleeding out all over the football field week by week:

"Yeah, that was hot, did you see his sock?" Casey Rabach asked me. "It was all red. Kind of like Curt Schilling, but amplified. It was cool."

"We had quite a bit of blood come out," Taylor said. "It's still bleeding. It's been a month and it's still bleeding, but there's nothing I can do about it."

The "cool" oozing red goo is simply necessary and we're full of it, so Jason Taylor is absolutely right. You can't take any magic pill to cure "Blood." But one thing he can do about it would be... rest a bit, don't expose a leaky valve to the wear and tear necessarily resultant in violent sports. That would be the easy way out, and the question to readers: Does Jason Taylor need to walk this one off for a week or two or should he instead force it and play, with the added potential of this thing dragging on for, per him, a month now and leading to new surgery next week? I love his attitude about it, it is obvious mutant/hybrid Jason Taylor wants to play something fierce, so I hate even suggesting that maybe the medical staff needs to get in his face about healing up.

But we need him. Our pass rush is currently about as bad as anyone in the league besides Kansas City. Football Outsiders pegs us with a 4.8% adjusted sack rate. That puts us well below the 6.6% league average and higher than just Jacksonville, Cincy, and the aforementioned Chiefs. As skinsider pointed out, Taylor draws double teams that free up Andre Carter to go do harm and pain to the opposing quarterback. We don't have enough starter-quality defensive ends. If Taylor isn't on the field, Carter gets the double team and Demetric Evans or whomever on the far side isn't capable of defeating a single blocker with any sort of consistency. Chris Wilson, Rob Jackson, Demetric Evans and Erasmus James have combined for one sack. Someone please step up.

I won't fence sit, I want him to play. While a part of me almost thinks -- and this is crazy considering what happened two weeks ago -- if ever there was a game to miss, it's tomorrow, I appreciate too much the attitude exhibited by a player's willingness to fight through the pain. That's the kind of thing that makes me love football, and I'm certain that it impresses teammates. Leaving human gore on the field is leadership, man. Get out there and hurt them Jason.

I may not feel the same way three weeks down the road if/when we're still talking about this damn calf injury.

The Redskins should not do this where they sleep.

Skin Patrol — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 00:38:35 -0000

Even dogs know better: don't shit the bed. But we did.

What this isn't is some NcNabb-like attempt at taking something away from the St. Louis Rams. They won. We lost, but our losing was incidental to their winning, and not an explanation of it. There's really no point discussing whether or not one team is better than the other, as the matter was settled on a field favorable to us, unfavorably. The Redskins are: 0-1 against the St. Louis Rams.

What this also isn't is my complete thoughts on the game. I've been either flying or in airports for the last 8 hours. I'm exhausted. I did not have access to the game and thus, like I imagine most people had to do back in the middle ages, received all my information on the game exclusively second hand from strangers wandering about. What is that, you say? Field goal kills game? Fuck, there I said it.

I am cranky and not at all composed. But, my brief box scored postgame thoughts are as follows:

If you want to explain a 19-17 loss at home against a team most observers thought you were destined to defeat, look no further than 3:1, which is our turnovers:their turnovers. Uhh, I don't even know if that's right. I look at NFL.com's total turnovers and it says we have three. I click to the box score and it says four players fumbled and lost the ball: Campbell, Pete Kendall, Casey Rabach, and Chris Cooley.
Who is not to blame? Clinton Portis, who said winning FedEx Ground Player of the Week for his performance against Philly just wasn't enough. His numbers were a Fantasy Football wet dream: 21 carries, 129 yards, 2 touchdowns. No fumbles.
There is no such thing as a moral victory, as people only claim them against tangible, real, actual loss. One can have better statistics than the opposing team, though they are meaningless. But, in case you're curious, we had more TOP, 168 more yards (or, 84% more yards than the opposing team), fewer penalties and golly I don't feel the least bit better about what. just. happened. Teams that protect footballs win. Teams that don't lose. St. Louis protected the football better.
There is a player in this league with the last name Incognito? And we know that because he called attention to himself by saying something naughty to a ref? You will read about this.
Everyone who fumbled should be ashamed, whoever you are. Pete Kendall is better than that. Casey Rabach is better than that. Jason Campbell wasn't better than that last year, but let's get over it. Chris Cooley is definitely better than that.
Not to be fatalistic, but I sure hope this team wasn't looking past the St. Louis Rams. Our net points thus far in the season is 9 points, which is two points lower than it was going into this game. We haven't handled anybody, yet. The difference between a 4-2 Redskins team and an 0-6 Redskins team is, really, 20 points. We need to settle down.
What was medium about this game?

I really shouldn't be writing extensively about a game I didn't watch, especially while cranky. This is where you guys can complain about the results, we'll try and explain them together throughout the week. I'm not feeling especially lined with silver, but we're still 4-2, meh.