A bit early, perhaps, but here comes Double T Nation's Big 12 Roundtable, hosted at Rock M Nation later this week. I reason that the sooner I get this post up during the week, the more time you will have to fix my wrong answers. Enjoy a teaser and the rest of the questions follow post-jump:

Rock M Nation: This question was posed by Rock Chalk Talk's Denverjhawk in Rock M Nation's Live Thread on Saturday: Could a Big 12 North all-star team compete with and/or beat Texas?

Skin Patrol: I say the answer is yes. UT is the toast of the Big 12, but that does not make them some kind of unbeatable behemoth. In stranger years, like 2006 and 2007, barely or not bowl eligible Kansas State teams have beaten Texas with something approaching ease. Whether or not those versions of Texas were comparable to this year's is certainly debatable, but Texas of 2009 has not looked unbeatable in the same way that Texas v.2005 did. I think my answer is likely to change as the season progresses, because I have a hard time believing that Texas will continue to play as lackadaisically on offense for the remainder of the season as it has at times thus far. The UT offense will click, and then we'll start seeing fewer, if any, truly close games.

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Another week, another Big 12 Roundtable; you get the shtick. Post your own answers below and let me know what I got horribly wrong. Much thanks to Bring on the Cats for hosting this week. Remaining questions are after the break.

Bring on the Cats: Though not true of everyone -- Texas continued its "just take care of business" approach -- Saturday shook a lot assumptions we had about some teams.  What, if anything, can you say with confidence about your team?

Skin Patrol: I can state with confidence that we beat Nebraska, on the road, 31-10. Beyond that, whatever I say is mere conjecture. My confident conjecture, since you're asking, is that, as of this moment, we're the second best team in the Big 12. The only teams from the north challenging were, perhaps, Nebraska and Kansas and both lost this past weekend. We took out Nebraska on the road, despite a lackluster effort offensively. It is a rare thing indeed for Tech to be able to state that its defense won a game, and this is probably the biggest game of the Leach era that defense definitively won. On the road. That's a problem for people that aren't Tech (although one could argue it's a problem for us; why did the offense look so flat? Maybe because Nebraska is about as strong a defense as exists in the Big 12). The current leader of the north, plucky Kansas State, was deconstructed by us two weeks ago. From the south it would be Oklahoma State and Oklahoma to contend with. There is no shame in losing to very good BYU (at home! on neutral field) and Miami teams by one point, nor is there any shame in losing to Texas by three on neutral ground. We've played three ranked teams on the road and we're 1-2. That first number is what distinguishes us from Oklahoma. Oklahoma State has a ranked victory (although it's looking less and less impressive) at home. We have a ranked victory on the road. Against common opponents we probably look better: We lost to Houston by one, at their house, and handled Rice better than them. Acknowledging the weakness of the transitive property in football, Oklahoma State's toughish win against A&M is suspect given that they lost to K-State so bad... who lost to Texas Tech with equal fail. If I assume that Texas one day beats Oklahoma State, and I am, then I'm taking Tech. Our game against Texas A&M could well settle that issue against us, but by resume of this date, I state confidently that Texas Tech has the 2nd best in the Big 12. Take me to task for it.

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Crimson and Cream Machine: What is the biggest Big 12 game this weekend not involving OU and Texas? Why?

Skin Patrol: Duh, Texas Tech @ Nebraska, for the reason that I attended school at the former. Actually I don't even need shameful homerism to call this one, as Nebraska is the third highest ranked team in the Big 12, and is probably better than their ranking, relative to the competition. Oklahoma State is 16th, but is moving in the wrong direction, at least relative to the season's start. Nebraska, on the other hand, has looked better with each passing week, particularly as Virginia Tech's (Nebraska's only loss) stock continues to rise. To give you an idea of who the smart money thinks would win on neutral field between the road challengers against teen ranked teams, Tech is a 6 point dog against #15, and Mizzou is a 7 point dog against #16. So we're better, right? Yuck yuck yuck.

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Once more into the breech with the Big 12 Roundtable. Again I am indebted to Rock M Nation for the questions, and my colleagues here at Double T Nation for providing additional answers. I hope you enjoy.

Rock M Nation: A solid 10-2 showing for the Big 12 this weekend. Which of these wins was biggest for the Big 12 and why?

Skin Patrol: Has to be Oklahoma State. After last season's humbling bowl experience, questions remained as to whether or not the Big 12 was an offensive sideshow or a conference legitimately challenging for the title to best in the land. Oklahoma State's victory over Georgia certainly doesn't answer that question by itself, but the game does represent a compelling data point towards the conclusion that we -- the Big 12 -- are the real deal. Given Oklahoma State's subsequent jump in the polls, I think it is safe to say that many voters and coaches concluded the same regarding the import of victory for the Cowboys.

Kayakyakr: Baylor made a huge jump, looking sharp early and holding off the Wake rally in ACC country. Sure, the ACC showed that they weren't all that, but it's still Baylor and still a long way from their home stadium. Most of the other wins had issues, and I'll never be one to give props to Oklahoma State.

More after the break...

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Welcome to the Big 12 Roundtable, with much appreciation lobbed at Rock M Nation for taking the lead on this project. He issued the questions and we're firing back with answers.

Rock M Nation: Everyone knows the national talking points for each Big 12 team by now (Oklahoma has new linemen! Bill Snyder's back at Kansas State! Baylor might upset somebody!). Give us a storyline for your team that isn't quite getting the attention it should.

Skin Patrol: The typical storyline for Tech has been: How can we possibly replace Crabtree/Harrell. I am not sure this is an untold storyline, but perhaps one that deserves more attention: Taylor Potts has looked pretty damn good thus far. As relates to Tech's first timer quarterbacks, Coach Leach typically lets them wiggle around in positional purgatory, never declaring an outright winner until the last moment (first snap of game one?). Potts is pretty clearly the starter of this team and has been for longer than any other Leach first-timer, at least so far as I can tell. Leach's coaching style oscillates wildly, but if there is an identifiable method to his madness, it's that he is never shy about speaking his mind. This applies doubleplus true to his players, who he is not afraid to dress down publicly when they aren't doing as told. There is just a sense that Taylor Potts has run this offense better, as a first time starter, than anyone before him; he's received less criticism -- and considerably more praise -- than former Leach quarterbacks to this point in the CFB season. And considering that former QB list includes NCAA record holders like Cumbie, BJ Symons, and Graham Harrell, there's reason to suspect that Potts will be good for something like a million yards and touchdowns. Do you replace Harrell and Crabtree easily? No, but the caveat might be unless you are Texas Tech. Although it is hardly a hidden storyline, I think many will be surprised with just how well prepared Taylor Potts is, relative to his predecessors, to run this offense even sans one of the best receivers in CFB history. I think he will be better than Harrell in 2006 and Cumbie in 2004, but probably not better than Symons in 2003. Certainly he will be better than Hodges in 2005.

Kayakyakr: Running Game, I think.

More below...

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Not particularly Redskins related, I guess, but I thought I would stop by and drop a line to see how everyone is doing. Not sure if anyone even remembers me at this point. We're something like 22 hours shy of Redskins football and I couldn't be more excited. I'm finishing up a summer job right now before heading back to school, which will hopefully free up enough time so that I can get back into the mix of things here and start contributing again. Site looks great and has obviously gone on to bigger and better things without yours truly, which is a huge credit to KevinE and Sugar.

Line for the game looks something like 31 and a half, which seems low to me for a preseason game. I'm calling the over.

I'll be around.

Go Skins

From various sources comes an emerging and troubling potential Clinton Portis vs. John Riggins duel the likes of which have not been seen since, well, the last time Clinton Portis got into it with anoter former Redskin. Remember this?

Portis: What you go on TV and say, what you sit on your radio show and say, 'Portis need to shut up?' Portis gonna keep talking.
Mitchell: You keep talking. Keep talking, bro.
Portis: So the fools saying Portis need to shut up, they can kiss Portis's ass. I'm saying that. Ain't nothing gonna change, my man....
Mitchell: Clinton, I'm gonna tell you like this bro. I always talk. I'm an analyst. I analyze positive and negative. If you can't handle the negative....
Portis: You're a hater, that's what you are....
Host John Thompson: "Both of y'all are guys that we're both proud of, and when you see one another, eat a sausage sandwich, sit back and put your toes up and laugh about this crap."

That was just months ago and was widely reported as escalating dangerously towards a physical altercation. Now John Riggins is piling on though, thankfully, no one's pockets are losing their straightness as a result. Net yet, at least. Pro Football Weekly and Mark Maske provide the potentially offending quote:

"I don't think there's any turning back now because obviously to a certain extent Clinton Portis has the team over a barrel from my understanding of the amount of money that he's owed, guaranteed money that becomes really cost-prohibitive to get rid of him over a [salary] cap issue. There's not that many teams that would be interested in Clinton Portis, I don't think, and so they have a bad situation on their hands. [That's] my personal take on it."

We'll talk more about the salary implications in a moment, but what's all this noise about, anyways? Something like:

Redskins RB Clinton Portis spoke with a small group of media, including PFW, in Tampa before the Super Bowl and said he still isn’t sure if he’ll be a part of the team’s offseason workouts in the D.C. area or if he’ll work out in Miami, as he has become accustomed to doing — but something the coaching staff would rather he not do.

“I’m going to play it by ear,” he said. “I’m going to be taking my time. I know I’m winding down. I’m going to take my time and make the decision best for me to help carry this team.”

Part of me wants to know more about this "winding down" and wonders why it is that NFL employees get to "play it by ear" when it comes to what their employers want whereas the likes of me do what we're told. Part of me also recognizes that this is hardly business as unusual, and that Clinton Portis (and others) routinely trains outside of Washington in the off-season. So I'm somewhere between lamenting one of our best players effectively telling the staff that what they want may or may not matter, and really being disinterested in his off-season workout destination so long as he shows up healthy. (Mark Newgent correctly points out that perhaps John Riggins isn't the appropriate task-master for this, as he was hardly a boyscout.)

But about this being over a barrel business... Just start adding zeros. Although slightly dated, I don't think much of Portis' contract has changed since January 1st of this year, and Warpath's figures have Clinton as:

• The highest compensated player on the team through 2013, escalating dramatically in 2010 to over 10M a year.
• His release fees start at 13M in 2009 and go down about 2.5M-3M a year as additional guaranteed moneys are prorated out of his contract. Keep in mind this number is just as likely to increase as decrease, because the preferred solution for solving every Redskin salary cap problem is renegotiating formerly unguaranteed money into guaranteed money prorated over the course of the contract, thereby increasing the penalty for early release.
  
• Cursory examination shows that Portis is just above Chris Samuels and just below Chris Cooley in terms of release penalties over the next 3 years.
• Incredibly, the team is in the unenviable position of taking a 7 digit penalty for cutting Portis at any moment before 2013. I love Clinton Portis, he's one of my favorite players on the team. I am incapable, though, of defending our decision to tie so many funds into his contract necessarily. Fates change rapidly in the NFL and you're better off not marrying yourself to (virtually) any player for that much change. I think this is especially true of running backs, as the position is one of the more fungible ones in the game.
  
• Because he's set to cost the team an alarming 10+M in 2010, the team can actually save money by cutting him (with a penalty of around 8.5M) which would then give us the largest individual dead cap hit that I can recall seeing in Washington (for a nice comparison, we paid ~ 6M in total dead cap hit last year) though I could be wrong about that.
  

I harp on it too often and will forget the point for now, but briefly: I do not think restructuring unguaranteed moneys into guaranteed money is a wise strategy generally, and the sheer volume in dead cap hits that we'd suffer from cutting Clinton Portis at any time over the next 3 years is partial evidence of that, in my opinion. Having said that I urge everyone to fall back in love with Clinton Portis, because whatever happens he's either going to be here for a while, or haters should exercise caution over what they wish, as Portis cut and sent packing out of town represents (relatively) dire financial consequence for the team. In other words: Yea, over a barrel sounds about right.

Updates of the news and new media news and blogging variety all carry the same ominous update:

After getting hammered all night by Terrell Suggs and the Baltimore Ravens defense, Washington Redskins Pro Bowl left tackle Chris Samuels tore his right tricep muscle at the start of the fourth quarter of last night's loss, he will have surgery as soon as possible and he is done for the season.

Let's try and make heads or tails of what we're doing to replace Samuels:

Soooooooooo Chris Samuels was the anchor on left side at the seasons greetings. Jon Jansen was the presumptive starter on the right side but quickly lost that job to Stephon Heyer, who equifast lost it right back to Jansen. With Samuels out the smart money says Stephon Heyer gets another shot at this starting offensive line thing the only difference is he has to switch to the other side which surely won't present any problem to a young still somewhat untested undrafted rookie with the confidence of a... young somewhat untested dundrafted rookie who was demoted months ago. Heyer would be replacing former Chris Samuels stand-in Justin Geisinger who, per Curly R:

When Chris went out backup center Justin Geisinger came in to play left tackle, he was immediately victimized by Ravens defensive end Terrell Suggs...

But then Geisinger got an injured knee, so he's out. Reader(s) may be forgiven for thinking "I didn't even know we had a backup center." We don't have a lot of things, actually. Jon Jansen suffered a "grade II sprain of the MCL in his left knee" and, much like our offensive line, he doesn't have any backups available to play left knee when his starter goes down. What the deuce is a grade II sprain, anyways, is there a doctor in the house that can explain the difference between a grade I sprain and a grade II sprain? More hit points and mana, I presume? (NERD ALERT.)

Because our backup right tackle is now our starting left tackle and because our starting left tackle is now on injured reserve and because our starting right tackle (formerly starting tackle turned backup tackle turned starting tackle again it is a wonderful tale of redemption and love and hope that will air on Oxygen this coming spring) had to put his own left knee on injured reserve, hopefully temporarily, big boy Jason Fabini will likely get a chance to prove that he's really just now ready to peak in his 12th NFL season. I'm talking about our starting right tackle, here. Jason Fabini.

The backdrop for this is a Redskins team who, per the Official Site, is really just "Trying to Recapture Momentum" which I thought was delightful and optimistic but not those two things at the same time. Recapture momentum? I don't even know what that means anymore after 2 straight losses and a 1-4 record in our last 5. I've got a plan, though, that's sure to catch that elusive momentum and there's absolutely zero percent chance of failure you just have to trust me on this one I stayed at a Holiday Inn:

Did it work?

It is important to note that this is not what panic looks like yet but it is definitely on the radar.

How is everyone else doing? I am well and I hope you are too.