According to the Washington Times, the Redskins have executed a trade to move up with St. Louis for the second pick in the draft. The trade is huge. It looks like Washington traded the 1st and 2nd from this year and the first rounders from 2013 and 2014.

The speculation is that Shanahan will pick RG3 to run his offense. Given the roll outs and bootlegs, Griffin should be a good fit. Washington does not want to confirm the trade but St. Louis has confirmed that the trade has occurred. The cases of champagne and fireworks at the Ram's facility should be confirmation enough.

Shanahan must be desperate to win or at least attract ticket sales, to give up three number 1's and a number 2. RG3 may be coming in but it may be until 2015, when they have another number 1 in place, that they will have the personnel to back him to enough to win.

The Redskins, what a joke.

Mike Freeman at CBS Sports is reporting that the two sides are getting close together.  The News at Bloggintheboys shows that Jerry and Mr. Kraft are at secret talks with the players. So much for the secret!  But there was two interesting quotes from that story that stand out.

"Owners like Jones, who have billion-dollar stadiums, can't afford to miss games, because missed games could potentially lead to missed payments on stadium debt. Kraft and Jones in particular have been very vocal in wanting to get a deal done sooner than later."

IMO, Jerry will wait as long as necessary to get the best deal for the owners.  He has too many events in the Mothership and enough money in the bank to last quite awhile.  He wants to get the deal done because he believes, like many of us, that last year was an aberration that will be corrected this year for a Super Bowl run.  To paraphrase Faith Hill, 'He is ready for some football.'

Looking at the owner and player talks after the jump.

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Nick Eatman at DC.com is reporting that the Cowboys have cut ties with Cory Proctor and Duke Preston.  Proctor is an interesting cut considering the weakness noted along the O-line.  Preston was planning on retiring according to earlier reports. 

Per Eatman:

"Add backup center to the list of position battles for the Cowboys this off-season. That’s because the Cowboys have released veteran Cory Procter, who gave the team some backup versatility at both guard and center for the past three seasons.

Still, the Cowboys were always looking to find an upgrade and apparently they feel comfortable enough with the rest of their interior lineman to cut ties with Procter, who was scheduled to make $1.759 million as a restricted free agent."

http://www.truebluefanclub.com/blogs/nick_eatman.cfm?plckController=Blog&plckBlogPage=BlogViewPost&userid=1990bfd1-c6a9-4728-af3f-a229e85b981c&plckPostId=Blog%3a1990bfd1-c6a9-4728-af3f-a229e85b981cPost%3accd879e1-c86e-42cf-8ec5-81771e667439&plckScript=blogScript&plckElementId=blogDest

So how does this affect our O-line?

Found this article from a few years ago concerning a scout's take on finding the next great quarterback.  "This is the quarterback problem. There are certain jobs where almost nothing you can learn about candidates before they start predicts how they’ll do once they’re hired. So how do we know whom to choose in cases like that?" - Malcolm Gladwell

Since the Cowboys are on spring break per DC.com, here is an interesting in depth story about the draft:

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/12/15/081215fa_fact_gladwell

Now that we have had a week to digest the poor performance in Minnesota, what does it mean for the Cowboys?  This defeat compares in scope to the Eagle defeat the year before.  Many commentators here and in the MSM wrote that the Cowboys organization was shaken to it's roots.  Intelligent but drastic action was undertaken.  The trouble makers were dismissed.  Quality character players with a few miles left on the tread were brought in, e.g. Brookings and Igor (love that name - 'Walk this way').  Coaches evaluated players on the bubble and made decisions about the future like letting Canty go and keeping Spencer for Ellis.  The Philly drubbing forced Jerry to make positive changes because he could no longer believe his team was just this close to succeeding.  Now we look at this year.

The Vikings dominated us and exposed every weakness that we had hidden so well in the last half of the season.  The Minn. Defense was playing at an unbelievable level.  (See what they did to Brees this week)  Now Jerry, Wade, and Steven need to find answers to the questions left from this season.  Just like last year, the problems seem focused in a few areas.  Careful use of FA, the Draft, and pushing existing players and coaches may take us to the next level.  You get the feeling that Jerry's Rose-colored glasses are off.  He should once again lean on his staff to help upgrade our personnel.  (Which begs the question- how many years of football GM experience is required to be a 'football guy'?)  I think the future looks bright.

One last aside concerning the Vikings-Saints game as it relates to our game with Minnesota:  On the Mike and Mike show this morning, they were going on about how the overtime rules should be changed because the Vikings never had a chance for their offense to get on the field.  It was not fair that the Saints won a coin toss, of all things, and got the ball first.  And then the Saints won.  Obviously not fair.  What a bunch of whiny B***S***!  Last week the Vikings and all the commentators were saying that the Cowboys should just stop Farve and the Vikings if we do not want them to score a meaningless touchdown in a blow out game with hardly anytime left on the clock. 

Now we know the rules in this game.  The Vikings should just stop Drew Brees and the Saints if they do not want them to score a meaningful field goal in a meaningful game with lots of time left on the Over Time clock!  What goes around, comes around!

Next year looks very promising.  Go Cowboys!

A Nashville paper is quoting Titan sources as saying Dallas has agreed to a 4th rounder for Adam Jones.  But it looks like the Titans want more.  Everything else I am reading tells me that the Titan management is the same screwed up bunch that messed up the Oilers.  

Dallas is digging deep, if this story is true, and then they want to get more.  Knowing people who have dealt personally with Jerry in business, this might really hack him off.  Here is the link to the story:
http://www.nashvillecitypaper.com/ne...