The good news, hat tip Big Blue View, is that Mathias Kiwanuka will live:

I was already in the tunnel under the stadium when I heard he was injured on the last play of the Giants 16-7 win tonight, and I saw him walking gingerly toward the X-Ray room after the game with the trainers at his side. But he walked without a limp, both to that room and to the locker room.

And when he returned, he said he was “OK.”

In case you don't know, in the waining seconds of Thursday's fight, Chris Samuels was called for offensive holding on Mathias Kiwanuka. Kiwanuka appeared to hurt his ankle or leg on the play though, fortunately, he appears to be ok.

X-rays must've been negative. You never like to see a player get injured, especially at the very end of an already-over game. I don't like the Giants, but I don't will injury on even my rival teams or players. This is a game. When people get injured, it affects their livelihood. And while I applaud the violence of this game most of the time, I don't really want people to experience devastating and extended physical pain of the kind that comes from broken bones. Wind knocked out of you, walk it off? Cool. Shattered ribs? Not cool.

So no harm no foul, right? Wrong, so sayeth Kiwanuka (hat tip: AOL Fanhouse):

"Honestly, I thought it was a dirty play," Kiwanuka said. "There's no question about it, he was definitely beat. Instead of recovering or giving up or whatever options you have ... I don't think there's any place for that in the NFL."

More from Kiwanuka:

"As an NFL player, there's going to be times when you're going to get beat," Kiwanuka said. "For a guy to turn around and ... basically he tackled me, after I beat him around the edge. It's uncalled for."

Samuels former teammate Antonio Pierce had a slightly different take:

"It shouldn't have happened, but it happened," LB Antonio Pierce said of the play. "Our guy is okay, he's healthy. That's all that matters right now. ... It's smart on (Samuels') behalf. No doubt. If David Diehl or Kareem (McKenzie) was in that position, I'd expect them to do the same thing. They could go about it a different way, maybe. I wouldn't want them to try to almost injure a guy and have him out for a couple of weeks. From that standpoint, that's disappointing, but I would expect our guys to protect Eli."

That's how Justin Tuck feels as well, emphasis added:

"I understand his reasons for doing it, I don't necessarily agree with it," Tuck added. "You're putting a player's health in the balance there, that's always going to be questionable. But I know Chris. He's not a guy like that (who would) try to take out another guy. It was just a bad judgment play."

I don't think we're going to get Redskins fans or players and Giants fans or players to agree one what it is that happened, exactly, as partisans for either team will see it however they want to see it. As I was drunk by the time this happened (what else do you do in a 9 point loss?) I don't remember seeing much of the actual play, but I do distinctly remember seeing Samuels standing near Kiwanuka immediately after, motioning towards the Giants sideline, and looking generally contrite over the incident. It kind of reminded me of Lawrence Taylor over Joe Theisman. At the time I wrote that it was unfortunate but that the manner Samuels acted afterwards certainly didn't appear to be that of a guy intentionally trying to injure another player.

I'm reluctant to bring up a similar incident in fear of establishing a damning pattern, but I think it speaks to Samuels as a player and provides an opportunity to quote others defending his character. You might recall that in December of last year, Samuels broke the leg of Antonio Garay:

Last Thursday, Redskins offensive tackle Chris Samuels hit Bears defensive tackle Antonio Garay with an illegal chop block, breaking Garay's leg and ending his season...

The officials missed it and Samuels wasn't flagged on the play, but he was later fined $12,500.

How is this supposed to speak highly for Samuels? It was what he did afterwards that mattered, emphasis added:

Redskins offensive tackle Chris Samuels recently called Bears coach Lovie Smith to apologize for delivering an illegal chop block that ended defensive tackle Antonio Garay’s season...

“It’s not like he had to [call to apologize],” Smith said. “I know what type of football player he is. He’s not a dirty player or anything like that. But it says a lot about a guy who’s sorry for something that was unfortunate.”..

“It’s not something he tried to do on purpose,” Smith said. “Things like that happen in the game of football sometime.”

Similarly, Samuels apparently spoke with Tom Coughlin after the game, emphasis added again:

Added coach Tom Coughlin, "I spoke to (Samuels) after and he said, 'That wasn't intentional.'"

Chris Samuels has started 125 games to date in the National Football League
which is plenty of time for peers to compellingly level charges of persistent dirty play if indeed he is that kind of player. As far as I can tell, Samuels does not have a reputation as a dirty player. He's very well liked by teammates and when print is written about him, it's almost always in a positive light. I don't know Chris Samuels, but I've never had any reason to suspect he's a dirty player. And I am perfectly happy, unlike Kiwanuka, drawing the line between dirty plays and merely unfortunate ones at: Intent. A dirty play, in my mind, is one where a player either intends to injure or intends an act so reckless that injurious results are more likely than not to follow. I wish I had video of the incident in question, though am comfortable claiming from my (admittedly inebriated) recollection from the game, the play was far from so reckless that injury was a necessary result. And taking Samuels at his word, and the history, I very seriously doubt that Samuels intended to harm anyone on that play.

I trust that Samuels is not a dirty player. I am pleased Mathias Kiwanuka is uninjured. I don't fault Kiwanuka for being upset over the incident -- he's the one who damn near suffered a livelihood affecting injury, afterall -- but I respectfully disagree with his assertion that my offensive lineman is a dirty player.

Still absorbing the results of last night's frustrating loss to the Giants. And by absorbing I mean day drinking here I come!

There's a lot going on in the Redskins blogosphere regarding the game. By way of example but not exhaustion here's a couple quick notes before we get into the title number, quickly: Dan Steinberg has quotes from the players... Riggo's Rag says it was the little things (but lots of them)... I am very eager to read Post Game Heroe's recap as I felt there was a huge amount of fail by the offensive line and they will direct my pointed fingers best... Ben at Curly R wants this game Del Tacoed... we ain't seen the real Zorn offense yet -- I sure hope that's right... but maybe we have seen the same old Redskins offense?

Fred Smoot was injured in the game with the scoop via Redskins 360:

Fred Smoot left Thursday's game at the Giants in the third quarter with a back injury, but on Monday Zorn said that the corneback instead has a hip pointer which is painful but shouldn't keep him out against New Orleans on Sept. 14.

Praise jeebus. There were times I didn't feel the secondary was playing all that great but 16 points isn't so bad, especially without your starting cornerback. Carlos Rogers looked especially lost, particularly early on. We're not so far removed from 2006 to know what kind of disaster lurks when your corners are injured.

Better news: Shawn Springs expected to return against New Orleans this weekend. We'll get our best look at the defense against a very talented Saints QB in Drew Brees, and hopefully a new look at our own offense, which will remain sans Malcolm Kelly, per the above article.

[Note by Skin Patrol, 09/05/08 12:07 PM EDT ] TORB (The Octagon Of Pain!) beat me to the punch on the MAXIM story this morning, here. I hate being last to the dance. I hate being last to the dance without recognizing those who showed up early even more.

Great timing by Maxim as there's nothing like a little PG-13 skin to take my mind off some truly R rated suckage by Your Washington Redskins. The offense gave me nightmares, just as I predicted. I dreamt it was 4th and 13 and Campbell hit a covered receiver at the line of scrimmage nooooooooooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!

But, thanks to Maxim, my mind is elsewheres. What appears to be something like damn near half the Cheerleader roster was featured in Maxim (all pictures available here). Lest anyone accuse me of succumbing to the simple pleasures of the flesh, my motivation is actually to encourage voting. This is the season of democracy and I only hope that you take time to participate... Or as Maxim puts it:

Washington Redskins Cheerleaders

 

 

Vote for something in Washington that truly matters.

Ooooooh chuckle chuckle belly laugh the democratic process is best served by picking which woman is morest attractive than others. Presidential elections are so four years ago.

You can go vote for your favorite cheerleader here. In the spirit of democracy I'm keeping my vote a secret, though it is one of the three women in the click below. Go do your civic duty. (ED. NOTE: Some of these might not be safe for work, depending where you work. We've all read Maxim so... use your best judgment.)

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These are my brief, uncollected thoughts having been drinking for most of the game and existing in a bitterly disappointed state, currently. I think these things are best analyzed with the benefit of a night's rest but, whatev.

• Whoever was the Giants defender who was injured on the last play of the game, I hope he's ok. The result was obviously decided by the time whomever that was started favoring their injured parts and the last thing I want to see, even against a division foe I hate to lose to, is someone get injured on a meaningless play. Chris Samuels looked sufficiently contrite.
• Jason Campbell didn't play so hot. I felt he held on to the ball too long or else made the wrong decisions. The only time he, and the team, were able to move the ball was consistently was in desperation time when the opposing defense was giving up space.
• I don't think the offensive line was horrible but they were definitely below average. JC was rushed a few times and the penalties are a problem.
• Defense exhibited what felt like a bend but only enough to break after wasting a bunch of clock time. The few times I remember us pressuring Eli Manning he did something horrible, which raised the obvious question; why weren't we pressuring more? I recall Doughty getting a hand on Manning during a safety blitz and him completing a long pass but, beyond that, I can't recall Manning doing anything right when we pressured him. Our interception came on a pressure play. This is not rocket science, if you scare the opposing quarterback, he'll screw something up.
• Speaking of turnovers... we won that battle and lost by 9 points. Sad fact is we're not going to escape a dramatic majority of games with the turnover lead and we certainly won't have 0 turnovers for even a simple majority of our fights. If you can't keep it close when you win that crucial +/- turnover scuffle, you aren't playoff bound.
• Defining moment of the game was Jacobs plowing over LaRon Landry. That's one of our best against one of their best and they won.
• Good news! I forgot how many weeks (months?) it took us to score a touchdown with a wide receiver last year and we did it in week one this time around. Drinking to not having to listen to ESPN repeat that gruesome statistic every day.
• We lost 16-9 against the Super Bowl Champions in their house filled with nearly 90 thousand motivated partisans. Is that really so horrible? I don't know that it's any worse than losing to the Giants 24-17 in our own house, which is what we did early last season and still managed to make a success out of the entire affair.
• Looking back on the score, as pissed as I was at the defense for much of the game (50% third down defense won't cut it, period) we can win if the other bastard only scores 16 points. Eli was held to 6.1 yards per pass, meh, with a pick and no touchdowns. Their 4.8 yards per rush was troubling but not terrifying.
• Terrifying was our useless offense. 3.5 yards per carry sucks. Clinton Portis looked ok but not good (sometimes he did look great, though). We didn't reach the line of scrimmage on 4 rushing plays or, put differently, 1/6th of the time.
• Rock Cartwright is awesome.

Good way to end it. Let me sleep with nightmares on this one and leave it at that, before I get sore on Jim Zorn's clock management or Jason Campbell's future. Way too early to indict either of them.

We made it. The season is upon us.

Soon, at least; as of this writing (though not publishing) we're a good chunk of hours removed from the game. That said, we're real close.

Before the game, and I'll publish this a couple hours in advance, keep an eye on NFL.com preview video, although watching it for the 2nd time, it hurts me to hear them claim Justin Tuck will matchup against Jon Jansen. Nope.

Gameday thread via the Official Site.

Our injury report lists:

We can live without Kareem Moore and Alex Buzbee (injured reserve). Phillip Daniels is going to be out for the season along with Buzbee, so no news there. Malcolm Kelly is not that far from injured reserve and won't be doing anything for weeks, it seems:

Malcolm Kelly, whose knee injury has been such a concern that the team has considered putting him on season-ending injured reserve...

Uhhh, good news for Devin Thomas, I suppose.

I have every confidence that Landry will play as I've heard nothing to the contrary and ironman Antwaan Randle El has assured the world he will play in spite of his hand injury. Shawn Springs is a necessary cog.

Jason Taylor probably won't play but I remain hopeful nonetheless.

Big Blue View should have any new Giants' developments up over at his site. The Giants Official Site injury report lists:

Do with that what you want.

Line is currently something like Giants -4 though I've seen it at -4.5 so hopefully that means the fix is on, yo. Over/under is 41 though, again, that's higher than I read yesterday I believe. My prediction: Redskins 21 Giants 19.

That's different than the prediction I gave just last week or so (hat tip: Curly R) to the New York Times' Fifth Down Blog. What I said:

Will Allensworth ru[i]ns Hogs Haven, an unofficial Washington Redskins blog for Sports Blog Nation. The site launched sometime in August 2006 and has been poorly written ever since, mostly because I run it.

While there is little doubt that the Giants are a worse football team without Osi Umenyiora, the question is how much worse are they? Against the pass, much, much worse, as they’ll have to account for 13 sacks and 5 fumbles without him. Against the run, though, there’s reason to think Osi left much to be desired, at least per the work done by Football Outsiders in their Pro Football Prospectus. They had him below Justin Tuck, Michael Strahan, Fred Robbins, and Barry Cofield in run stop percentage (which is a measure of success depending on the particular down) and average rushing yards allowed. For the ‘Skins, the good news here is that I have more questions about their passing game than their running game (especially given the way their O-Line played against Carolina), and Osi was an absolute force against any quarterback. Redskins, 27-17.

Note: I don't even know if the above answer makes sense.
After much reflection and soul searching I decided testing ye Fooball Gambling Gods twice by both ripping apart their spread and destroying their over under was probably a poor decision, hence the tempered 21-19 score.

I think there will be some live blogging over at Tandler's and TORB (The Sea Salt & Vinegar Potato Chip!) though I'm not certain. UPDATE: AOL Fanhouse is a go for livebloggin with Ryan Wilson, Om Field is excited, etc. UPDATE 2 by Ben, Curly R's game preview is here.  Go read the blogroll yourself.

This is where you post your own predictions for the game, hopes, dreams, aspirations, recipes, etc. Enjoy, welcome to the new season and, most importantly:

HTTR

Indebted to Dillweed of Post Game Heroes [ED NOTE: Their post is up here] for taking the iniative on the initial Redskins Roundtable, currently involving just a small smattering of questions between myself, Dillweed, and Ben of the Curly R [ED Note: His post is up here] (who also revealed his Blogger Deathsport picks; he's actually good). Questions w/ answers from Ben and Dillweed posted below, make sure you check their sites periodically throughout the day for my responses to their questions. Enjoy:

1.  What do you consider our biggest strength going into the regular season?

Dillweed: I agree with Will, it's the linebackers.  Our running backs are good…not great, and the defensive line seems to be average at best.  It's hard to say Corners are our strength when the D-line (and blitzes) aren't getting to the quarterback.  With LaRon Landry back our safety position looks a lot stronger, but I have a huge concern at Strong Safety.  We just need to
find a guy that can occasionally cover while primarily being a weapon in
the box, and I don't think we've found that guy just yet.  On offense, our
passing game is unknown to us…we'll find out a lot more about it this
Thursday.

Ben: It has got to be the defense, despite some changes in personnel, Phillip Daniels out and Jason Taylor in, and some injuries, safety LaRon Landry's hamstring, linebacker Marcus Washington's hip and cornerback Shawn Springs bruised calf, this unit has managed the proverbial continuity Joe Gibbs was hoping for at the end of his second term in Washington.  They get started a little dinged with linebacker Rocky McIntosh and cornerback Carlos Rogers coming back from inury in addition to those mentioned above, this unit should get better as the season wears on.

2.  What about the team makes you want to resort to alcohol abuse to
help numb the pain?

Dillweed: Reed Doughty.  It's really not all his fault either…we have been
absolutely spoiled with Sean Taylor and LaRon Landry.  Doughty's mistakes
in the run and passing game have been amplified this preseason because of those two guys.  I still haven't adjusted to the fact that teams will
throw deep on us.  I mean just a year ago that was something you couldn't
do…ask Brett Favre.  If we had a defensive line that could apply pressure
then I wouldn't be so worried about having a weak link in coverage at
SS…but we don't.  And even if Doughty improves in his run defense, which I
think he will in a hurry, what does that leave us with…Adam Archueleta?

Ben: The FUD factor, fear, uncertainty and disarray.  Fear of weak offensive line play and nagging injuries, uncertainty in the strength of Jason Campbell's coming 2008 performance, disarray if the team gets off to a weak start or a large part of the team is simply not working right.

3.  Which NFC East team worries you the most?  How do you think we
will fare against our division foes?

Dillweed: With Sean Taylor, I never feared T.O.  I looked forward to playing him and seeing him get shut down almost every game.  But now…Dallas kinda scares me.  Giants are very physical but as long as Elijah is their QB I'm not too worried about them.  And the Eagles refuse to just open up the check book to hire ONE FREAKIN WR.  I'm so glad I'm not an Eagles fan.  It's one thing to just absolutely suck, but to have an obvious, and easily curable,
weakness never taken care of year after year…that's gotta make you
suicidal.  I think we split with the Giants, Eagles…and hopefully Dallas
too.

Ben: The Eagles, always the Eagles, they are the Redskins principal division rival now, I expect the Redskins will split with the Giants and Cowboys, depending whether the Eagles progress back toward the team they have been for most of the past decade or regress toward the end of the Andy Reid slash Donovan McNabb era, remember how surprising it felt to beat them in game two last season in Philadelphia and how unsurprising it felt to lose to them in Washington seven game later?  The Redskins are looking at best at 3-3 in the division, a more realistic assessment may be 2-4.

4.  What will our regular season record be?  How far do we make it
into the post-season (if at all)?

Dillweed: 9-7…Our running game and defense are the same…schematic wise at least, and I like the continuity on those fronts.  I think the passing game won't hurt us during the home games, JC seems to play a lot better at home. However, the away games are where JC will be tested and probably fail early on.  I think we go 6-2 at home and manage to pull out 3 wins on the
road.  If we make it to the playoffs, we might get one win, but I'd be
surprised (and really freakin happy) to see us go past that.

Ben: My walk through the schedule has the Redskins somewhere between 4-12 and 10-6, depending on whether this team comes together and stays together, or not.  If the Redskins finish 10-6 that should be good for a wild card playoff berth, maybe not, the NFC could be more competitive than the past two years, ie fewer 8-8 teams vying for playoff spots.

I'd like to expand this feature to either include more questions and/or more bloggers in the future, though give me some feedback for now on whether this is goodness or badness. It's greatness for me since Ben and Dillweed know more about the 'Skins than I do.

Here are my picks for the first week of Blogger Deathsport now expanded, I believe, for the single and sole purpose of increasing my shame. REMEMBER: I am horrible. If you are a gambler, you might make some serious money going against all these picks. Pick is in bold:

Thu

WAS @ NYG (-3.5)  

Sun

ARZ (2.5) @ SF  

SEA @ BUF (-1)  

CIN (-1) @ BAL  

DAL (-5.5) @ CLE  

DET (-3) @ ATL  

CHI @ IND (-9.5)

JAX (-3) @ TEN  

KC @ NE (off the board = straight up even)  

TB @ NO (-3)  

NYJ (-3) @ MIA  

STL @ PHI (-7.5)  

HOU @ PIT (-6.5)  

CAR @ SD (-9)  

Mon

DEN (-3) @ OAK  

MIN @ GB (-2.5)

For those of you unawares of the American Mustache Institute you need to get aware like fast. Reader(s) are well aware that despite my early trepidation with the AMI, their willingness to engage in an open debate about a subject of importance totally won me over (and a spot on Blog Show).

Their next big project is the: Robert Goulet Memorial Mustached American of the Year Award.

via www.americanmustacheinstitute.org

What qualifies someone for this honor? A candidate could be:

• a furry lipped teacher who was an important influence;
• My Morning Jacket's Jim James or Weezer's Rivers Cuomo for reminding us of the days of Zappa;
• a neighbor with a cookie duster who's always been a generous volunteer;
• the New York Yankees' Jason Giambi for helping popularize the mustache in baseball in 2008;
• a mustached fireman who was willing to sacrifice his life to protect others;
• Keith Hernandez for winning the greatest sports mustache contest;

or, if he was an American - Daniel Day Lewis would be a candidate for becoming the first mustached ‘Best Actor' winner (Daniel Plainview in "There Will Be Blood") since Paul Newman in 1986.

And they're taking submissions. I'm torn because this team really does have some truly amazing 'staches (JASON CAMPBELL!), and I'm going to ask you guys to write in your own candidates below. But I have made one submission already: James Arthur Monk.

(Click Below for more)

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Starting tomorrow during the Redskins @ Giants game but continuing for most of the season I will carefully be watching for Anthony Montgomery in the lineup. I'll get to why in a moment.

Briefly before that, make sure you check out the team's final roster heading into the season available at the official site here. I didn't do a good job at all of analyzing the cuts or the final roster, which is far more interesting for who doesn't make the team than for who does (because the real "news" always happens on the margins; no one is shocked Jason Campbell made the team, for instance). And now that the deed is done I haven't anything to add that others haven't covered better already. See, for example, Curly R on the depth chart or Hog Heaven on the running backs, tight ends, wide receivers, etc.

I have been meaning to write on Anthony Montgomery before the season started, and time has run out for me to put it off any longer. And unfortunately I put it off too long for another reason: As of this writing, Kedric Golston is listed as starting in front of Anthony Montgomery. It's too late to question the wisdom of that decision, not that I have any wisdom to add nor any input on such. But it's never too late to examine Montgomery's impact on the Redskins defensive line of 2007 perhaps to shed light on just how valuable he will be to the team moving forward. Remember that there's no reason to think Kedric's hold on the starting DT position is stone-set. Although Kedric has been my pick for some time because I like him as the underachiever drafted after Montgomery, it went Golston-Montgomery-now Golston from '06-'07-'08. Sprinkled throughout was a heavy rotation betwixt them anyways, which should continue this year.

My trusty Pro Football Prospectus from the fellas at Football Outsiders had much to say on the subject of Montgomery's '07 performance. Click below to read more about that.

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