Defense next Year

[sportscurmudgeon]

Barrow never played a down. (Did he even make it into the first pre-season game?) So you have no idea if he would have been better than Pierce or Marshall. When a guy gets injured in July and never steps on the field for a team he has never played for, you cannot call that a huge loss to the team. That may be a huge loss in terms of publicity and hype, but that's all it can possibly be. Now when Jansen got hurt, that was a different story. You knew what he could/would do on the OL and you knew what the rest of those jamokes could/would do and so you knew that was a big deal. But Barrow? Forget all the stats about tackles and that stuff; you have no idea if he would have played well in this defense for one simple reason - - he never played in it. If you went solely on stats from prior years, the Skins would have gone out and found someone other than Pierce because before this year he had no stats that were even marginally interesting.

Oh by the way, Pittsburgh lost Joey Porter at LB for four or five games and Kendrell Bell was nicked too. These guys may not be as flashy and free-wheeling as Arrington, but they can play LB for any team in the NFL

Yes Daniels was injured. He is one DL. So compare him to Richard Seymour who was out for about 5 games and playoffs with the Pats. I know that because Daniels wears a Redskins uniform people here think he is Superman but no one - not even Daniels' family - can possibly believe that losing him on the Skins DL was as bad as losing Seymour on the Pats' DL.

Meanwhile the Eagles lost three starting DL for significant periods of time during the year and unless there's a misprint in my paper, they finished 13-3 this year while the Daniels-less Redskins finished 6-10. Losing three starters in Philly versus losing Philip Daniels here. Yup, the Skins had it tough. That explains Philly's seven extra wins.

In the secondary the Skins lost Bowen and Lott. They are good players; I'll grant you that. Now check out New England again where perennial all-Pro Ty Law and the other cornberback Tyrone Poole missed the majority of the year together. Once again, even their mothers cannot rank Bowen and Lott ahead of Law and Poole in tems of skill-level. And remember, the Redskins had the huge benefit of having Sean Taylor playing the other safety spot to cover for Bowen's and Lott's absence. Taylor had every offensive player in the NFC wetting their pants if they were called to go over the middle - if you are to believe the postings here. The poor Pats had to resort to plugging in Troy Brown who is one of their WRs and all he did was get three INTs for about ten games as a part time DB.

The Redskins lost Arrington. That is the ONLY significantly talented player on the defense who missed a significant number of games this year. The Skins defensive injuries were not as mumerous as other teams (I believe the Titans had 12 players on IR which means out for the year by the ninth week of the year.) and on the defensive side of the ball they did not lose their top talent.

The ONLY injury that was a significant and lasting blow to the team was Jansen.