Game 14: Redskins (4-9) at Saints (9-4)

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A really great team with something to play for is puttering around the Dome one Sunday and stumbles across an injured team only playing for pride and next season's roster. What do you think would happen?

The Redskins travel to New Orleans to play the Saints for a Sunday 1pm matchup. The Saints are 9-4, two games behind the Bears and one game ahead of Dallas for the number two playoff berth, and a week off before hosting a home game. Drew Brees is the league leader in passing yards and in his last four games has thrown for 1450 yards. The Saints are the number one offense by yards and the number three scoring offense. The Saints have nine players with double-digit catches and the top two receivers, Marques Colston (a rookie) and Reggie Bush have combined for 138 and Bush and Deuce McAllister are on pace for about 1600 rush yards combined.

Washington's defense by comparison, is ranked number 24 overall and number 22 against the pass. Carlos Rogers has been subjected to the Washington Post treatment and the Redskins' secondary continues to be generally pretty bad. If it were Al Saunders gameplanning for the Saints against the Redskins, he would plan to run a lot, but since it's Sean Payton, who has a clue, I expect the Saints to pummel the shit out of the Redskins through the air, bringing the Saints strength right at the Redskins defense (reference: Titans game, then the number 32-ranked run defense, and Saunders calls a whopping seven runs in the first half for Clinton).

The Redskins offense, on the other hand is having fun running the ball...oh what? Jon Jansen tore a calf 5 weeks ago, against Dallas? And he broke his thumb? Again? And he's doubtful for the game tomorrow? Uh buoy. Update 5:15pm, I just heard NewsChannel 8 call it -- Jansen's out. This will hurt ye old running game, which is cover for the in-progress work of Jason and the Wides, where eight players are in double-digit catches, but the top two catchers, Santana and Chris Cooley, have combined for 84 catches.

Curly R aside: WTF is with this story on tackling stats? If Skin Patrol is right, Adam Archuleta has been penalized tackles along with being benched and forgotten. This seems to me to be the most petty thing I have read in a while and it's very disappointing. If this is a Gregg Williams thing, then maybe I believe a little more now that he lost his players in Buffalo before getting canned. Curly R suggestion box: make tackles and yards after catch official NFL statistics and have done with it already.

Other previews:
Hogs Haven: Saints offense, defense
Saints Watch
The Redskin Report's handy FYI



Let's just put this on Ladell and see how it goes.

This is a gameday open thread.