Department of Bad News: Chris Samuels

Done

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.

This means the Redskins offensive line will experience a serious drop off in performance. Said the blogger without a trace of irony.

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After a Pro Bowl season last year in 2007, a Pro Bowl in which Chris and fellow Redskins Pro Bowlers tight end Chris Cooley and long snapper Ethan Albright all wore number 21 in honor of fallen teammate Sean Taylor, Chris to this point had a tough 2008 along with the rest of the offensive line. Chris is 31 years old and was fighting a lingering knee injury first suffered in game six against the Rams, he sat out game eight against the Lions and has been playing through it since, pretty obviously to less effect every week.

Now that Chris is out backup tackle Stephon Heyer is scheduled to start in Chris' place. This assumes right tackle Jon Jansen comes back to start from the grade II sprain of his left MCL suffered in the second half last night. When Jon went out Stephon came in at right tackle. 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 that really had more to do with a poor coaching decision not to give Justin tight end help than Justin's performance, who realistically could be expected to come in and play left tackle for the first snap all year and then handle Terrell Suggs.

But wait it gets worse, Justin himself suffered a knee injury last night (op. cit.), we do not yet know the condition of Justin's knee so this presents an interesting situation. Methinks we will be seeing Jason Fabini who played fourteen games last year at right guard in place of Randy Thomas at left tackle with the possibility that rookie Chad Rinehart, who has mainly been practicing at left tackle behind Pete Kendall all year, at left tackle between now and the end of the season, Chad will have a bigger role in 2009 and the Redskins will want to see what he has got.

Even though the Redskins are playing the lowly Bengals this week I would still be nervous if I were Jason Campbell, his tackles, the quarterback protectors, may both be out. Colt Brennan anyone?



Chris Samuels leaving the field last night after hurting his right tricep: Reuters Pictures from here.