Game 8: Redskins (4-3) @ Jets (1-7)

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The Redskins of Maryland travel to play the Jets of New Jersey in Giants stadium, 1pm ET. The Jets are a struggling team resorting to a quarterback switch and the Redskins are still reeling from an ass beating of epic proportions. Yeah this oughta be good.

The week started with reconciling the loss of cornerback Carlos Rogers for the rest of the season with two ligament tears in his right knee. The Redskins may have brought in some players off the street to try out and ultimately settled on promoting John Eubanks aka Bob Eubanks from the practice squad and it looks like Leigh Torrence will be elevated to number three alongside Fred Smoot and still-healthy Shawn Springs (op. cit.). Leigh Torrence has exactly zero starts in the NFL.

After last week's beating the Redskins sink to 28th in overall offense and 12th in overall defense while the Jets, mired in a losing streak, are 30th in overall offense and 29th in overall defense. Given the Redskins propensity for letdowns and the Jets weakness this ought to be a flailfest. Offense numbers here, defense here.

Curly R aside: the Redskins and Jets were part of maybe the worst game in NFL history, a 3-0 Jets victory in 1993, poor Richie Petitbon's only season as a head coach. Not only was there no scoring at all in the second, third or fourth quarter of this game, it was the first time the Redskins had been shut out at home (RFK) in 13 years.

The loss last week was meaningful, pundits were freaking out, teeth were gnashed, others saw no big deal, the team dealt with it and coach Joe Gibbs gave his standard let's play Redskins football speech. The team has familiar issues, Jason Campbell seems to be going in reverse albeit slowly but yayy, he'll be trying harder.

Basically this game becomes a must win. Despite the Jets being 1-7 and struggling they have a Pro Bowl caliber tailback in Thomas Jones (Wahoowa!) and the Redskins are a team with a long memory. Even as they take the field today the ass whooping from last week will be fresh on their minds.

The defense, which has blitzed almost not at all since the Lions game will likely be trying to put some pressure on Kellen Clemens, the Jets second year starter but they may be without Marcus Washington who like an unseemly number of Redskins has a hamstring injury.

The offense has been mostly absent, Jason Campbell's deep balls have gone away and yes we all know the offensive line has been battered, three of five starters were not at the top of the depth chart at the start of camp, but still Al Saunders was supposed to be some sort of guru and we have not seen it yet. Is it really his offense because I suspect Al has adopted Joe Gibbs' policies and if Joe is not calling the plays himself Al is calling the plays Al thinks Joe wants. Just my opinion.

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One of the interesting stories around this game is the number of players on both teams that played for the other. In Steve Spurrier's last year of 2003 there was a big trade and some signings that sent receiver Laveranues Coles, right guard Randy Thomas, since-cut kicker John Hall and long ago tailback Chad Morton from the Jets to the Redskins and since then fill in starter right guard Jason Fabini and Pete Kendall came over from the Jets and Laveranues, who gave the Redskins 11 great games in 2003 and not much else, was traded back to the Jets for Santana Moss who has been dinged up but is still a critical contributor to the team.

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My take in 60 words or less: statistically the Redskins should be able to impose their will on the Jets, I hope there is some running and some downfield passing. Still, with a new QB for the Jets they could rally and this could be bad. Despite a 1-7 record I am not ready to say the Redskins are huge favorites here.


Washington Post preview, Redskins Gameday (PDF). Redskins injury report, Jets injuries. Redskins projected starters, Redskins projected starters. Jet roster.

I agree with the Post, run it, stretch the field, pressure Kellen, don't let up at the end (Joe). Jason Campbell is once again entirely unenlightening.

Other previews: excellent preview at The Jets Blog, Hogs Haven, Greg at Hog Heaven, Redskins AOL Fanhouse, Covering the Redskins, Riggo's Rag, The Fun Bunch.

This is a gameday open thread.