Dancin' in D.C.

Well the Washington Redskins had one of the worst starts to training camp that one could realistically envision. After their first day and a half of practice the Redskins had already lost their starting DE (Phillip Daniels) and a back up DE to season ending injury. For good measure, corner back Fred Smoot went down with a sprained ankle. Depth has been a weakness for the Redskins for the past decade and a half, due to reckless free agent spending and a knack for trading away draft picks for very little in return. So, injuries tend to be particularly devastating to the Redskins. This time however, there does appear to be a silver lining to an otherwise horrible start to training camp. The Redskins knew their season would be over before it even began if they did not address the holes left by these injuries so they went out and traded for one of the top DEs in all of football, Jason Taylor. The Redskins gave up a second round pick in next year's draft and a sixth round draft pick in 2010 to get Taylor. Trading away a second round pick for a 33 year-old lineman is generally a poor move, especially if that player has openly talked about quitting football in the near future to pursue acting.

{Side note- Unlike other athletes who want to become movie stars, Jason Taylor has a legitimate opportunity to full fill that ambition. He recently starred in the show "Dancing with the Stars" and went from relatively unknown all-pro football player to a national celebrity who now regularly appears in the tabloids and on info-tainment shows. To give you an idea of what I am talking about my wife (who wouldn't know a defensive end from a dead end) said, "REALLY...They got Jason Taylor!", when I informed her of the trade.}

However, in this case the Redskins might have actually turned a horrible situation into a net positive. Jason Taylor, when at his best, is one of the best defensive players to ever play the game of football. Even though he is 33, he still had an extremely productive season with 11 sacks last year. He is a super-human athlete with tremendous football instincts. He appears to be in great shape and has only missed four games his entire career. Together with the Redskins' other DE Andre Carter (another freak athlete who also had double digit sacks last season), Jason Taylor should give the Skins one of the best pass rushes in the league. Another positive aspect of this story is the fact that the Redskins had the salary cap room to make this deal in the first place. In years past there is absolutely no way the Redskins would have had the $8 million dollars under the cap they needed in order to make this move. But, shockingly, this season the team focused on the draft rather than free agents and this conservative approached allowed them to adapt under, what could have been, season crushing circumstances.

Nevertheless, there are some down sides in to this situation. First, this situation underscores the Redskins folly in drafting three wide receivers/tight ends with their first three picks in the draft. Had the Redskins drafted a DE with one of their first picks, they would not have been as desperate and Redskins might have been able to drive a harder bargain with the Dolphins and gotten Taylor for cheaper. Instead, the Redskins were forced to deal in desperation and were lucky the Dolphins didn't demand even more in order to get the deal done. (The Redskins are still dangerously thin at the DE position, even with the addition of Taylor.) In addition, what the Redskins gain in pass rush might be negated by Taylor's poor run defense. Both he and the Redskins other DE Carter struggle against the run. Add to that, the questions surrounding Taylor's dedication to the game and you have real potential for this deal to end badly for the Redskins.

Overall, this was a good move for the Redskins because it makes them a potentially better team than the one they started training camp with just yesterday. Which is a pretty remarkable thing to say given how disastrously this day began for Washington's favorite sports franchise.