As of this morning TBD.com has launched as a new local news site to be paired with TBD TV (formerly known as News Channel 8), and Staying Medium is lucky enough to be included as one of their community blogs. You can still find me right here at this Blogspot address, although many of my posts will now be linked on the TBD.com sports page along with three other great Redskins blogs: It Is What It Is..., Brooding Burgundy, and Riggo's Rag.
But TBD will be leading the way in professional journalistic coverage as well: they have their own Redskins beat reporter Mike Jones, whose very active Twitter feed had already provided tons of in-depth updates from training camp even before his first article went up earlier today. They have even managed to land a weekly column from DC favorite David Aldridge. I also recommend you check out the TBD Scrum, a forum in which a different local sports topic will be put up for debate each day. Today: whether or not Willie Parker should make the Redskins 53-man roster (he shouldn't). You should also follow the Scrum on Twitter to keep up to date on the current topic.
For you TBD readers who are just now stumbling upon Staying Medium, this blog is an attempt to take a slightly more rational look at the Redskins. We all know the wild mood swings the Redskins fan base (and media) can be subject to following any particular success or setback, so I co-opted (blogger-speak for "stole") our old friend Jim Zorn's favorite catch phrase: "Stay Medium." In general I will try to take a pretty in-depth look at the Redskins to to get a good feel for the team's true strengths and weaknesses and prospects for the future. The focus will mostly be on the actual football rather than off the field story lines. If you take your football seriously and can't get enough detail on the Redskins, then hopefully you will enjoy this site.
SM really gets rolling during the regular season, when I will review the game film (OK, actually my TiVo recording) of every game and post play-by-play breakdowns analyzing what went right and what went wrong: What running backs excel at picking up blitzes? Are the defensive linemen able to keep blockers off of London Fletcher? What offensive linemen lack the mobility to succesfully block on screen passes? You will find I am one of those people who considers football to be a game of blocking and defeating blocks - all that stuff with the ball is secondary.
But until then, of course, the Redskins have to settle on a final roster over the course of training camp and the preseason. A few weeks back I posted my best guess at how the 53-man roster would shape up (be merciful - keep in mind it was written a couple weeks before camp even opened, so some stuff is out of date) and since then have been going in depth into each position group to discuss how confident I feel about each and why I think the roster will shake out the way I do. The only position previews left are quarterbacks and special teams, both of which will be going up in short order and well in advance of the preseason opener on Friday. At the bottom of this post I have included links to all of the earlier position previews to get you started.
I would like to throw in a bit of a disclaimer. I make no claim to any sort of expert status. I have no experience as a football player or coach; I am only an attentive (obsessive) fan. My opinions are not at all conclusive and hopefully will be considered discussion starters rather than final verdicts. There will be times when your opinions or interpretations differ from mine - that's great. I hope you take advantage of the comment forums or email me (stayingmedium@gmail.com) to argue with me, correct me, ask questions, or say anything else that may be on your mind.
Finally, I have recently overcome my irrational fear of "social media" and ventured onto Twitter - so I hope you follow me at @StayMediumBlog to get updates on new posts as well as random Redskins-related thoughts and referalls to other articles I find interested.
Here are the completed position previews to get you ready for preseason - and again remember some circumstances have changed since these were first posted:
Hopeless 53-man roster prediction
Defensive line
Linebackers
Defensive backs
Offensive line
Running backs
Wide receivers
Tight ends
Thanks for reading.
No comments:
Post a Comment