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Certain things in life are important. Family, whānau, friends…FOOTBALL!

And not any prissy fall-over-clutching-your-face-if-some-one-comes-near-you round-ball football (also called soccer). This is smash-mouth American Football! A sport so tough they were forced to wear helmets by the President of the USA because PEOPLE WERE DYING! That’s how hardcore it is.

Well the Hall of Fame inductions are out of the way and we are now into the preseason. This means we’ve got five months of hits, interceptions, touchdowns, blitzes, first downs, 5 step drops, celebrations and hype. (But with roughly 30 secs between each play so you’ve got time to talk and drink beer).

The first football that kiwis get to see on live TV is:
Date: Tue 15 Aug 2006 12:00PM
Duration: 180 Minutes
Channel: ESPN
Genre: Sports
Censorship: G
Synopsis: NFL Pre-Season Football:
Minnesota Vikings v Oakland Raiders, LIVE from Hubert H Humphrey Metrodome,
Minneapolis, MN, USA.
The Raider Nation is already psyched up after a meaningless preseason win over the Eagles in the Hall of Fame game, so this could be another big one. Especially as it sees WR Randy Moss facing his old team.

Those regular readers amongst you know that I support two teams: The Eagles and the NY Jets (mainly the Jets). The Jets will start their pre-season in the stinking heat of Florida where they take on the Buccaneers, but I’ll have to watch highlights of that one on the net as New Zealand only gets (at most) two games a week.

For those of you are keen as beans Microsoft has a bunch of excel templates for your fantasy leagues as well as a pivot table for last year that can be easily altered to be current.

But what kind of preseason blog post would this be without a fistful of crazy predictions, so here we go, by division…

NFC North: Yeah, I’m starting with, perhaps, the crappiest division. Brett Favre said that this year’s Green Bay Packers are the greatest team he has played with. He can say this with certainty because he is high on some crazy-ass smack. The Bears win this division on defence alone while the other fight for the first pick in next year’s draft.

NFC East: From the worst to, possibly, the hardest division. This division fuels itself on hatred. PURE HATRED. The Giants took LaVar Arrington from the Redskins. T.O. went from the Eagles to the team that hates him so much that they injured him two seasons ago. I predict the Giants to win this one with the Eagles taking a wildcard slot. I know, you’re thinking “now, who’s on smack?” T.O. will not be able to stand Drew Bledsoe’s inability to get him the ball and will throw a tanty that will get him kicked off the team by Bill Parcells. And in Washington, they will suffer a QB injury that even the amazing Clinton Portis can’t get them out of.

(You know, I thought if I wrote it down it might sound like the truth. It didn’t. The Eagles are my first “crazy prediction”)

NFC West: Only a coked-up gambling fool wouldn’t bet on the Seahawks ruling this division. So I’m picking the Cardinals. I expect Seattle to go through a “Superbowl slump” on the scale of the Oakland Raiders (13 wins in three years since losing to Tampa in SBXXXVII). The Cards have got a new stadium, one of the best running backs in the game, and a great WR crew. People keep forgetting, the Cards were the only team in the top ten for offence AND defence last season. At best I give the Seahawks the other wildcard (a better prediction is Seahawks=Divisional winner, Cards=wildcard). The 49ers will beat all of the teams in the NFC North in the race for next year’s #1 pick.

NFC South: Usually this is a tightly contested division. That normally coughs up a wild card. Not this season. The Panthers will win. They are a strong team with good depth at most positions (as long as they don’t lose all their RBs again). Their opposition will come from the Buccaneers. But the Buccs aren’t strong enough this season to compete for the top spot. The Falcons are a team in the edge of a precipice. It’s a bad sign when your offence and defence brawl on the field not once but twice at a practice. It’s an even worse one when the players don’t realise that they are all wearing pads and helmets so the punches are useless. The Saints are only playing hard enough to get selected to be moved to LA.

AFC North: I like Chad Johnson of the Bengals. He might be my favourite WR. But the Bengals won’t win this division. I like Willie McGinest of the Browns (especially now he’s not a Patriot). The Browns also have their tight end back in service. But they won’t win (not even close). The Ravens have got a new QB. They’re still full of criminals. They won’t win. The Steelers will win.

AFC East: This hurts to say. The Dolphins will win this division. It will be a tight division but not because the teams will win a lot of games. The Bills suck. The Jets suck but will get better. The Pats are always a threat but the Dolphins should do it.

AFC West: My mate Jase likes the Raiders. His sad devotion to that ancient religion will not let him celebrate this season. I just can’t see the Raiders getting better with ex-Saints QB Aaron Brooks. The Raiders are a mean team though and you need to be in the AFC West. This is the division that rivals the NFC East for hatred. This division will contain a wildcard team. At the moment I believe that the Chargers will be that team, just edging out the Chiefs. The Broncos new, undrafted, unheard-of running back will get 2000yds (so what else is new) and they will win the division (and suck in the play-offs).

AFC South: Colts. Jaguars get the wildcard. Houston’s #1 pick, Mario Williams, gets injured early in the season. The Titans suck but not as bad as people think they will, even after Vince Young does something stupid. By the way, if the Colts do not make the play-offs they may find themselves moving to LA.

You can reach Rich Tandler by email at WarpathInsiderscomcast

What exactly did the Redskins give up in this deal?

You’ve heard a third-round pick, but that’s not entirely accurate. The compensation will have the draft pick trade chart value of a third-round, but it may not be a third-rounder that changes hands. According to Bill Williamson in the Denver Post, and confirmed by Warpath’s John Keim, these are the possible scenarios:

To make this as expensive as possible, let’s assume that they are looking at the point value of the first pick in the draft, which on the 2006 chart was 265 points. So, somehow or another, the Redskins have to transfer 265 points to the Broncos. Obviously for any of the first three scenarios listed to happen the Broncos would have to the picking later than the Redskins meaning that the Broncos would need to have a better record in 2006.

Let’s say that the Broncos win the Super Bowl and have the 32nd pick of the first round. To make up those 265 points in an exchange of first-round picks the Redskins would have to own the 20th pick or better. Presumably scenarios #2 and #3 will come into play if the teams are closer together in their draft positions. The fourth possibility, the one that has the Redskins giving up the two picks for Duckett, would occur if the Redskins finish with a better record than the Broncos.

On the face of it giving up a first-day pick for a player with one year left on his contract is a pretty hefty price, one that says very loudly that the Redskins are looking to win it all in 2006.

What does this tell us about Portis’ condition?

The “smart set” out there is saying that this trade means that the condition of Clinton Portis’ shoulder is worse, maybe much worse, than the Redskins are letting on. While it’s in the realm of possibility that there is some truth in this line of thinking it is sheer speculation. People are certainly entitled to being able to engage in that in this age of instant analysis. So I’ll exercise my right and engage in some sheer speculation of my own and try to get into Joe Gibbs’ thinking here. I’m speculating that Gibbs made this deal for two reasons.

First, in his first go around in the NFL he liked to have multiple starting-caliber running backs. In the early years it was John Riggins and Joe Washington. The second Super Bowl was won with George Rogers and Kelvin Bryant gaining the yards during the regular season and then with Timmy Smith setting the Super Bowl rushing record that still stands. In ’91 rookie Ricky Ervins spelled Ernest Byner and Gerald Riggs toted the rock over the goal line.

Now he has Portis and. . .who? Ladell Betts has shown flashes but he hasn’t shown enough to be considered a starting-caliber back. Rock Cartwright is a great guy and a superb special teams player but as a starting running back, well, he’s a great guy. Nemo Broughton? He got his audition in the late going against the Jets on Saturday and was just OK and he fumbled the ball away. Jesse Lumsden? This is the big leagues here, not the CFL. Although Duckett has started just 13 games in his four seasons, that’s eight more than all of the Redskins’ backs not named Portis have started combined.

Second, Gibbs wants to save some of Portis for when it really counts. Last year the Redskins played 18 games. By the last couple of games, the playoffs, Portis was pretty beaten up. Despite all of the talk we heard earlier in the year about Betts taking some of the load off, Portis got virtually every single carry of any significance all year long. Add to it the X factor of the injured shoulder and the fact that he’s starting off the year banged up and there is good reason to want to make sure that his load can be made lighter

The Redskins hope to play in 19 or 20 games in 2006. If their season is going to last longer, Portis is going to have to last longer. Duckett should help make that happen.

This deal doesn’t necessarily mean that the team thinks that Portis will be unavailable for the start of the regular season. It does mean that the want to increase the chances that he will be available for the end of the season.

What about Betts?

Betts quoted as saying, “I don’t understand it” in regards to this trade. I don’t understand something either. I don’t understand why he thinks he’s entitled to anything. Again, he’s shown flashes, but they have been few and far between. What haven’t been few and far between are his injuries. Imagine if the Cincinnati game was a regular-season game. Portis goes down early, Gibbs turns around to look for Betts to go in and, oops, he’s on the bench with a tweaked hammy.

Betts hasn’t proven to be much of a role player either. He’s not a short-yardage back. In 2005 he carried just twice in third and two or less situations and netted a loss of two yards. Third and long hasn’t proven to be his specialty either unless you consider 10 catches for a 7.8-yard average and four first downs to be an acceptable level of production in that role.

If Portis were to miss some significant time, say three or four games in a row, could Betts be relied upon to carry the load, to carry 20-25 times a game? His body of work suggests that he can’t.

This is not to say that Betts is worthless. He has good size, decent speed and good running instincts. The guy can play the game. But if you’ve been around for four years and you have nothing to hang your hat on, you don’t have a role that you own, you haven’t instilled confidence that you could handle the starting job even in the short term much less over the long haul, you should expect to be challenged.

I’m willing to write off Betts’ comments as a heat of the moment type of thing. Nobody likes to have competition brought in and he can be forgiven for having an emotional reaction.

But any player on this team that has an entitlement mentality and doesn’t believe that he needs to go out and earn his playing time will soon find his way onto the end of the bench and, eventually, will find his way out of town.

What’s the bottom line here?

The Redskins have once again shown that they are the most aggressive organization in the game. If they believe they have a hole that needs to be filled, they go out and fill it with the best player they can get. They don’t care if someone is going to get on the air or in front of a keyboard and write that they overpaid for that player. It happens virtually every time they acquire a player. It started when everyone said they overpaid for Portis and for Mark Brunell in Gibbs’ first acquisitions. Since then they’ve paid too much for Marcus Washington and Shawn Springs, gave up too much to get Rocky McIntosh, took an unbearable cap hit to swing the deal to get Santana Moss and so on. The Redskins made the moves anyway.

Let’s talk about this concept of “overpaid” for a minute here. A house in my neighborhood sold for $200,000 recently. I look at the house and the size of the lot that it’s on and I would say that the family that bought it overpaid for it. But it so happens that the house backs up to the elementary school and the family that bought it has two young children. To me, the proximity to the school is worthless but it was quite valuable to the family that will have their kids’ school in their back yard for the next several years. They were willing to “overpay” for the house for that reason.

To me, any money spent on a two-seat Porsche is overpaying because I don’t like driving cars like that and I have no use for one. Others would feel the same way about the minivans and SUV’s that I prefer. It’s all a matter of utility to the end user. In this particular instance, Duckett has a great deal of utility for the Washington Redskins. They gave up what they had to in order to get his services. They are now in a position where they could sustain an injury at running back and where they can better spread out the workload at the position if everyone stays healthy. They also have gained the short-yardage and goal-line power back that they have been missing for the past couple of years.

While there is no question that they will be better in 2006 for having made this deal, there is the matter of the third-round pick, possibly more. At least in all of the other “overpayment” situations mentioned above the player obtained was under contract for a number of years. Duckett becomes an unrestricted free agent after this season and a third round pick is a high price for a one-season rental.

The Redskins haven’t exactly pushed all of their chips into the pot, gambling that they will win it all in 2006. But the pile in the middle of the table keeps getting bigger and bigger.

Rich Tandler is the author of The Redskins From A to Z, Volume One: The Games. This unique book has an account of every game the Redskins played from when they moved to Washington in 1937 through the 2001 season. For details and ordering information go to RedskinsGames