Redskins safety Sean Taylor was shot early yesterday morning during an attempted burglary of his house in Miami and died late Monday night. An up and coming superstar, Taylor had been in Miami rehabilitating an injured knee and was in the midst of his best year as a pro. While his past issues had haunted him, Taylor had appeared to mature and seemed like a man who was ready to leave his past behind him. He was 24.

The Sportable staff can’t send enough prayers and condolences to the Taylor family, the Redskins family, and all his fans. God just picked up a hell of a safety. R.I.P. Sean Taylor # 21.

Hosts: Sonny, Ryan, and Rich.In this episode, Sonny, Rich, and myself discuss the NFC East. We discussed the role of Brian Westbrook in helping the Eagles repeat as NFC East champs. We also briefly talked about Terrell Owens’ role in Wade Phillips’ offense, and how he may react if Tony Romo and Co. struggle early.

You can find Episode 27 here. (Download mp3)

For the entire month of August, the Sportable Staff will look at one National Football League team a day. We?ll look at their offense, defense and in the end, assess their playoff chances. Previews will be done by division, starting with the NFC East. Each new division will also feature a new podcast devoted entirely to that division.

Scalp Snyder in 2007
The Washington Redskins are one of the league’s biggest anomalies. They have the league’s largest stadium and the largest net worth at over $1.4 billion. However, they’re led by one of the most controversial and inept general managers in sports. In case you haven’t noticed, Daniel Snyder doesn’t know how to build a consistent winner in the NFL. Rather than build through the NFL Draft, Snyder has attempted to buy NFL championships. In the end, all it’s bought him is a 33-47 record since 2002. Will this year be different? Several young players could be the difference between playoff contention and a last place finish.

Offense
Before Jason Campbell was selected in the 2005 NFL Draft, it was a requirement that all Redskins quarterbacks needed to be eligible for social security. Hell, I think I saw 67 year old Joe Gibbs under center last year. I might have even seen Tecumseh take a few snaps. The Brad Johnsons and Mark Brunells of the world are gone: Campbell is officially the guy. He started seven games for the Redskins last year. He went just 2-5 but also played fairly well, throwing ten touchdown passes to just six interceptions.

The good news for Campbell is the Redskins have plenty of offensive weapons to help him out. Running back Clinton Portis is expected to be recovered from a number of injuries, including a dislocated shoulder. If he can’t go, Lydell Betts can. Betts ran for over 1100 yards in 2006. As far as receivers go, the Redskins have several players looking for rebound seasons. Santana Moss was one of the league’s biggest surprises in 2005, but slipped badly last year. The same can be said for last year’s newcomers, Brandon Lloyd and Antwaan Randle El. Chris Cooley is one of the league’s best tight ends. As long as he doesn’t gross out Campbell, he should have another fine year.

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LaRon Landry was forced out of practice on Friday due to an interesting injury.? Landry limped into the locker room with a gunshot wound to his left groin…a paintball gunshot wound.? Landry, along with many of his defensive teammates, played paintball during a team-building activity on Wednesday and was blasted in the leg with a paintball.

With all the controvery involving crime in the NFL and the recent gun arrests of players like Tank Johnson and Odell Thurman, isn’t it a bit ironic and hilarious that Landry misses camp due to paintball injury.? More importantly, how funny must it have been to watch the Redskins defense run around a speed ball field shooting at each other.? Lets face it, the Redskins defensive unit is incapable of tackling anyone, so imaging them attempt to shoot each other with paintballs is probably as entertaining as watching them give up nearly 140 yards rushing a game.? Landry was drafted to solve that problem.? Landry won’t solve that problem if he’s nursing welts left from Shawn Springs paintball gun.

There’s no reason for the Redskins to be concerned about this injury, though maybe they should rethink their policy on team-building activities.? While working together in something like paintball is a great team-building activity, there’s no reason for these guys to get banged up doing something like that.? They take enough of a grind every year from the NFL season, they don’t need to be healing welts and bruises from the green team’s ammunition.? Stick to bowling, like most other teams do.

I guess I shouldn’t have expected too much of someone who is the product of an athlete from the University of Miami, but I think Clinton Portis takes stupidity to a new level. When asked about recent allegations about Michael Vick and the dogfighting ring Portis responded “If that’s what he wants to do, do it.” There’s a minor problem with that reasoning Clinton. It isn’t exactly legal to dog fight.

When informed that it was a crime to run a dogfighting ring, Portis responded with this gem: “It can’t be too bad of a crime.” Oh really Clinton? I’m pretty sure training dogs to be killing machines and starving them until they fight each other is actually a pretty screwed up thing to do. I personally can’t wait to see the reaction by PETA and the rest of the animal rights groups to this. Even I know that dogfighting is a sick and twisted “sport” and that this response by Portis should demand a response. Miami has quite the history of putting out ridiculous athletes, and this only adds to that reputation.

Now there will probably be all sorts of questions about Portis and his possible involvement with the dogfighting ring. Because the chances of there being a tie are slim to none, I think we should worry more about Portis as a person. If the guy can’t see that dogfighting is a bad thing, and says that “It can’t be too bad of a crime.” then he needs his conscience and sanity checked before anything else

Maybe the Redskins are finally realizing how moronic they were in signing Adam Archuleta to the largest contract in NFL history for a safety. They haven’t played him for the last seven weeks and now, they’re having some conflict over playing time and a lack of communication.

“I’m a grown man. I don’t like getting lied to,” Archuleta said. “All people want is for people to be straight up with them. I don’t mind bad news. I don’t mind negativity. I don’t mind if somebody says to my face what my flaws are and what I’m doing wrong and what kind of person they think I am.

Here’s something straight up for you Adam: you’re not very good at football. You’re a run support safety (a pretty good one) that is absolutely clueless in coverage. When the Redskins asked you to play more in pass coverage, you balked at them. This is on you for not willing to accept a new role with the team that just made you the richest safety in NFL history. What a great teammate you are.

Archuleta signed for $35 million in the offseason and refuses to accept a different role than the one he had on the Rams. It was an awful signing to begin with for the Redskins and it’s gotten far worse this year. He was a one dimensional safety his whole career and since he’s played a different style of safety, the Redskins have given up the most big pass plays of 20+ yards in the NFL. Well done Adam.

Saying “the Redskins lied” is a pretty immature way out of this whole thing. Maybe Archuleta lied about pretending to be a half-decent safety. That’s the reason he isn’t on the field; that’s the reason he’s been replaced by Troy Vincent. Maybe he should just improve his pass coverage and not complain. It’s probably not sitting well with his Playboy Playmate girlfriend, Jennifer Walcott.