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Josh LeRibeus was a bit of a surprise pick by the Washington Redskins in the third round. At the time, I thought the best explanation was that Mike Shanahan looks for certain types of offensive linemen for his zone-blocking run game, and that consequently he may evaluate linemen differently than other teams do. We come to find out, in the wake of last weekend's rookie minicamp, that that was part of the reason and another part was that Shanahan believes LeRibeus can play center as well as guard. LeRibeus worked exclusively at center during the three-day minicamp, per Mike Jones:

The position wasn’t completely foreign to LeRibeus. He had never played it in a game at SMU, but he served as backup center in practice. And to make himself more versatile, LeRibeus spent the months leading up to the draft working on his snaps.

So LeRibeus said he didn't encounter many problems at minicamp.

"Luckily I've been working on those snaps, so it wasn't any trouble," the lineman said. "The playbook's huge, but they have a way of teaching it, and coach Foerster is great and I'm picking it up fine."

Shanahan said that he didn't see any problems, either.

"He picked it up in one day like he's been doing it his whole career. But he worked on it during the season," Shanahan said. "I talked to [SMU coach] June Jones, and he said, 'Mike, if our center goes down, he's the first guy to go in.' So, when you practice it throughout your career, usually it's pretty easy."

The Redskins had a depth problem on the line last year, and the general consensus seems to be that they didn't do much to address it this offseason. They still have an issue at right tackle if Jammal Brown can't get over his hip problems. But if LeRibeus does pick up the offense quickly, they might have more options than they did last year in the interior of the line. They could play LeRibeus at center and Will Montgomery at left guard if Kory Lichtensteiger needs more time to recover from his injury. Or they could play LeRibeus at left guard if they like what they see from Montgomery at center. Or they could keep the rookie in a reserve role from which he's able to step in and play center or either guard spot if they lose a starter at one of those positions.

The Redskins apparently targeted LeRibeus because of his versatility (and because of a strong recommendation from Shanahan's buddy June Jones), and have plans for him that might venture beyond the immediately obvious.

Offensive line is where the Washington Redskins' focus needs to be at this point, and with the sixth pick in the fifth round of the draft (No. 141 overall), they just took Iowa guard Adam Gettis, who fits in very nicely with what they look for on the offensive line.

Gettis' issue (i.e., the thing that drops him into the fifth round) is size. He's 6-foot-2 and 293 pounds, and he played at around 280 in 2010 at Iowa before bulking up last year and prior to the combine. But he's extremely quick, fast and athletic, with the kind of nimble feet and sound on-the-move blocking technique the Redskins need for their zone-blocking run scheme.

If Kory Lichtensteiger isn't fully recovered from last year's injury, and if Gettis picks up the offense and its terminology quickly, there's a chance he could emerge as a challenger for a starting guard spot in 2012. If not, he could pick up playing time as the year goes on and certainly beyond this year as a blocker for new quarterback Robert Griffin III. The Redskins' ideal offensive guard would be a guy who's exactly like Gettis but a little bit bigger.

Another week over, another Saturday upon us, another trip into the mailbag to see what's on your mind.

Miguel from San Diego wants to know why everyone assumes the New York Giants would move David Diehl to right tackle to replace Kareem McKenzie rather than move Will Beatty there and keep Diehl on the left side: "I feel like, when Diehl stepped in, he did a better job than Beatty and he's now been protecting Eli Manning's blind side for the past two seasons.[Manning] 's got to feel comfortable with Diehl on the left."

Dan Graziano: Interesting point, Miguel, and it's certainly one possible solution if the Giants don't find a starting-caliber tackle in the draft later this month. But while it's true the Giants' line played better as a unit after the Beatty injury when Diehl moved from guard to tackle, I didn't see much to indicate that Diehl's individual performance at left tackle graded out better than Beatty's had. Diehl played fine, don't get me wrong, but I think a lot of their success had to do with how well Kevin Boothe played at left guard and the way the group came together as a whole. Regardless, the reason they'd likely move Diehl to the right side rather than Beatty is if they still believe Beatty can be their long-term solution at left tackle. Diehl turns 32 in September and isn't the long-term solution anywhere. I personally didn't see much from Beatty to indicate he's a long-term left tackle fix, but it's possible (and reasonable) the Giants might want to see more before making that judgment. Finally, Diehl has always been willing to move around to different positions on the line when needed, and he might respond better to such a move than Beatty, who could view it as a demotion.

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Hamad from Kansas City asks whether it would make sense for the Dallas Cowboys to extend the contract of cornerback Mike Jenkins if he plays LIGHTS OUT this year. (The caps are Hamad's, not mine.)

DG: Yeah, I think Jenkins will be their best cornerback this year if he can stay fully healthy. He played very well in 2011 when he wasn't being affected by his various injuries, and if he can get through 2012 without getting hurt, he'd be a strong candidate for an extension, even with Brandon Carr and Orlando Scandrick already signed long-term. I don't think they have much committed to Scandrick beyond this season.

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Patrick from Elkins, WV wants to know what the Washington Redskins are planning to do about the offensive line. He's concerned about the safety of Washington's rookie quarterback-to-be.

DG: They tried early in free agency on guys like Ben Grubbs and Demetress Bell, but those guys signed elsewhere (and the second one changed his name so other interested teams couldn't find him). Now, it seems as though their free-agency efforts are focused on re-signing guys like London Fletcher and Tim Hightower and continuing to find help for the secondary. This leads me to believe they're planning to look for offensive linemen with their third-round and fourth-round draft picks and hope for quick recoveries and sustained health from Kory Lichtensteiger and Jammal Brown. They really liked the way last year's line was playing before the injuries to Brown, Lichtensteiger and Trent Williams hit around Week 6, and if all of those guys are fully healthy, they could go with the same five. That's a big "if," though, and so I believe they'll work hard on offensive line in the draft and maybe find a late flier on the free-agent market who can help. The Philadelphia Eagles picked up Evan Mathis late last year, and he became a big part of the success their line had. So it's possible.

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P. Quinn of Absaraka, ND wants to know how much of a dropoff Demetress Bell will be from Jason Peters as the Eagles' left tackle.

DG: The first part of the answer is that almost any tackle in the league would be a significant dropoff from Peters, who was the very best there was last year. Peters can take out a defensive end in a second and then get to the second level and attack linebackers to clear room for the running back or help an intermediate receiver get or stay open. He's a perfect fit with Michael Vick, too, since Vick likes to keep plays alive much longer than most quarterbacks do. Bell played in Buffalo, where quarterback Ryan Fitzpatrick gets rid of the ball as quickly as any quarterback in the league. So it's hard to know how he'll do with Vick playing behind him and running around all day to keep plays alive forever. He's athletic enough to handle it, but he'll have to get used to it, and that's something we'll have to watch in the offseason and in training camp. He won't be as good as Peters, because very few are. But he's got the ability to be a solid replacement, assuming he can get up to speed quickly on the differences between the way the Eagles play and block versus the way those things are done in Buffalo.

Part of the fallout from the Philadelphia Eagles' signing of tackle Demetress (nee Demetrius) Bell is that the Washington Redskins, who'd wanted to sign Bell to fortify their offensive line, will not. The Redskins, as Mike Jones points out, have missed on a number of offensive line targets in free agency this year and right now would start the same five offensive linemen they started in Week 1 last year. That's okay from the standpoint that the line played very well in the first four games before injuries set in. But it's less okay from the standpoint of left guard Kory Lichtensteiger trying to recover from two torn knee ligaments and right tackle Jammal Brown dealing with a persistent hip problem.

So, while we know the Redskins' first pick in the draft three weeks from tonight will be a quarterback, and that they don't have a pick in the second round, I don't think it's unfair to suggest that, once they start picking again in Round 3, they start picking offensive linemen.

The aforementioned quarterback -- be he Robert Griffin III or Andrew Luck -- is going to need help. As great as those guys project to be down the road, the Redskins' starting quarterback in 2012 is going to be a rookie, and he's going to need protection. The Redskins' offensive line last year, when fully healthy, played fairly well. It blocked for the running game and did a good job of protecting the passer. But the passer, in those first four games, was a veteran NFL quarterback somewhat used to the speed of the game and the complex looks he was seeing from opposing defenses. The offensive line in front of Griffin or Luck will have to be even better than it was in 2011.

The Redskins know this, and it's why they were looking at upgrades over Lichtensteiger and Brown. They wouldn't mind finding a new center, moving Will Montgomery out to guard and deepening their personnel across the whole line -- maybe even giving Lichtensteiger and Brown a little more time to get whole. Best available offensive lineman, regardless of position, looks like the way for Washington to go in the third round, and maybe even with one of their fourth-round picks as well. The only other area I think they'll specifically target is the secondary, but they actually had some success there in free agency, so it's less of a priority than the line.

Good morning in the East, where spring has sprung early and the roster tinkering is in full swing. What will Wednesday bring? More signings? Another surprise trade? All we know for sure is it starts with links.

Dallas Cowboys

New Cowboys cornerback Brandon Carr said one of the things that convinced him to sign with Dallas was an in-person sales pitch from DeMarcus Ware, Jason Witten, Sean Lee and Miles Austin, all of whom attended the dinner at which the team's brass treated Carr at Cowboys Stadium on his free-agent recruiting visit. The $26.5 million guaranteed surely didn't hurt, either.

Troy Aikman says he thinks Tony Romo is already a better quarterback than he ever was, which surely comes as a surprise to those who wanted the Cowboys to sign Peyton Manning or wish they would trade Romo for Tim Tebow.

New York Giants

Ahmad Bradshaw says his fractured foot has healed completely and that he believes he can handle a workload similar to the one he had in 2010. That would be especially nice if his friend Brandon Jacobs finds work elsewhere, as it appears he will. But I'd still expect the Giants to bring in some veteran running back to help spell Bradshaw just in case.

I'm sick of banging my head against my desk every morning looking for a second Giants link. Nobody who covers or blogs about the Giants is writing anything right now unless the Giants sign someone or one of their guys signs somewhere else. Since that didn't happen Tuesday, there's nothing out there. Go ahead, check for yourselves. I'm open to suggestions. You guys tell me what the second Giants link should be. I can't find it.

Philadelphia Eagles

Jonathan Tamari likes the deal for linebacker DeMeco Ryans. And while Jonathan does bring up a couple of the reasons to wonder how they got him so cheap, the fact is it's an impossible deal to dislike. Ryans was a great player for Houston before his Achilles injury and will be nearly two full years removed from it (and still just 28 years old) when the 2012 season starts. Houston wasn't using him enough to justify what they were paying him, because they were taking him off the field in nickel situations in the sub packages in their new 3-4 defensive scheme. The Eagles saw a guy who was being undervalued by his team but would fill the biggest need on theirs, and they snagged him. Good for them. If it doesn't work out, they lost a fourth-round draft pick. But there's no doubt Ryan is better than anything they had at linebacker in 2011.

Players on the Eagles are excited about the move and players on the Texans are bummed out about it, as Les Bowen writes. That tells you a great deal.

Washington Redskins

Free-agent quarterback Josh Johnson, late of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, will visit the Redskins on Wednesday. When this news broke Tuesday night, people were asking why, and I don't see what the great mystery is. You need to be at least three-deep at quarterback, and Johnson as the No. 3 (or the No. 2, if he can pass Rex Grossman on the depth chart) seems like a heck of a lot better option than paying John Beck $1 million. Why not take a look? Quarterback is a position at which it's important to be as good and as deep as you can possibly be. And remember, as excited as everyone is about Robert Griffin III, he is going to be a rookie. He'll need good backups.

The Redskins also re-signed Kory Lichtensteiger, who was playing very well for them at left guard last year before blowing out his knee in that completely disastrous Week 6 loss to the Eagles in which everyone got hurt and Grossman got benched for Beck. They still need to upgrade at right tackle, and if Lichtensteiger isn't fully healthy they still need to be looking for help on the interior. But they were happy with what Lichtensteiger was giving them before his injury, so he's back.

The Washington Redskins have agreed to a four-year contract with center Will Montgomery, according to Mike Jones of The Washington Post. Montgomery was eligible for free agency, but this deal will keep him from hitting the market with the other free agents on March 13.

Montgomery played well for the Redskins in 2011, and he moved over to left guard for a while to fill in due to injury. But the Redskins believe they can upgrade on the offensive line, and there's no guarantee Montgomery's the starting center again in 2012. If they find a center they like better in free agency or in the draft, there's a chance Montgomery could move to guard or to a utility linemen position from which he backs up several positions. Left guard Kory Lichtensteiger is also a free agent and recovering from injury.

Regardless, Montgomery is a useful piece on the offensive line for the Redskins, and whether it's in his 2011 role or some other, they'll certainly find a way for him to help this coming season.

Morning. Sorry things kind of tailed off yesterday afternoon, but it was 58 degrees here, and let's just say I felt like the clubs you see in the predictions videos needed to be temporarily relocated. Ironic, no, that this is brought up here? In the links?

New York Giants

Ohm's position-by-position review takes a look at wide receivers, which is a group that got a well-deserved "A" on Ohm's report card. He addresses the Mario Manningham free-agency situation and suggests that Ramses Barden would be first in line for the opportunity to replace Manningham should the latter leave.

I found it interesting to read that former Giant Harry Carson has decided not to run for Congress as a Democrat in the district in which I personally reside. It's a shame. I almost certainly would have voted for him. But Harry says he wouldn't be able to do it with the same passion with which he played football, which I guess is a good reason.

Philadelphia Eagles

Geoff Mosher writes that the people who run the Eagles' front office are under more pressure and more scrutiny from fans than they've ever been before as they head off to Indianapolis for the scouting combine.

The Steelers may end up losing wide receiver Mike Wallace due to their salary-cap situation. Wallace is a restricted free agent who'll be tendered, but teams would be able to get him for a first-round pick if they structure their offer sheet correctly. Sheil Kapadia discusses what this means for the DeSean Jackson situation -- namely, that it'd be tougher for the Eagles to trade him with another outstanding deep threat like Wallace on the market.

Dallas Cowboys

Stephen Jones says he views Jay Ratliff as a nose tackle. Not sure whether that means they're scrapping the idea of moving him to end or if Jones is just saying this because that's the way the roster is constructed right now. Jones also says he thinks the Cowboys have plenty of leaders in the locker room and that Ray Lewises don't grow on trees. That'd be one big tree.

Randy Galloway writes that the most important "leadership" development in the Cowboys' locker room would be an improvement in that area by head coach Jason Garrett. Fair point, especially as it works off of Garrett's bungling of the end of the Arizona game and the days that followed. Garrett is, as we've said here many times, a young head coach who's doing this for the first time. Improvement and growing pains are to be expected in many areas. By the way, Garrett's scheduled to address the media Thursday in Indy. Yeah, we'll have something off of that.

Washington Redskins

Redskins offensive lineman Kory Lichtensteiger recalls an NFL team official asking him, "When was the last time you smoked crack?" during a scouting combine interview. It's one of the neat details in Rich Campbell's combine advance.

Dan Steinberg is trying to track everything everyone in the world is saying about Peyton Manning and the Redskins. In this latest entry, we find that Lorenzo Alexander opposes the idea because he doesn't think Manning's neck is healthy enough (fair), that Torry Holt opposes the idea because he thinks Mike Shanahan's offense requires a mobile quarterback who can get out of the pocket (baloney, it worked 10 times better with Rex Grossman than with mobile John Beck in 2011, and Holt's is an unsupported, clichéd claim) and that Clinton Portis loves the idea as long as Manning's healthy. Yeah. That's me, on the same side of the debate as Clinton Portis.

As he looks ahead to the scouting combine, Rich Tandler wonders if the Washington Redskins will be looking for guards. There is work to be done for Washington on the offensive line, and while Jammal Brown remains a question mark (health-wise, if nothing else) at right tackle, most of the focus seems to be on the interior. Per Rich at csnwashington.com:

Will Montgomery started 14 games at center in 2011 (he started the other two at left guard) and while he performed respectably, many believe that the team could do better. The thought is that they could move Kory Lichtensteiger from left guard to his natural position at center and then get a guard in the draft.

That plan is one of those that looks good on paper but may not work in reality. This draft is very thin at the guard position. Even though the Redskins’ zone blocking scheme can utilize players who might not be rated highly by other teams, it might be difficult to pluck an immediate starter at guard in this draft.

The last part of Rich's analysis is interesting. The Redskins are looking for a certain type of offensive lineman, and that could help them play a market that might not be as crowded with suitors looking for the same exact thing for which they're looking. The Eagles are a decent example. Not that they run a zone-blocking scheme, but Howard Mudd looks for specific types of linemen and was able to find a starting center, Jason Kelce, in the sixth round of last year's draft. The Redskins might be able to turn up a late-round gem that helps right away, assuming this is their plan.

But there are more questions than that. Lichtensteiger, for example, was playing very well before his injury, but he is coming off an injury and is an unrestricted free agent. He might be the answer at center, but he also might not be on the team. The sense I got around the Redskins' building when I was there in December was that they were fine with the way Montgomery played, but felt they could do better.

I doubt the Redskins make the interior of their offensive line a draft priority. I bet they have their eye on a free agent or two who they believe fits what they like to do. Chris Chester was a specific target of theirs last year (as was Marshal Yanda, whom they were unable to get), and I'm sure they have a list of free-agent targets ready to go this year. My hunch is that they make the line a priority in free agency, along with No. 1 wide receiver, and spend the early rounds of their draft on secondary players while looking for those zone-blocking specialists in the middle and late rounds. A hunch, like I said.

Over the past few weeks, as the Washington Redskins have lost a significant number of offensive players to injury, I've mentioned a few times that I think the Washington defense is being asked to do too much. Well, you know who else is noticing that? The players on the Washington defense.

Per Dan Steinberg, Redskins cornerback DeAngelo Hall addressed this issue in a radio interview Sunday night. And while Hall didn't say anything nasty or controversial, his comments about the offense indicate that everyone in the locker room is well aware of what the Redskins' problems are:

"It's almost like your little brother. Obviously you can't go beat up an 8-year old. If you're 15 years old, all you can do is keep training your little brother — hey, this is what we need to do, dude will come at you, throw your hands up, duck and weave, bob and weave, throw this punch, keep attacking em — but it ain't much more we can do. We can't, defensively, go out there and play offense.

"They're three-and-out, is it frustrating? Yeah. Do we want them to pick up first downs and score? Absolutely. But at the end of the day, if that's not happening, all I can do is try to be positive and try to say hey guys, let’s go, let's go make a play. They can't make a play, let's go make a play for them. That's just trying to be a leader and trying to stay positive. Everybody could bash dang near everything going on. It's easy to do that. It's harder to try to stay positive and keep guys upbeat."

I think Hall may have set a record for the least inflammatory, most matter-of-fact way in which a defensive player has ever ripped his entire offense. I mean, the facts of the case are that he equated the whole offense to an 8-year-old kid brother and said the words, "They can't make a play." But he did so in a way that acknowledges the issue simply as something the team is going through and dealing with together. He was asked, first of all, which is always important to remember when quoting somebody from an interview like this, and he didn't insult his interrogators by dodging the question or pretending something was true that was not. Anybody who watches a Redskins game these days can see that they have nothing on offense, and what good would it do to claim otherwise?

One of the things I have felt the Redskins had going for them since before the season began was the veteran element in their locker room. Led by London Fletcher, this is a team loaded with guys who will tell it like it is, in public and behind closed doors. There might be other teams on which a defensive player in this same situation would feed you a line -- tell you all about how hard John Beck is trying and how he just needs to have some breaks go his way. But that's not true. Right now, with Santana Moss and Tim Hightower and Chris Cooley and Kory Lichtensteiger all out the Redskins are outmanned on offense. They weren't a great offensive team to begin with, and the injuries have reduced them to one of the worst offenses in the league. That's frustrating for players on both sides of the ball, including those who play on a defense that's still just allowing a very respectable 19.8 points per game, and it doesn't do any good to sugarcoat it.

There are two ways the rest of this year could go for Beck and the current Redskins offense. The first is that they could get better. That the work they do in practice every week starts to pay off, rookies like Roy Helu and Leonard Hankerson start blossoming, the offensive line begins to jell and they start scoring some points again. The second, more likely way it can go is that they play out this season with what they have and spend the next offseason finding their quarterback of the future and the pieces they need to put around him to make him successful. But either way, they have eight games left. They surely plan to play them all and try to win each one, and so their goal is to get better in the short term. The first thing you have to do in order to improve is understand what you're doing wrong. So no matter what else is going on around the Redskins right now, Hall's comments indicate that at least they're not kidding themselves.

The question is whether there's anything they can do about it.

The tipping point of this Washington Redskins' season was clearly the game in which left guard Kory Lichtensteiger suffered his season-ending knee injury and Trent Williams sprained his ankle. Neither has played since, and the Redskins haven't won since, and the injuries on the line that was critical to the team's 3-1 start have crippled the offense. They clearly didn't have enough depth behind their starters to weather those types of injuries, and they're suffering for it.

Brian Burke muses on this on The Washington Post's Redskins Insider blog. Burke points out that, while the Redskins' financial commitment to their offensive line this year is about $20 million (right around the league average), second-year left tackle Trent Williams takes up $10 million of that. As a result, the median salary of the Redskins' offensive linemen is only $600,000, compared to about $1.2 million for the offensive lines of the eight current division leaders:

Williams’s $10 million might be just too many eggs in one basket. He’s a solid player, and is sorely missed at the moment, but I wonder if the team would be better off with two second-round $5 million linemen than one $10 million dollar guy. Offensive lines are somewhat like chains. If one link breaks, there’s probably going to be a sack or a tackle for a loss. It may not matter much how strong the other links are, or if one particular link is exceptionally strong.

One way to illustrate this to think of Barry Bonds and a papaya. The excellent baseball site Fangraphs posted an analysis that Bonds’s 2001 and 2002 seasons were so good, you could literally put a papaya in the lineup to hit behind him, and you'd come out with a replacement-level duo. In other words, you could bat me behind Bonds, and the Giants would have still won more than 70 games each season. But football is a different kind of sport. If you put me at right guard for the Packers this year, they’d almost certainly be 0-7 instead of 7-0. Depth is uniquely important to football, and the Redskins are never going to get very far with $600,000 papayas protecting the quarterback.

An interesting point, and one that makes you wonder about the wisdom of taking a tackle with the fourth pick in the draft, as the Redskins picked Williams in 2010. It also makes you wonder whether the Redskins could be hamstrung as they work to improve in this area going forward. Had their entire five-man starting offensive line played 16 healthy games together this year, Washington may well have been a contender or even a playoff team. But that's simply not realistic to expect, and the dropoff from their starters to the back-of-the-roster guys who had to replace them is too severe for the Redskins to overcome.

Offensive line depth will obviously have to be a target area for the Redskins as they work to improve their offense next offseason. But they also need a quarterback and maybe a wide receiver or two, and those kinds of players are very expensive. You have to wonder if they'll have enough in the budget to beef up the quality of the beef on the bench.

I've been struggling all day trying to figure out what to write about the Washington Redskins that's new or contributes to the furthering of the coverage of what's become of their season. Spent a good portion of my two-hour drive home from Philadelphia thinking about this, to tell you the truth, and what I've come up with is... not much.

The issues that showed up in Sunday's shutout loss to the Bills are not new, nor are they completely surprising. I did pick the Redskins to win the game (er... um... just missed!) because I felt like it was a matchup they could theoretically exploit. The Bills had never won one of the Toronto games, and their defense appeared to be the kind of defense against which the Redskins would work their ball-control, run-first offense. What I underestimated was the extent to which the Redskins are shorthanded on offense and how the injuries -- especially those on the offensive line -- have basically eradicated their ability to run that ball-control, run-first offense against probably any defense in the NFL right now.

When I spoke with Mike Shanahan in training camp, we talked about a lot of things, and during that discussion I asked him to guess which topic was the one on which I got the most Redskins-related questions. "Quarterback," he said without hesitating, and when I told him he was correct he went on to explain that quarterback was basically the least of his concerns on offense. He believed that Rex Grossman and John Beck were each perfectly capable of running his offense as long as the group he assembled around them took care of their business. He was more concerned about making sure the offensive line and the run game and the receivers were as good as they needed to be.

Well, through the first four games, they were. The line was outstanding. The run game fell in line. Tim Hightower was as advertised, if not as a pure runner then surely as an asset in the passing game. Grossman could look shaky, but he was getting the job done, and most importantly, he wasn't being counted on to win games by himself. That was the plan, and it was working.

Then, Kory Lichtensteiger and Trent Williams got injured, forcing a shakeup on the line and exposing the Redskins' lack of depth there. Then, Hightower, Chris Cooley and Santana Moss got injured, depriving the offense of three key blocking assets. And now, with Beck at quarterback, we see what has become of the offense now that the group around the signal-caller is not as strong as it needs to be. Beck couldn't do a thing Sunday, and a large part of the reason for that was because he had no time to do anything. The Redskins aren't blocking anyone right now, even a little bit, and everything works off of that. Get on the defense all you want, but the fact is they're being asked to do way too much. The offense needs to possess and control and move the ball at least a little bit in order for the Redskins to have a chance, and right now it doesn't because it can't.

Can it get better? Sure. Williams eventually will be back, and Moss further down the road. There remains talent in the running back corps that could be deployed if they could get out in front in one of these games. And as is the case whenever change comes to any offensive line, things will get better the longer the new guys play next to each other. I don't see the Redskins losing the rest of their games, as some are suggesting it appears they will. I believe they can improve on offense, if only because this has to be rock bottom right now, doesn't it?

This isn't about Beck or Grossman or what kind of offensive coordinator Kyle Shanahan is. Right now, the problem with the Redskins is that they don't have enough good players on offense. Some of the reason for that is the injuries, and some is the fact that they weren't ultra-deep or ultra-talented on that side of the ball to begin with. They prioritized defense last offseason and I believe they intend to prioritize offense in the next one. But the result of all of this right now is that, as an overall offense, they're just not very good. This is what worried Mike Shanahan far more in training camp than quarterback did, and it appears his concerns were accurately directed.

Some thoughts on the Washington Redskins' dismal 23-0 loss to the Buffalo Bills on Sunday in Toronto:

What it means: Well, the Redskins are in free fall. Since starting the season 3-1, they've now lost three games in a row by a combined score of 76-33. And since the offense looks incapable of doing anything at all at this point, it's tough to imagine things getting better any time soon. Their only hope is that this game -- the first time a Mike Shanahan-coached team has been shut out -- is some sort of bottoming-out point.

Injuries taking their toll: The play of the Redskins' offensive line was critical to their hot start, and the injuries that have deprived them of starting left guard Kory Lichtensteiger and starting left tackle Trent Williams -- not to mention top wide receiver Santana Moss, starting running back Tim Hightower and tight end Chris Cooley -- have rendered their offense more or less incompetent. The Bills had a grand total of four sacks in their first six games, but on Sunday they sacked John Beck nine times. Nine times. That's a number only Ed Rooney, Dean of Students, could love.

Beck is not the answer: Whether it was Beck or Rex Grossman, the key to the Redskins' offense this season was always going to be the group around the quarterback, not the quarterback himself. Beck does some decent things out there, and sometimes he looks like he's freelancing or even goofing off a little. But when you're getting sacked nine times, you're just not going to get very much done.

If they can't run, they're done: Ryan Torain got the start at running back, but once again the Redskins got behind early and weren't able to run their offense the way they wanted to. Remember, this is a team that was leading the NFL in average time of possession through its first four games. On Sunday, the Bills had the ball for nearly 35 minutes. If the Redskins can't establish the run game and chew up the clock, they will not score enough points to win. Against anyone.

For the defense: It gave up 390 total yards, so it's not as though this was a game of which Washington's defense should be proud. But I really don't think the defense is playing all that badly, considering all that's being asked of it. London Fletcher played hurt and had a monster game. Ryan Kerrigan was a force early. And for most of the day, I thought the Redskins actually did a decent job of bottling up Fred Jackson -- at least limiting his ability to beat them with a big play. Eventually, when your defense is on the field for 35 minutes, you're going to give up yards and points, and Jackson did rip off a 43-yard run and a 46-yard catch. But I don't think it's fair to judge this Redskins defense considering how awful the offense is right now.

What's next: The Redskins are back home Sunday to host the San Francisco 49ers, who appear to be on the verge of improving to 6-1 today as they lead the Browns in the fourth quarter. It's not getting any easier for Beck & Co., as the 49ers entered Sunday's action as the second-best scoring defense in the league and the second-best defense in the league against the run.

By now you've seen the news that Washington Redskins running back Tim Hightower is out for the season with a torn ACL and that the Redskins' top wide receiver, Santana Moss, will miss 5-to-7 weeks with a broken hand. These injuries will have impact in a variety of areas, so let's take a look at a couple of them.

The Redskins' running game: This is where I actually expect the Hightower injury to have the least impact. Ryan Torain has been a better runner of the football than Hightower has this year, and the reasons Hightower got his starting job back Sunday once healthy again have less to do with his ability as a runner than they do with things addressed in the next paragraph. Torain can and will carry the load as long as he's healthy. If he does break down, as he has in the past, the Redskins like what rookie Roy Helu brings to the table. In this particular "next man up" scenario, the Redskins have plenty of men for the job.

The Redskins' passing game: The main reason Hightower was the starter ahead of Torain when Torain was running so much better was because Mike Shanahan liked what Hightower brought to the passing game. He's an excellent pass-blocking back and an excellent pass-catching back, and the Redskins' passing game will suffer for his absence. It goes without saying the passing game will suffer for the absence of Moss, who caught 93 passes for 1,115 yards in 2010 and has averaged 74 catches per season as a Redskin. They're deep at receiver, but not with anyone of Moss' experience level.

The Redskins' state of mind: The Redskins' early success was, in part, the result of the strong veteran leadership in their locker room. Moss, who has been a Redskins mainstay since 2005, was a big part of that. This might not be as significant as, say, losing London Fletcher would be to the defense. But if the Redskins' offense has a leader to whom it looks for guidance, Moss is probably it. Add in the fact that they've now lost two straight games after their feel-good 3-1 start and seen Moss, Hightower, tight end Chris Cooley and starting offensive linemen Trent Williams and Kory Lichtensteiger go down with significant injuries the past two weeks. The good early vibes are going to be tough to sustain.

Fantasy football rosters across the land: I mean, I'm not made of stone here. I recognize these are real people in real pain and I wish them both well. But I also play fantasy football. I used to write a weekly column on trading in fantasy football for my previous employer. And I recognize the huge part it plays in the coverage of today's NFL. I recognize that a lot of you clicked on this link with fantasy football in mind. So here's my guess: Torain becomes the starting running back and remains so as long as he's healthy. Given the Redskins' schedule, he's a guy worth having on your team and probably starting. Helu needs to be on fantasy benches in case he gets some run as the starter at some point, which is above-average likely. And if you have really deep rosters, Evan Royster might even be worth stashing. As for receiver, everybody's going to say Jabar Gaffney, but I don't see his numbers (which have been pretty good and consistent this year, actually) changing that much for the Moss injury. I think tight end Fred Davis will continue to function as the No. 1 fantasy receiver on the Redskins.

That's pretty much all I've got on this for now. Your thoughts?

The narrative around the Washington Redskins the past two weeks has been about the quarterback position, because that's the way the narrative always seems to trend in today's NFL. But the reality is that John Beck won't carry this season's Redskins any further than Rex Grossman would have. The most the Redskins can ask of Beck is "just fine" -- to keep it simple, protect the ball and make sure not to get in the way of what they really want to do on offense.

Unfortunately, the more substantial and important parts of the Redskins' narrative are falling apart. Injuries to the offensive line forced big changes in front of the quarterback this week, and while the revamped line held up, injuries are mounting in the running back and wide receiver corps. This is where things get dangerous for the Redskins, no matter who's playing quarterback. If Tim Hightower and Santana Moss and Trent Williams and Kory Lichtensteiger won't be there around him, Beck's chances for success will keep dropping.

The Redskins focused their offseason energies on improving their defense, and their apparent plan is to wait until next offseason to do the same with the offense and maybe find that long-term franchise quarterback they obviously do not currently have. In the meantime, Mike Shanahan and Kyle Shanahan designed an offense that could keep the Redskins in games as long as their improved defense kept the opponent's score down. This offense was based on the running game behind Hightower, Ryan Torain, Roy Helu or some combination thereof. It was based on ball control -- through four games the Redskins were the best time-of-possession team in the league, and they were 3-1 because of that and because the defense was allowing just 15 points per game.

But this season's Redskins were never a team with much margin for error, and a couple of injuries here and there can knock such a team way off course. Once something happens to inhibit these Redskins' ability to dominate the ground game and time of possession, they will find it nearly impossible to win. Once Cam Newton became too much for the defense to handle Sunday, the Redskins were left playing catch-up, and that is not their game. Especially with their starting running back and top wide receiver going down with injuries.

It remains to be seen how long they'll be without Hightower and Moss. They have depth at both positions, and assuming they can play a close game and get out in front against the Bills on Sunday in Toronto, there's no reason to think they can't get to 4-3 with an upset. Beck will have to avoid turnovers, because the Bills thrive on those, but if he's being asked to do much besides that, you can bet the Redskins are already in a hole out of which they cannot climb.

For reasons that had little if anything to do with the identity of the man playing quarterback, the Redskins' offense couldn't get points on the board early in Sunday's game against Carolina. As a result, they had to ask too much of their defense, and Newton eventually took over. That script needs to be changed if the Redskins are to hang in all season in this division -- a goal that remains very much possible because of their schedule and because no one has run away with it. They will need to find ways to get back to what they were doing in the early weeks of this season, when they were running the ball and controlling the game and when no one was overly worried about who was playing quarterback. That's where the Redskins' offense needs and wants to be.

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FALLING

1. Rex Grossman. Look, Washington Redskins coach Mike Shanahan could come out Wednesday and say Grossman's still the starting quarterback. It's clear the Redskins aren't fully comfortable with John Beck, and Grossman does seem to have the support of the locker room. But regardless of what Shanahan decides for this week, that four-interception mess Grossman made against the Eagles on Sunday is a clear sign that he's not going to have an easy time holding onto this job all year. The good news for Grossman is that if he does lose it, that's no guarantee he's lost it for the whole year, either. Things could be about to get ugly for the offense in Washington, which brings us to...

2. The Redskins' offensive line. Season-ending injuries to left guards don't get a lot of national publicity, but the play of Kory Lichtensteiger and the offensive line were perhaps the main reason the Redskins' offense was functioning as effectively as it was through the first four games. They're not loaded with playmakers on offense, so they have to dominate in the trenches as they had been. But with Lichtensteiger now gone, left tackle Trent Williams out for a few weeks with an ankle sprain and tight end Chris Cooley out indefinitely with a broken hand, the Redskins are going to have a hard time with their run-first, ball-control offense.

3. Felix Jones. Hurt again, and now possibly out two to four weeks with his own ankle sprain, Jones and the Cowboys' running game have been major disappointments this season. Coach Jason Garrett deserves blame for his unimaginative play calling when the Cowboys needed to pick up a first down or two to beat the Patriots on Sunday, but the fact is that the Cowboys haven't been able to rely on their run game all year. It'll be interesting to see if Tashard Choice or rookie DeMarco Murray can perform more effectively and reliably than Jones has as he's tried to play through shoulder and now ankle injuries.

RISING

1. LeSean McCoy. You hear fans complain all the time that their team can't run the ball to run out the clock when it has a lead. Well, the Eagles have blown their share of fourth-quarter leads this year, but watching McCoy run Sunday it was hard to imagine how. He may not be the stereotypical big, bruising back that picks up those tough yards through sheer will and physicality, but McCoy is clearly an elite runner who loves to fidget his way through the tiniest spots and fight for extra yards that way. The Eagles' coaching staff should pay close attention to what McCoy gave them in the second half Sunday and learn to rely on it. He just might save their season.

2. Corey Webster. Two absolutely huge interceptions by a guy who was just about the last defensive back standing for the Giants this year. And yeah, he got beat on the Stevie Johnson touchdown, but he made the big plays when he had to, which is what the Giants have been about so far this season. Webster is playing at a very high level, taking on the opposing team's best receiver every week in Terrell Thomas' absence. And while the Giants' defense is keyed around pressuring the quarterback, it has to be nice for them to get a strong, surprising contribution from Webster.

3. Eagles defense? Yeah, still a question mark, but they said they were going to be able to build on some encouraging things they did in the second half of the Buffalo game, and they did. They tightened up their "Wide-9" formation to account for the Redskins' zone blocking run game, and it's encouraging to see that they're willing to adjust and adapt. Now, about those cornerbacks playing so far off receivers ...