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My thrice-weekly commentary on the Washington Redskins…

Oh my god, Tony actually wrote a column. Don’t blink or you’ll miss it.

So let’s examine this quarterback situation for a moment, shall we? Ramsey nearly gets his head chopped off early in the second quarter, but even though he was cleared to reenter the game, Gibbs keeps him on the bench in favor of Brunell. Then came Monday’s oh-so-shocking announcement that Brunell would be starting in Dallas next week.

Raise your hand if any of this really surprises you. Didn’t think so. After all, Gibbs has never liked Ramsey from day one. This was evident when Gibbs paid an ungodly amount of money to hire Brunell during the ’04 offseason. This was as plain as could be as Brunell struggled from game to game all last year, and Gibbs stuck with him anyway. This was obvious to my (at the time) two week old son when, during the April draft, Gibbs traded something like ten future draft picks in order to draft Auburn quarterback Jason Campbell. (And let’s be honest here, had Cal’s Aaron Rodgers still been available for our first draft pick, Gibbs would’ve taken him, but I digress.) How is it not a warning sign when you draft your “quarterback of the future” when your “quarterback of the present” is only in his fourth year?

The answer is, because your “quarterback of the present” isn’t the guy you’ve professed up and down and sideways all spring and all summer is your starter. Ramsey to Gibbs is a non-person, an inconsequential name on a roster that he doesn’t quite know what to do with. He won’t cut him (although I don’t know why not), and he doesn’t seem to want to trade him either. So you’re leaving him in limbo, without any prospect of playing this year, and unable to go out and find a team that will let him play.

But what I really don’t get is Gibbs’ love affair with Mark Brunell. The man was a good enough quarterback in his prime, making it to two AFC championship games and at least one Pro Bowl. But the guy is not a Hall of Fame candidate and he never will be. He stunk up the joint last year, and Gibbs kept him in when every man, woman, child, cat and dog in the greater Capital area cried out for him to be benched.

On Monday, Len Pasquarelli wrote on espn.com, “[Gibbs] has never demonstrated any hesitancy about switching starting quarterbacks[.]” That certainly wasn’t true last year when he kept Brunell in for a miserable nine starts, giving us a record to that point of 3-6. Week after week fans endured an anemic offense with Brunell at the helm. It wasn’t like once Ramsey came in we turned into a Super Bowl caliber team, but we did win three of our last seven, certainly not any worse than Brunell’s record.

Yet this year, Ramsey got twenty minutes to prove his worth. Not nine games, like Brunell got; not even nine possessions. And what did he accomplish in those twenty minutes? He threw an interception, lost a fumble and was sacked twice. But he also went 6 for 11, threw for 105 yards and threw a touchdown (which was called back on TE Chris Cooley’s offensive pass interference). Compare this to Brunell’s numbers which were 8 for 14, threw for 70 yards and no touchdowns. He didn’t have any turnovers, but was sacked once. I can’t emphasize one stat enough: Ramsey passed for 105 yards in 20 minutes, and Brunell threw for 70 yards in twice the time.

Yet Brunell gets the starting job next Monday night in Dallas. I’d be pissed if I were in Ramsey’s shoes. There is nothing in the numbers to justify this switch. Coach Gibbs, if you don’t want Ramsey to play, just trade him already. Maybe we can get some of our picks back.

Mommy took me to a new class today where we got to listen to lots of music. There was dancing, singing (okay, Mommy did more singing than I did), and playing with different instruments. It was fun and there were lots of kids a little older than me.

Tony read another of my emails today! This is like two in two weeks. I’m becoming a regular! Here’s the email:

Gibbs on Sports Talk 980 last night kept saying on and on how the 'Skins have two quarterbacks who could win games for them. I knew as he was saying it that he was talking about Brunell and Campbell. Why Gibbs hasn't cut Ramsey since he obviously hates him is completely beyond me.

It was read as an example of a lot of emails they got, expressing the same basic sentiment. More on this particular topic on tomorrow’s SkinsBlog.

This weekend Mommy took me to Grandma Lolo’s house in New Jersey. We went out to dinner (that took a very long time) and went swimming. The weather was really nice and we had lots of fun. I also got to see my Unkie Boo, and met Grandmommy’s friends from Sea Cadets.

Let the quarterback controversy begin!

So Ramsey lasted nary a quarter, and after a particularly nasty headhunter hit, was gone for the rest of the game. In the interests of full disclosure, I’m not a Brunell fan. More importantly, I think it’s extremely difficult for an offense to run plays designed for a righty and then abruptly switch to a lefty quarterback. This was especially evident when Brunell kept rolling to his right.

Still, we managed to eke out a narrow victory. Normally, I’d say you can’t win a game on field goals alone, but this is one matchup where I thought it would be possible, and that’s exactly what happened. The 9-7 win was narrower than even I expected, but it was just enough, and a win is a win at the end of the day.

Elsewhere around the NFL, I hope nobody put money on my picks. But honestly, there were some major upsets that unfolded yesterday, and I doubt even some of the best prognosticators out there got them all right. A few highlights:

Miami over Denver. Shows you just how much difference a coach can make.

San Francisco over St. Louis. If you told me you saw that coming, you’d be lying.

Cincinnati over Cleveland. As previously mentioned, who outside Ohio really cares anyway?

New Orleans over Carolina. Certainly the feel-good story of the day.

Kansas City over New York Jets. Well, six fumbles by your quarterback will do that to a team.

Dallas over San Diego. A last minute nail-biter if there ever was one.

We’ll see tonight how Atlanta does versus Philly, but I still predict an upset by the Falcons.

I’m learning a little more about the iPod nano, and something that doesn’t make me very happy: It will not sync with a FireWire connection. It’s USB only, baby, and that really galls at me.

I currently own three Macs (and a PC), but despite my significant contribution to Apple’s profit fund over the years, I am left with no way to connect an iPod nano to any of my machines via a high-speed connection. Yes, I can transfer at a pathetically slow USB 1.1, but it’s the principle that’s at stake here. Never has Apple’s desire to screw with their loyal consumer base been so blatant.

Because let’s reflect here for a moment. Apple has already announced Intel-based machines in the not-too-distant future. So, we either wait to upgrade our machines once the MacTels come out, or pony up the extra cash now on a USB 2.0 capable Mac. You can guess which path Apple would like us to choose. They’re scared sh*tless that no one will buy a G*-based Mac with the impending arrival of the Intels, so they give us the nano as an incentive to upgrade sooner rather than later. It’s sneaky, and I don’t like it much.

That said, will I buy a nano? Well, I don’t really have the cash at the moment for it to be an issue (buying a house and having a baby in one 12-month span will do that to one’s bank account). But if I could, then yes, I’d still buy a nano — and still wait on upgrading my machine. After all, I envision that I’d use a nano mostly for podcasts and baby photos. But I still fear how long it would take me to upload on my lowly USB 1.1 port. 🙁

Okay, Saturdays, Mondays, and Wednesdays for the next 17 or so weeks (hopefully more) will now be SkinsBlog, devoted to news, analysis, predictions and commentary about the Redskins and other goings on in the NFL. So let’s get to it:

Opening weekend is here! No more meaningless preseason games. It’s time to get down to the nitty gritty. I always love it when you get to open your season at home; a road game for the opener always feels off somehow. The Bears are coming to town, and that gives ‘Skins fans really something to cheer. We couldn’t have a cushier opponent if they were playing a high school team.

That said, the ‘Skins still have the Chicago defense to plow through, and that’s no small obstacle. Brian Urlacher is one of the best linebackers in the biz, and while none of the other members of the Chicago D are quite the household name that he is, they can still prove to be quite a bit of resistence, especially since the Redskins offense, at least in the preseason, was a bit lacking.

Which brings me to the concern of the week: How will Patrick Ramsey perform once the games start counting for something. Admittedly, I didn’t pay all that much attention to the preseason games, but what I did see was less than impressive. Picks and sacks were way too prevalent, and Ramsey once again is being criticized around the local media for waiting far too long to make a decision and actually throw the ball. If he wants to ever succeed in the NFL, he’s going to have to make his own opportunities, because defenses certainly won’t give them to him.

Also, how is he going to adjust to what is practically a whole new receiving corps? Coles is gone, replaced by his former Jets teammate Santana Moss. McCants was axed altogether during the preseason, but added was David Patten, fresh off his third Super Bowl ring with the Patriots. On paper, at least, the receiving squad is the strongest it’s looked in years, but that’s not really saying a whole lot.

The ‘Skins defense promises to have another great season with Gregg Williams at the helm and Lavar Arrington back from his knee injury that kept him out most of last year. Even when defensive players were dropping like flies last season, somehow Williams and his “mad genius” schemes kept the Redskins D the third ranked in the NFL. There is nothing to suggest that the same won’t be true this year, although I’d prefer it if half our starting defense weren’t placed on injured reserved by week 10.

So what do I think tomorrow’s game will hold? Well, with two solid defenses, and a rather pathetic offense from the visiting team, look for a low-scoring defensive grudge match. Redskins 10 – Bears 3

Elsewhere in the NFL:

These are predictions only, with no regard to the spread:

Cincinnati v. Cleveland
Who outside of Ohio really cares? I’ll pick Cleveland just because they’re home.

Denver v. Miami
Denver.

Houston v. Buffalo
Buffalo.

New Orleans v. Carolina
While it would be a nice story if New Orleans wins, they ain’t gonna. Carolina.

NY Jets v. Kansas City
I think I’m going against the grain here. Jets win it, but in a close one.

Seattle v. Jacksonville
Two teams that just bore you to tears. Jacksonville wins, but nobody will be awake to see it.

Tampa Bay v. Minnesota
Quick, name a wide receiver for the Vikings. I can’t either. Tampa Bay.

Arizona v. NY Giants
Every year you just keep hoping that the Kurt Warner who won one Super Bowl and went to another will show up, but he never does. New York wins now that Strahan is back and healthy.

Dallas v. San Diego
The Cinderella team from last year versus the Cinderella team from the year before. San Diego has the momentum on their side; they win.

Green Bay v. Detroit
I really think this is Favre’s last year. His games are really hit or miss these days, but I still will pick them to beat the Lions.

St. Louis v. San Francisco
St. Louis. Next.

Indianapolis v. Baltimore
Old Baltimore versus new Baltimore. Indianapolis wins easily. (P.S. This will be the Colts’ year to make it to the show. As long as they don’t have to go to New England in January.)

Philadelphia v. Atlanta
Oh, this is just too juicy. Have Donovan and T.O. really ended their lovers’ spat? Will Vick literally run circles around the competition? I dunno, and I wish I could watch this one but I’ll be on I-95 during most of the game. My heart (and my head, frankly) says that Atlanta will pull the upset and narrowly beat Philly, avenging their playoff loss from last season.

So there we go, boys and girls, the end of my innagural SkinsBlog. Check back Monday to see what I got right, what I got wrong, and where we go from here.

I’m five months old today!

We had yoga class today and it was a lot of fun.

Weight check: I’m 18 lbs 6 oz.

I’ve only played around with iTunes 5 a little bit, but in that time haven’t seen all that much to get excited about.

The best new feature is the improved search functionality, which is based on Spotlight and lets you specify if you’re searching for an album title, artist name, song name, etc. This is great when you have chaotic libraries like mine and would like to play an album without having to browse through genre, artist (which many times could be compilations so artist is pretty much useless in that case) then album title.

The playlist folders is a natural progression for an Apple application, but I don’t particularly see the usefulness. Yeah, I can now separate out my baby music playlists from my grown up people’s playlists, but this subcategorization doesn’t carry though to the iPod leading to something of a disconnect.

And then there’s the interface. I like the gradiant gray, it’s a nice change from the brushed aluminum (which was getting rather tired-looking). But as others have noticed, this constant change in interface gets confusing after awhile. Pick a style, and stick with it. At least, for awhile. Change is good, but can’t we keep our apps looking somewhat consistent at any given point in time?

My biggest gripe about iTunes 5 (and all previous versions of iTunes, frankly): I keep longing for the ability to create playlists on a local machine using songs that are sitting on a server. I’m not asking to COPY the files, but just to use pointers to the server versions in playlists that I create on the computer I’m sitting at. In fact, I don’t WANT to copy music files from one machine to another! I don’t want to have five copies of the same song, or multiple libraries to have to manage and keep track of all around my house. That’s why I have a music server in the first place!

As it is, you can play songs that are resting in one library on another computer, and if that song is from the iTunes music store, the client computer must be authorized to play it. And you can also play music from playlists on the remote machine. But you can’t create a local playlist using remote music files. Why not? This makes no sense to me. Instead, one must create playlists by physically going to the remote machine (which, since it’s a server, could possibly be headless) or by using ssssllllloooooowwwww and not very reliable VNC. The last alternative is, as I mentioned above, actually copying files from the remote server to the client computer. But I don’t want to do that; it just creates library management headaches.

Apple, if you’re out there, please implement creating local playlists using remote files. I beg you!