Options at LT are bad and worse

Samuels may have played his last snap for '09, perhaps forever

I had just left the house to go on some errands (yes, I do occasionally get out to someplace besides FedEx Field) when I got a text message from ESPN NFL Alerts. It read as follows:

Adam Schefter: Redskins 6-time Pro Bowl T Chris Samuels likely to miss the rest of the season (neck injury)

The likelihood that Samuels would miss the season is not exactly breaking news. A few days after it happened Jason Reid brought up the possibility after doing some digging about the injury. Reid, in fact, was of the opinion that the injury was career threatening. Other reporters have come up with similar conclusions.

I don’t necessarily give more credibility to Schefter than I do to Reid when it comes to the Redskins but this is another confirmation that Samuels is done for the year and possibly longer. Due to the well-chronicled lack of succession planning,

The immediate “solution” to Samuels’ absence from the lineup was D’Anthony Batiste. He might be a decent backup guard but he clearly was in over his head at left tackle.

The “permanent” Plan B, at least for 2009, appears to be Stephon Heyer. And how did he perform at the second-most important position on offense? John Keim breaks it down in his weekly “Studs and Duds” feature. You don’t have to guess which tag Heyer earned after reading this:

He wasn’t completely awful and did make some nice blocks at times. But let’s quit the talk about how good he is on the left side and how he would have been a first- or second-round pick coming out of college had he stayed healthy. Nope. As the game wore on, he allowed more pressure, getting beat too easily to the inside. The Chiefs would run him upfield then cut inside for easy pressure. He also gives away a lot of plays with his stance.

That last comment is frightening. You have to wonder why, if Keim can spot that Heyer is tipping plays why can’t Joe Bugel or Jim Zorn or the extra set of eyes can’t.

But that’s a side issue. The real issue is that the Redskins don’t have an NFL-caliber player at left tackle. To be sure, there was bound to be a dropoff when you lose a six-time Pro Bowl participant. Although Samuels was not elite (the use of the past tense is sad but necessary), he was very, very good. But there is a difference between hitting a speed bump and driving off a cliff. Well-run teams experience the former, the Redskins are going through the latter.

Plan C might be Levi Jones, the recently-signed former Bengal. Relying on him for depth is not as dumb as, say, relying on a player who had not played since 2005 for depth. Acquiring Jones may have been making the best of a (self-inflicted) bad situation. With 10 more weeks to go in the season, don’t be surprised to see him somewhere along the line before it’s all over.

There just isn’t a good solution available in 2009. The best to hope for is that Heyer gets his legs under him and play at a competent level (mediocrity would be an improvement) or that Jones can find the form that earned him a six-year, $40 million extension from the Bengals in 2006.

While you at it, hope for Santa to bring you something good when he comes down the chimney in a few months.

Sometime in the next few days we’ll take a look at what can be done to replace Samuels in the long term.