FanHouse JeromeMcDougle

Because the NFL season never ends, we present our 2009 Offseason Roadmaps for front offices to navigate through the summer.

The New York Giants were an afterthought in 2007, but made their way to a Super Bowl title. In 2008, the Giants found a way to earn home-field advantage in the NFC playoffs, only to last one game. Their playoff loss to Philadelphia was certainly disappointing, but the fact that they earned the top seed after the drama they went through was impressive in itself. Now, it's time for the Giants to re-tool, reload, and get back to the Super Bowl.

Every Thursday, the FanHouse takes a look at the line play in one game for our weekly Between The Lines feature.

If you like upsets you had plenty to choose from this week. Between the Rams-Redskins, Cardinals-Cowboys and Browns-Giants, there were plenty of reminders of why suicide pools are so tough to win.

Among those upsets, the Browns-Giants may not have ranked as the biggest surprise, but it did bring up the question--where had this Browns team been during the first five weeks of the season?

In rewatching the Browns-Giants game, one thing was clear. If the Browns' offensive line plays like this the rest of the year and if Browns offensive coordinator Rob Chudzinski keeps calling plays like he did on Monday night, they should be able to shut down the game's best pass rushes.

Every Tuesday with Between The Lines, I'll pick out some aspect of line play to try to focus on the part of the game that often gets overlooked by television announcers. To begin this year's series, I looked at the Giants defensive line, as the Super Bowl champs try to recover from the loss of Michael Strahan (retirement) and Osi Umenyiora (injury). As we all know, the Giants shut down the Redskins in the season opener last Thursday, but how did the rebuilt defensive line do? Read below to find out.

Overview

Last year the Giants rode a dominating defensive line to a Super Bowl title, but 23 of those sacks are now gone thanks to the losses of Strahan and Umenyiora. The biggest concern is not only how the loss of those two defensive ends will affect the pass rush, but also whether it will take away Justin Tuck's biggest asset--his ability to play defensive tackle as well as defensive end, creating mismatches all across the line.

In the opener, the Giants still moved Tuck around. He lined up at defensive tackle for nine snaps and stood up as a linebacker for two third down plays. Tuck didn't get a lot of pressure from the defensive tackle spot in this game, but most of his action at DT came in the final drive of the game, when the Giants were just finishing off the Redskins.

Alrighty, people, it's go time.

The 2008 season kicks off tonight and the Washington Redskins are hoping to score more points before John McCain's speech than the previous two weeks combined. The New York Giants just signed Plaxico Burress to a shiny, new deal, and Jerome McDougle will be reprising the role of Osi Umenyiora. Oh, and in case you missed it: John Madden still can't quit Brett Favre.

Okay, we're gonna live-blog like it's 1999 -- Ocho Cinco for everybody!

NFL teams spent most of yesterday reducing their respective rosters to 53 players. There were plenty of surprising names looking for work by the close of business, and today, these same teams are scrambling to sign the newly out of work to fill various needs up and down the depth chart.

Exhibit A: Enrico wrote that the Eagles had decided to part ways with 2003 first-round pick Jerome McDougle, who suffered through various injuries (including getting shot in '05 during an attempted robbery) and only managed three sacks in five years.

Less than 24 hours later, McDougle is gainfully employed, thanks to Michael Strahan opting to stay retired after Osi Umenyiora was lost for the season with a knee injury. That's right, McDougle's a Giant.

According to their official website, the Eagles have parted ways with former first round draft pick Jerome McDougle. After a great career at Miami, McDougle was selected 15th overall by the Eagles in 2003 and in his disappointing career with the Birds he notched just three sacks.

Jerome never had the hype surrounding him like the infamous Mike Mamula but three career sacks from the 15th overall selection isn't exactly Andy Reid's shinning moment. To be fair to Jerome, he battled through being shot in 2005 during an attempted robbery and made tremendous strides this preseason.

Look for McDougle to show up on another team's roster in the next few days.

Other notable cuts included RB Ryan Moats and TE Kris Wilson. The surprise name who has impressed this preseason to find himself a roster spot is LB Joe Mays. His special teams play will be vital to the Eagles attempt to remake their special teams programs.

We all knew Donovan McNabb wouldn't play in Baltimore due to the turf down there being questionable. It proved to be dangerous as Ryan Moats will be out for the season after fracturing his foot. As a fan, you hate to see a player on the bubble of making a team go down with an injury. Jerome McDougle is also out for the 2007 campaign as well with a tricep injury.

Moats and McDougle are two of the more disappointing selections made by Andy Reid and the Eagles over the past few seasons. McDougle is especially irksome due to the fact that he was the 15th overall pick in the 2003 draft. That is the kind of player you want to anchor your defense, not barely ever see the field in his entire career. Granted McDougle had the whole getting shot thing that didn't help his situation.

But back to the encouraging news. McNabb said he will play on Friday at the Linc and is looking forward to it. The Eagles leader on the other side of the ball, Brian Dawkins, said he will practice today.

As an aside, Jerome McDougle actually ranks pretty high on the 75 worst Eagles of all time.