FanHouse Renaldo Wynn

Phillip Daniels missed the entire 2008 season with a knee injury -- one he suffered on the first day of training camp. Hopefully he'll have a bit better fortune for 2009, because he's expecting to sign a league minimum one-year contract with the Redskins sometime in the next few days.

Daniels, who has 59 career sacks, is 36 years old, but claims he's completely healthy and in great shape. If there's one glaring weakness on the 'Skins defense, it's pressure from the outside. A healthy Daniels would be a start, but he's never been a dynamic pass rusher (9 sacks in one season is his career high).

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 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.

Anyone who watched the Super Bowl would think the New York Giants are the last team that needs another defensive end.

But the Giants have added another, signing free agent Renaldo Wynn -- perhaps as an insurance policy in case Michael Strahan retires.

Wynn, who will turn 34 before the season starts, spent the 2007 season as a backup for the Saints and finished the year with 3.5 sacks. Before that he spent five seasons with the Redskins, and before that five with the Jaguars, playing for then-Jaguars, now-Giants coach Tom Coughlin.

Unlike the Giants' other defensive ends, Wynn is known more for stopping the run than for rushing the passer, so he'll likely be used mostly in short-yardage situations. Wynn will serve as a backup to Osi Umenyiora, Justin Tuck and -- maybe -- Strahan.

Now that the glass half full looks more like it's half empty, let's take a more realistic snapshot of what the Redskins are working with. It's easy to let the 0-2 record get us down, but last year's team, which was less talented (on paper at least) was 5-6 before making a run for the playoffs.

So what's going on this year? Are we really that bad? Is there any hope left for a run for the Lombardi Trophy?

All week I've been hearing and reading stuff about the upcoming Redskins-Cowboys game about how the Redskins secondary looked so bad against Minnesota that they should make Bledsoe look good again. The theory is that second-year CB Carlos Rogers won't be able to maintain T.O., let alone Kenny Wright or Mike Rumph.

Looking back at the Vikings game, Gregg Williams did not employ a lot of blitz packages. Brad Johnson was pretty much given a break because of the injuries suffered on our defensive side of the ball. With Pierson Prioleau going down early in the game and Shawn Springs still nursing his injury, that left zero depth in the secondary. If you blitz Rogers and Taylor, you have recently acquired Mike Rumph covering one-on-one with only Adam Archuleta covering the top. Not a good idea. The backup safeties are Vernon Fox and Reed Doughty, neither of whom has proven anything yet.

With Gregg Williams holding back on bringing the heat we're used to seeing, that left the pressure up to an injured Cornelius Griffin, Phillip Daniels and Renaldo Wynn. And where in the world is Andre Carter? Going against Steve Hutchinson, Matt Birk and Bryant McKinnie, you HAVE to bring some heat.

Here's hoping to a plan C . Backup DE Renaldo Wynn was injured in the New England Patriots game, saying he was horse-collared, making his status for Thursday's preseason finale against the Baltimore Ravens in doubt. Add that to the injuries to Cornelius Griffin and Phillip Daniels and the defensive line is averaging one lost player per game.

That leaves at DE first year Redskin Andre Carter, solid backups Demetric Evans and Nic Clemon, and your pick between Karon Riley and Joe Sykes until Phillip Daniels returns. At DT, until Cornelius Griffin is back, there's starter Joe Salave'a, solid backup Cedric Killings, still-learning backup Ryan Boschetti and the four rookies, Anthony Montgomery, Kedric Golston, Chris Mineo and Vaka Manupuna.

Wynn sprained his right ankle in the preseason game and says it's a day at a time. The Redskins are first waiting for the inflammation to go down and treat the ankle as much as possible to prepare Wynn for the regular season. Luckily, there wasn't any diagnosis of weeks of missing action, so he may be returning around the same time as Phillips, Griffin and Springs (a little later).