Photo by BrianMKA.

At long last, it’s time to put the off-field drama of the last two weeks behind us and get back to what the Redskins do best get paid to do. (Or…maybe not.) The Redskins certainly don’t look like a division championship contender, but with the Giants getting pasted by the Cowboys yesterday, a win in tonight’s rematch with the Eagles would put the burgundy and gold just one game behind a team that is hopefully rediscovering their early-season mediocrity. A win for the Eagles tonight would tie them with the Giants for the NFC East lead with a nationally-televised showdown looming between the two teams next week. The stakes are high tonight, and it doesn’t require a huge injection of hyperbole to say that tonight is a turning point in the NFC East title race.

The Redskins beat the Eagles in Week 4 by expertly using play-action to set up two big passes, pounding the ball on the ground, and doing just enough on defense in the fourth quarter to keep the Eagles out of the end zone. Breaking Michael Vick’s ribs, however, proved to be the best defensive strategy the Redskins could employ — backup Kevin Kolb looked lost for a while before turning it on in the fourth quarter. Similar to his overwrought and disastrous game plan against Peyton Manning, defensive coordinator Jim Haslett will be focusing on how to neutralize Vick. The first step will be to run what some are calling the Concave 27. All eleven defenders rush the quarterback, with one group assigned to Vick’s head, one group to the midsection, and one group to the legs. The hope is that one man from each group (or 27 percent of those rushing) will strike the target, leaving Vick’s body at roughly a 60-degree angle. As for a Plan B goes: Haslett’s 2010 body of work shows that he doesn’t really excel at that kind of strategic thinking.