Take cover, T.O.

So I really don't have any delusions of grandeur that the Skins will be anything more than a .500 team this season - I could live with 8-8, as long as the team is consistently entertaining, a feat it never really managed with any consistency while Jurassic Mark Brunell was under center.

The offense has looked as awful as ever in the opening preseason games, but the defense has shown signs of returning to 2004/2005 form, when it was consistently good, and sometimes dominant. And if the offense doesn't entertain, the sight of Sean Taylor and rookie LaRon Landry hammering WRs as they cross the middle of the field will certainly be worth a few rewinds on Tivo over the course of the year. I image TO will simply assume the fetal position if Fatso Wade Phillips asks him to run a crossing pattern against the Skins safeties.

The only "Holy Shit" moment of the Skins preseason so far came on this play, when Landry came flying out of nowhere to take down the helpless Kerry Collins. Watch how fast he gets to the QB:

I'll say it again: Holy Shit.

Oh, and I like the Skins move today to trade for disgruntled Jets OT Pete Kendall, even if he's a BC guy. It shores up what was looking like an enormous hole in the O-line, as Post hack, er, beat writer Jason La Canfora pointed out the other day in his hatchet job on the Skins front office (JLC was particularly unkind to rookie LT Stephon Heyer in the piece, which is particularly unfair since the undrafted Heyer has done a serviceable job filling in for Chris Samuels this preseason). If Samuels is back for the opener, the addition of he and Kendall is a huge upgrade on the O-Line, and means JC might not end up spending 70% of the game with tuchus-on-turf, as it were.
Maybe 9-7 is a possibility, after all.