When the Redskins traded cornerback Doug Dutch to the Ravens for current #2 quarterback John Beck, it seemed likely that we had seen the last of the D.C. native (and Gonzaga grad) as well as his impressive cheering section. But Dutch never caught on in Baltimore, and — as the Redskins find themselves thin in the defensive backfield following injuries to Carlos Rogers and every safety on the team — Dutch was signed to the practice squad yesterday. The cheering section hasn’t returned yet, but I’m sure they’ll be here if Dutch is still on the roster when training camp rolls around.

(This signing also means that John Beck was acquired for absolutely nothing. Coincidentally, that’s the same thing he’s done on the field this season. But the coaching staff seems to be pretty high on him, so I suppose you could now officially chalk up the John Beck trade as an umitigated win for the Redskins. The way this season’s gone, I’ll take whatever wins I can find.)

Dutch wasn’t the only signing, though, and he probably wasn’t the most significant either — cornerback Reggie Jones was signed from the Saints practice squad straight to the Redskins active roster.

Jones came to the Saints as an undrafted free agent last year and was impressing in training camp before suffering an Achilles injury that landed him on injured reserve. But the Saints kept him around through the offseason and had him on their practice squad this entire year, so clearly they saw something in him.

He may have an opportunity here in D.C. As noted above, Rogers is injured and sat out practice yesterday. Kareem Moore has gone on injured reserve, where he joins fellow safeties LaRon Landry and Chris Horton. This has forced cornerback Kevin Barnes to see some action — and a bit of success — at safety, but it means there’s certainly a chance for a hungry defensive back to make an impression in the final week of the season.

Anyone who’s starred in a YouTube video entitled “Reggie Jones and his hair” deserves every chance he can get, as far as I’m concerned.

The third signing — and second to the practice squad — is another intriguing end-of-season prospect, a defensive lineman named Vince Oghobaase (pronounced oh-guh-BAH-see). Oghobaase was most recently with the UFL Hartford Colonials, but the 6-5, 305 pound Duke grad was projected to have much more impressive NFL success until injuries his senior year of college dropped his stock. Here’s a scouting report from just before the 2010 Draft that tells the story:

It is not every day that the Duke Blue Devils have a legitimate first day draft pick on their hands, at least in football. Vince Oghobaase probably could have declared for the NFL draft last year and been a first or second round selection. As a freshman in 2006, Oghobaase started all 12 games for Duke and earned a variety of All-Freshman accolades. Heading into the 2009 campaign, he has not missed a start since. However, a foot injury did keep him out of the lineup for a couple of early games in the 2009 campaign and have made his numbers five games into the 2009 season slightly disappointing.

And that’s followed by this update:

Duke had some success in the middle of the 2009 campaign, but lost their last four games with bowl eligibility on the line. Part of the problem was Oghobaase’s inconsistency following his injury. At times he was dominating and did tally 7.5 tackles-for-loss and 2.5 sacks on the year in just eight games, but his overall lack of production has dropped his draft stock. Oghobaase is still at least a second round talent, but he needs to prove that he can stay consistent during Senior Week.

Oghobaase seems exceedingly unlikely to contribute this year (as he’s on the practice squad with one game remaining), but I think he represents an interesting possibility as a young 3-4 defensive end heading into the 2011 season. The highlights below — he’s the guy wearing #3 — seem to be pulled from his injury-plagued senior year, but there’s enough there to intrigue, I think.

I’ve been involved in some Secret Santa gift exchanges before and made out pretty well, I think. An orange-shaped lump of chocolate one time, an Amazon gift certificate another. Solid workplace gifts.

The Redskins defensive backs their Secret Santa on a slightly different level. (“Nah, nah,” LaRon Landry said. “No secrets, just a gift exchange. We drew names.” Whatever.)

Reed Doughty was sitting in front of his locker today, already changed after practice into his usual everyday-guy jeans-T-shirt-sweatshirt-sneakers combo, a Gucci bag sitting incongruously next to him. “Should’ve put your name into the defensive back secret santa pool,” he explained. “Fred Smoot had me, so I got my first pair of Gucci shoes.”

I asked if Gucci shoes weren’t a little steep for the usual twenty-bucks-max Secret Santa. “Yeah, I can be a little frugal at times, so when I found out that Fred was giving me these, I was, like, whoa.” But Doughty found out in time to adjust his gift for Doug Dutch.

“My man Reed got me a BluRay disc player, two discs,” Dutch said. “I got LaRon something, but he wants me to wait until Christmas. He’s a traditionalist. I asked if he wanted his gift, and he said” — in a stunned voice — “‘Nah, nah, nah, tomorrow, man.’”

Smoot was walking out of the locker room carrying — you guessed it — a Gucci shoebox. “Carlos [Rogers] got it for me,” Smoot said. “I knew it’d be something like this. That’s his style.”

But not Doughty’s style?

“Well,” Smoot explained, “you know, we was gettin’ people gifts and I wanted to get Reed something that was out of his character, but smooth. So, you know, Reed’s not a flashy guy, but I made him a little flashier.”

And, according to Smoot, it’s working already. “I think it is. Reed’s a good-lookin’ guy.”

Justin Tryon had wound up in a gift loop with Lendy Holmes, so the two settled on some sort of roughly even exchange, but he hadn’t missed what the gift of the season was. “All Gucci bags, for everybody,” Tryon said. “Them DBs, man, they give great gifts.”

Smoot agreed, although he put it slightly differently. “It’s just DBs,” he said. “DBs, we take care of each other.”

(Landry might not have received his gift yet, but with all the talk of Gucci, he did give me a quick informal update on the monkey of the same name: he’s awesome, he’s grown bigger, he can jump, he’s demanding, and he’ll be at Redskins Park for a visit before the end of the season. I’ll keep you posted.)

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That’s a group of about fourteen boisterous, loving people, including Dutch’s mother, father, cousins, high school friends and acquaitances, and — for all I know — everyone else he’s ever met. They’re set up along sidelines hoping to see Dutch — who grew up hating the Cowboys, according to Dan Steinberg — get a chance to do something in the scrimmage.

And they’re wearing custom shirts, too. On one side, they read “Homegrown Redskin,” and on the other, this:

He’s in the right city for the “Yes You Can” quote, I suppose. So if you’re looking for a longshot to root for, here are fourteen or so people who would suggest the guy who grew up idolizing Champ Bailey and is now wearing Bailey’s old Redskins 24 on his jersey.

Last year, the defensive backs had a bit of a rough time holding on to interceptions and, well, it certainly seemed like everyone noticed. Carlos Rogers definitely got the worst of it (see here, here and here for examples), but when DeAngelo Hall signed midseason and immediately picked off Tony Romo, it was definitely a change from what we’d been seeing.

The old joke is that if they could catch, they’d be playing at wide receiver, but … the defense only had 13 picks last year, and that’s exactly the sort of big play they’re hoping to see more of in 2009. So every time a cornerback drops a ball in drills, he has to drop and give ten push-ups.

“You drop a ball, you do push-ups,” Fred Smoot said. “Point-blank, that’s where we going out there.” But this wasn’t just one of those things where Smoot was joking around about it after the fact — it’s also his idea. “I’m the oldest guy in the secondary,” he explained. “I just feel like we dropped too many chances last year — if we just pick off the ball we had chances to pick off, we’d've been top in the NFL. So now we gonna keep it going, and hopefully we’ll hold on to all these balls.”
Byron Westbrook was walking with safety Kareem Moore, so I asked if the safeties had to do this as well. Westbrook shook his head. “Nah, we’re different,” he said. “We gotta make sure we catch the ball, and they can’t catch anyway.”

Moore made a dismissive snorting noise. “Man, my hands are probably better than some of them cornerbacks,” he said, walking off.

Westbrook didn’t have to do any push-ups, though. “I got the best hands of the DBs,” he told me. “I’ve got some great hands. But everybody should be able to catch the ball.”

Doug Dutch — whose father was in the crowd with everyone else and asked me why I hadn’t talked about his son yet — had to do ten, but didn’t have a problem with it. “It gets you to focus on the ball more, and it gets you nice and strong,” he said, before claiming that he too had the best hands of the DBs.

Rogers — before you ask — does not suddenly have arms like guns from all the push-ups. He did not pass out from all the push-ups. In fact, he only had to do ten, and even disputed his one drop. “It was a bad ball in one hand, but they still made me do ten.”

“It’s just concentration when it gets there,” he continue. He was asked what would be different this season, and he paused. “What’s gonna be different? Concentration.” Everyone laughed, but he was serious. “Make sure I got it instead of thinking about running and everything else.”

(I also asked about Westbrook and Dutch’s claims that they had the best hands. “Brook’s up there, but you gotta do it in the game. The people that’ve gotten it done in the game … that’s been D Hall.”)

Kevin Barnes was one of the big losers for the day’s competition, with 30 push-ups. “It wasn’t just me,” he was quick to point out, “I think me and [Justin] Tryon had the same amount.”

“It’s a good idea — it’s all about being accountable,” he said.

The most surprising person doing push-ups was defensive backs coach Jerry Gray. I asked Smoot what that was all about, and he shrugged. “That’s because he threw a bad ball. When you throw a bad ball, you gotta do push-ups too.”

Photo by Ned Dishman