I was a little confused when I met Army Sergeant Kevin Brown a few weeks back, at an event benefiting the Redskins Charitable Foundation. Brown was having the Redskins players and alumni at the event sign his Redskins-themed prosthetic right leg, but that wasn't what was confusing: what was confusing was that I was sure that I had seen him before, but that he had a DIFFERENT Redskins-themed prosthetic right leg.

Turns out I was correct; Brown was a visitor at training camp back in 2008, and I spoke to him very briefly then. (Dan Steinberg also blogged about him at the time.)

Turns out that Brown is on to his THIRD Redskins-themed prosthetic. "I had one last year that has the Super Bowl rings on it," he said; that's the one that was at training camp last year. "But unfortunately limbs, with heat and change and surgery and stuff... well, things change. So I can't fit that one anymore, and I had to retire it. It has a lot of signatures on it, so it was gonna be put away anyway. This is the new one."

Brown served in Iraq but lost his leg, ironically, in a motorcycle accident AFTER returning home.

Despite the egalitarian nature of the puffy guys behind the customized H2 above, the parking lots of Giants Stadium are enormously, aggressively blue. There are Redskins fans, but they seem to be greatly scattered, just random single fans with big groups of Giants fans.

In my circuit around the parking lot -- which, I'll admit, was somewhat briefer than it would've been if I hadn't been wearing a Redskins polo shirt and Redskins credential -- I spotted only one all-Redskins tailgate, the three Taylor siblings down from Connecticut.

NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell is in Redskins Park today. He addressed the team -- which presumably made it a fairly exciting birthday for Clinton Portis -- and, afterward, taped an appearance for this evening's Redskins Nation, airing on Comcast SportsNet at 6:00 and 10:30, which presumably made a fairly exciting birthday for host Larry Michael as well.

(I was able to meet Commissioner Goodell very briefly, and my impressions are pretty straightforward: very charismatic guy, as you'd expect, with an unbelievably firm handshake. In fact, his handshake teetered just on the border of competitively firm. I found Peter King's description of Adrian Peterson's handshake unspeakably boring, so I will go no further on this subject, but if Goodell goes to Vikings camp and shakes Peterson's hand, I imagine the resulting pressure would create a small black hole into which the state of Minnesota would vanish. Not Brett Favre, though; he'd somehow survive to dominate yet another offseason.)

Anyhow, Michael's interview of Goodell covers much of what you'd expect: the upcoming season, the NFL's Twitter policy, the reports local TV blackouts in more markets this year, and the ongoing labor negotiations.

Oh, and the fact that the commissioner used to be a Redskins fan.

When last we saw Drew and Kim, she was sobbing with joy on the muddy sideline of FedExField back in December. Drew had just proposed, and the Redskins would go on to upset the Philadelphia Eagles. It was, on the whole, a pretty good day.

And apparently the wedding went well, too. "It was July 5th," Kim said.

"I had my groom cake made to look like FedExField," Drew added. "But our wedding coordinator said burgundy and gold were fall wedding colors, though."

"But we couldn't do a fall wedding," Kim said, "because that's football season." The two settled on a football-neutral, seasonally-appropriate light blue and yellow.

They were back in town for the Steelers game last week -- another win -- and the Redskins Rides car show the next day. I ran into them in front of the Virginia Lottery's booth, which led to them explaining that they've added the Redskins Mania ticket to their home-game weekend ritual, which starts with the couple driving up to FedExField from Tennessee.

Now that the roughest grind of training camp has let up, I have a chance to go back and use some stuff that somehow fell through the cracks over the last few weeks. This is one such item.

I don't know much about horses. I vaguely remember one stepping on my foot once at summer camp twenty-five years ago, but other than that, they're big, mostly-inedible animals that run in circles three times a year and sometimes inspire unsettling outpourings of emotion from the general public. (NOTE: Parts of that assessment may not be entirely correct.)

But the people who do like horses tend to like them quite a lot, and they put tremendous thought into every aspect of their horses' lives, from housing to cleaning to naming. So when Amanda Schroeder shouted from behind the ropes at training camp that she had a horse named after Chris Cooley, I was somewhat intrigued.

"I just love [Cooley]," Schroeder told me. "He's my favorite player."

The horse isn't actually named Chris Cooley, but instead goes by the nom de horse of Captain Chaos. "He's living up to his name now," Schroeder said. "He was not like this before I named him Captain Chaos."

This struck me as somewhat unusual. Nowhere on the About.com Guide to Choosing A Horse Name does it suggest "name your horse after your favorite athlete," after all. So I asked Schroeder and the people she was with what other things one might name a horse after. The girl behind Schroeder shrugged. "I named mine after a movie: Blue Steel, like Zoolander."

That didn't make the Captain Chaos moniker seem any less unusual to me, so I did what I always do in these circumstances: I went straight to Fred Smoot.

I used to live in Baltimore, so I know that -- contrary to popular belief -- there's actually a fairly vibrant community of Redskins fans up here. But the only time I would ever see those people was at the Sly Fox Pub, the local unofficial Redskins bar in Federal Hill. You don't see a lot of Redskins fans just walking the streets, especially not on a Ravens gameday when everyone seems to be wearing purple camouflage.

Which is what made Bruce Lee's Chicken WIngs so surprising.

I got to town earlier than I expected today, in time to grab some lunch, so I headed to one of my old favorite guilty pleasures, the teppanyaki joint at Cross Street Market where a big plate of stir-fried noodles is cheap and filling. Cross Street doesn't have the reputation or the vibrant crowded lunacy of Lexington Market, and there weren't all that many people there post-lunch-rush, pre-happy-hour. So I was a little surprised when I was waiting in line for my noodles and someone started yelling my name.

Turned out it was Bruce, the eponymous owner of Bruce Lee's Chicken Wings, and he had recognized me from my appearances on Redskins Nation. He was wearing a Redskins hat and shirt and stirring chicken wings in an enormous wok of boiling oil for a line of customers.

No morning practice today. The players -- those who don't require injury treatment, at least -- are being allowed to sleep in. Breakfast is optional, which probably sounds normal but isn't; most meals are mandatory during training camp, and attendance is strictly monitored. This is the first lull in the training camp regimen, and the building is relatively quiet as a result.

And, of course, there's no open practice today, so there are no fans at the Park, which is a change. There've been plenty of them here the last few days, though, with daily estimates ranging from 1,000 up to 5,000. And one of those fans is facing something of a dilemma.


That arm belongs to Kevin McCarthy, Jr. He signs his emails as "the Biggest Redskin Fan In History on youtube.com." The Gazette chain of Maryland community newspapers calls him borderline obsessed. And Dan Steinberg at the DC Sports Bog calls him Redskins Tattoo Guy.

The reason for Steinberg's choice of nickname are obvious as soon as you meet McCarthy, and doubly so if he's got his shirt off: he's covered in Redskins tattoos. A ring of Lombardi Trophies encircles his bicep; underneath them are the initials and autographs of the Redskins' three Super Bowl MVPs.

It's his back that's his crowning glory, an enormous list of all of the Redskins Hall of Famers, including jersey number, position, name, nickname if applicable, and year inducted. The whole thing looks kind of like a gigantic plaque in burgundy ink covering the whole of McCarthy's back.

But there's a problem.

That's probably the last time the walkway down to the practice fields will be this empty for a while.

Training camp opens today, thankfully putting an end to the completely rumor-driven portion of the offseason and beginning the part where there's an actual on-field component of the talk.

That change hadn't happened yet for the first group of fans who arrived today, seven guys "mostly from McLean." When I asked what they were going to be paying special attention to once practice started, the conversation turned to the competition for the second wide receiver spot.

"Devin Thomas," said one.

"Malcolm Kelly," said another, immediately, and the whole thing degenerated into a lively debate.

"No, dude."

"He doesn't work as hard as Devin Thomas!"

"He's bigger, man!"

"He's better, he's just hurt all the time."

"He's more poetic..."

"He can rhyme."

And so on.

It makes sense that these guys hadn't moved to the next stage of the offseason yet, because they got here well before fans were allowed to begin parking. "They were here when I got here," the guard at the gate told me.

Walking around the parking lot of FedExField for the Draft Day Party, three things very quickly become clear:

1) It is hot out. Like, seriously hot. Like Training-Camp-in-August hot. So, like I said earlier, if you're coming, dress appropriately, wear sunscreen, drink water. Really.

2) People are very enthusiastic. Cars started arriving for the ExtremeSkins tailgate at 5:30 this morning. The draft, you'll remember, isn't until 4:00 this afternoon. So these folks -- who had been grilling and frying and drinking and just generally celebrating for just over SIX HOURS before the gates even officially opened -- are really making the most of that one first-day pick today.

3) With that pick, they would very much like the team to select a defensive player. Preferably Brian Orakpo, out of Texas, as Huly and Blondie from ExtremeSkins are demonstrating in the picture at the top of this post, but someone on the defense. An offensive lineman, if available, runs a close second, but Orakpo is the name that most people are mentioning (and ocasionally mispronouncing).

When I ask what people want the Redskins to do in today's draft, the resulting tumult of overtalking makes it impossible to get everyone's names correct, but here's a sampling of the responses as best I can decipher them from my recording:

Drew Tong and Kim Davison – SkinsFanInTennessee and KnoxSkinsGal, if you know them from ExtremeSkins – are proud first year Redskins season ticket holders. They sit up in the last row of section 415, and they haven't missed a home game this year despite living in Knoxville, Tennessee. (The drive up takes about eight hours, and they make a weekend of it with the rest of the ES crew.)

For Sunday's game, Tong decided to do something special for Davison. He managed to get hold of Dream Seats, down in the corner of the endzone directly next to the Redskins tunnel, and pregame field passes.

"Kim had no idea about the Dream Seats or field passes," he says. "She just thought we were going to our regular seats in the upper deck until we got to the security check and I handed her the dream seat ticket. I just told her Merry Christmas."

This would probably have been enough of a surprise on its own. So when Tong dropped to one knee in that muddy corner of the field and pulled out a ring, Davison was just about speechless.