Nick Cole Switches Sides
With Todd Herremans set to return to his starting role at left guard, Nick Cole will switch to the right side, Cole confirmed Friday afternoon.
Nick Cole Switches Sides
Les Bowen, Daily News Staff Writer
With Todd Herremans set to return to his starting role at left guard, Nick Cole will switch to the right side, Cole 
confirmed Friday afternoon.
Cole started the first five games of the season for Herremans, who underwent foot surgery Aug. 28. Lately, Max Jean-Gilles has been starting on the right side, with free agent signee Stacy Andrews apparently not completely recovered from offseason ACL surgery. Jean-Gilles had a fairly miserable day last Sunday at Oakland, when the Birds gave up six sacks, much of that pressure coming up the middle.
"I just have to change my sets up a little bit. It's cool," Cole said following Friday's practice for Monday night's visit to the Washington Redskins.
Cole started at right guard last season for the final five regular season games and all three postseason contests.
Earlier, offensive coordinator Marty Mornhinweg said his unit has "a lot of things to get accomplished" to be better Monday night against a Redskins defense that he feels is better than the one that held the Birds without a touchdown last Sunday at Oakland.
Mornhinweg said Herremans feels he can play the whole game, but Mornhinweg cautioned that the Birds have "some pretty good nicks," elsewhere along the line, including a knee injury that hasn't kept Cole from practicing. Left tackle Jason Peters is practicing with knee and ankle sprains suffered last week.
"There are several things that could happen there" if Peters is limited, Mornhinweg said, including Herremans sliding over to tackle.
Defensive coordinator Sean McDermott said this being the first game with Redskins offensive consultant Sherman Lewis calling plays is "a different challenge, an added dimension." Mornhinweg and head coach Andy Reid have worked with Lewis before, and McDermott said he had talked to them about what to expect. Presumably, there's a limit to how much of Washington's offense Lewis can change in a week.
McDermott reiterated that new middle linebacker Will Witherspoon will start and call the signals. He acknowledged he didn't know if that had ever been done, less than a week after joining a team, in midseason. McDermott said he saw Witherspoon as a "three down" linebacker, but he also said Jeremiah Trotter's role would not change.
That will be something to keep any eye on -- the previous plan had been to play Trotter on "running downs," but when Oakland turned a "running down" into an 86-yard touchdown-passing down to tight end Zach Miller, covered by Trotter, the former Pro Bowler seemed to pretty much disappear from everything but the shortest of short-yardage situations, until Omar Gaither suffered a Lisfranc sprain late in the game.
Wiff, DM actually played BETTER than KK with that same patched up line against TB [better team than the KFC Chefs that KK faced], when LT went out against Oakland and Dunlop came in it allowed Seymore to run wild. I still remember seeing Dunlop on his hands and knees, head handing and exhausted as Seymore ran past him to sack DM. If KK had been in there he'd have been killed. I doubt the Eagles would have scored at all if KK had played and he was probably thankful he was #3 QB that day and safe on the bench. If you can't watch a football game and see that the D was in an all out rush all day because they had no fear of the running game and the O line was Winston Justice redux than there is no helping you. You are indeed a joke and hopeless. How'd Eli make out against that Saints rush? Or are you now going to say it was the Giants O line that was to blame which would be typical of your circular reasoning and wiffocritical comedy act. Time to get behind your QB wiff. Your words remember? Hahahahahaha. Wiffocrite...my man. hahahaha— tpizza
As I look over the whole team in all three phases, I see a noticible lack of true toughness. Most of the guys can "pose" tough, but few of them play tough. Look at the truly tough people we are missing this year: 1)Jon Runyan 2) Tra Thomas 3)Brian Dawkins and MOST importantly, 4)Mr. Jim Johnson. One of the reasons Trot was brought back was to put a little stiffness in their collective spines. About the only guys with true grit on the D are the two (EXCELLENT, by the way) Tackles, and Sheldon brown. With perhaps Quinten Mickell thrown in ....and that is IT! That's why we are getting gouged, and that is why I now look at this team as being not much better than 9-7. Leaving TC I had them winning 12 and being the top wild-card. That ship has sailed, along with what was left of their toughness.— TBear
