Things that lead me to believe I could be a professional football writer...

[BrudLee]

Found on ESPN.com's site this week:

• X-factor: For a second consecutive week, Washington's regular cycle will be disrupted, since the Redskins play a second straight Saturday contest. Plus, the Redskins will have to make a long flight to the Pacific Northwest, never an easy trip. Seattle won all eight games this season at Qwest Field and the Seahawks are now 24-10 at home since the stadium opened in 2002. The home field, from a scoring standout, has been worth about a touchdown more per game for the Seahawks. Seattle lost its only playoff game at Qwest Field, losing last year to the Rams.

First of all, the cycle will actually be back to normal. After playing on Saturday, the team will have seven days until its next game. Not a short week, not a long week, a week.

Secondly, trips west have nothing on trips east. When the Redskins take the field on Saturday, they'll be playing at 1:30 pm Eastern time - approximately when they played most of their games this year. However, the Seahawks played their game in FedEx at 10:00 am Pacific time, and that's disruptive.

The vaunted Seahawks home field advantage is a little tricky as well. They played 6 of their eight home games against non-playoff teams (Houston, Atlanta, and Dallas being the non-division games), with the two playoff contenders being the Giants and the Colts (who were playing a meaningless game just after their head coach's son had killed himself, which micht be distracting). In contrast, they lost meaningful games away to the Jaguars, and the (bum, bum, BUM!) Redskins while away.

• Rx factor (health): Washington -- Lost starting left defensive end Renaldo Wynn to a broken right forearm on Saturday and his steadiness as an excellent two-way player will be missed. Cornerback Shawn Springs missed the wild-card game with a hamstring strain and might still be gimpy. The Redskins, of course, will be without right guard Randy Thomas, who suffered a broken leg last month.
Seattle -- A pair of cornerbacks, Marcus Trufant (back) and Andre Dyson (ankle), have been slowed by nagging injuries. And linebacker D.D. Lewis (knee) is also less than 100 percent.

"Two-way player"? Renaldo Wynn didn't take any snaps on the offense, so perhaps there's another definition for that phrase that I don't know about. As for the Seahawks, if "slowed by nagging injuries" means "out", then yes, Trufant and Dyson have been slowed by nagging injuries. They both missed the final game of the season.