Washington Redskins Recycle Phillip Daniels

According to David Elfin at the Washington Times, Phillip Daniels is returning to the Washington Redskins.

The 36-year-old defensive end's season ended very early last year as he suffered a knee injury on the very first day of training camp. He returns after an absence of only about a month after his contract was voided in a cost-cutting move in February.

The signing furthers an "old guys rule" movement at defensive end. Renaldo Wynn, who will be 35 by the time the season starts, officially resigned with the team earlier this week.

Daniels was the team's full-time starter at left end for three seasons. In 2007, he recorded 37 tackles and 2.5 sacks.

This is not a bad move given that the Redskins had all of one experienced defensive end on the roster a week ago. Daniels is a solid run stopper, and with Albert Haynesworth collapsing the middle of the line he should be able to get a few mop-up sacks.

The issue with the signings of Daniels and Wynn is that the need to sign them existed. The need is a result of the cycle of futility that I wrote about earlier this month. They had no depth to replace Daniels when he went down last August so they traded for Jason Taylor.

That cost them their second-round pick in this year's draft and a fifth next year. Taylor is gone before the draft pick used to acquire him has been used.

So the Redskins have a need and they don't have the means to come up with a long-term solution to fill that need. That means a short term, stopgap solution is necessary.

And when Daniels and Wynn are gone in a year or two there won't be a solid young player ready to step in and fill those roles in the long term.

And another stopgap will get plugged in. And so it goes.

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