Alexander’s former Alabama teammate Chris Samuels will now be throwing blocks for him. Samuels lauded the running back as being a great guy on and off the field, so I had to ask him if Alexander took care of his offensive linemen in college the way pro backs do.

“Nah, we were all broke back then,“ Samuels said. “But he’s got some money now.“

Coach Jim Zorn then gave the injury update before the Washington Post’s Dan Steinberg asked him about skinning a coyote once. That story alone was worth the price of admission to Redskins Park.

In more football-related issues, Zorn hopes to teach Shaun Alexander to mold into the style of Clinton Portis as a battering ram style of runner instead of his Seattle days, when he would get shut down if he didn’t find holes. Also, the team is working rookie receiver Malcolm Kelly hard in practice this weeks in the hopes of determining if his knee will be healthy in time for a return this season.

OK, back to important things. Here’s the story, straight from Zorn’s mouth:

“We lived on Lake Washington [in Seattle]. And this was absolutely appalling to my bride of 29 years, but I found some roadkill – I didn’t hunt the coyote. I found roadkill coyote. I put it in a bag, shoved it in my trunk. I thought, ‘A coyote pelt! This is awesome!’ So I didn’t bring it into the house, obviously. I took it outside, and hung it on a tree, right on the waterfront. It was a beautiful waterfront house, and I hung it right in the tree. And I skinned it. And it looked like, I’ll tell you what, it looked like the family dog…but it was actually a coyote. I skinned it out, I put it in a bag, and I sent it to a tannery. So I got the hide tanned and brought it back and I had this really nice coyote pelt. It was on our couch for a long time. Then the kids got to it and started pulling the tail and whatnot. [So you know how to skin a coyote?] Oh, I didn’t know how. I just did it.“

Esteemed Times-Dispatch columnist Paul Woody just weighed in to share with me that he cannot remember Joe Gibbs sharing any stories about skinned animals.

That’s all for me. More blogging fun tomorrow.