RICHMOND—Here is what you need to know on this Tuesday, August 5, two days before the Redskins open the preseason against the Patriots.

Nickel coverage

—The Redskins released their depth chart and Santana Moss was the top punt returner with DeSean Jackson second. If Moss and Jackson combine to return as many as five punts all year it will be a stunning development. I suspect that one of the guys listed third or fourth, Andre Roberts and Richard Crawford respectively, will end up being the main guy.

—Like everyone else we will talk about the depth chart but in reality it doesn’t mean much, according to Jay Gruden. “"Nothing is set in stone right now,” he said. “We just had to do it for the media. So we just put the depth chart out there and we have a pretty good idea who our ones are and our twos are, but there's still plenty of competition at a lot of spots. But this is our starting point right now. Sometimes if it’s close, we put the veteran in front and then we’ll just go from there.” Sounds to me like it’s like a preseason coach’s poll in college football where they’re just sort of filling in the blanks when they get to the bottom 10.

—Yesterday I said that perhaps Keenan Robinson would be able to get in some work against Patriots tight end Rob Gronkowski and get some tips on covering a big tight end, one of the best in the business. However, Gronkowski, who is recovering from a torn ACL, did not make the trip to Richmond. Robinson was disappointed. “It would have been nice to cover him,” he said. “Obviously he’s not the kind of quick and agile tight end as Jordan Reed. But he’s a different monster. He’s the kind of guy who can body you up and use his body position. That would be good for me to go against. We have Logan Paulsen but I think Gronkowski is a little taller than him. He’d be great to go against.”

—Gruden should be getting a nice holiday gift from Andy Dalton. He was the Bengals’ offensive coordinator for all three years that Dalton has been in the NFL. In part because of Gruden, Dalton signed a six-year, $96 million contract extension yesterday. As one might expect, Gruden was happy for his ex-quarterback. ““I’m very happy for him. Much deserved,” he said. “He’s won a lot of games in Cincinnati and the future is very bright for him and the Bengals. I’m very proud of the fact that I was part of bringing him into Cincinnati and I’m glad he got a good deal. He’s got a great family, works hard and is a heck of a person.”

—Bill Belichick’s first job in the NFL was with the Colts, who had just hired Redskins assistant Ted Marchibroda as their head coach. Marchibroda literally brought the Washington playbook with him and he said that his first job was to white out “Washington Redskins” from all of the pages and write in “Baltimore Colts”. Said he caught some flack when he missed a few pages.

If you have any questions about what's going on at training camp, hit me up in the comments. I'll answer all questions as soon as I can get to them. And I'm always on Twitter @Rich_TandlerCSN.

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Timeline

—Today’s schedule: Joint practice with Patriots 1:35; Jay Gruden media availability after practice; Player availability coming off the field; Tom Brady availability TBD

—It’s been 219 days since the Redskins played a game; in 33 days they play the Texans in their 2014 season opener.

—Days until: Preseason opener vs. Bills 13; Final cuts 25; Redskins @ Eagles 47

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