Congratulations Washington, put another “Offseason Super Bowl” championship in your invisible trophy rack-you’ve managed to land the biggest free agent coach out there (except for Bill Cowher, but he’s not coaching probably and who wanted him anyway, right?) 

Mike Shanahan and the Meddlesome One have agreed to terms, and now Shanny will be Head Coach and Executive Vice President of Football Operations for the Washington Redskins.  He will also, clearly, be watching  a lot of News Channel Four.  Watch this link and tell me that Lindsay Czarniak won’t be getting a “Lunch with Lindsay” interview with the new HC in the next month.

This comes just days after (officially) firing Jim Zorn and a few weeks since hiring son of a former Redskin Bruce Allen to be Executive Vice President of Football Operations.

Wait.  What?  Oh-they are co-Vice Presidents.  Well I think those of us who have watched “The Office” this season know how well co-managers work out.  Officially, reports are that Shanahan would have the final say on player personnel-but I don’t think that makes Allen in charge of the wait staff or anything.  Final accountability for whether the ’Skins sign overpriced free agents will, therefore, be with Shanahan.

Despite these “sweeping” changes, there is still plenty of reason to doubt that anything is actually different.  Despite the dramatic swing from Zorn to Shanahan, this isn’t the first time in the Dan Snyder era that the ‘Skins have been steered by a well known skipper with clout.  Norv Turner, Marty Schottenheimer and one Mr. Joe Gibbs are all household NFL Head Coaching names that weren’t able to do much, if any, better under Snyder than their lesser known colleagues.  If Snyder, who knows a lot more about business than football, continues to get involved in football operations don’t expect Washington football to be relevant over the next five years.   

Yes, it would seem that Snyder is finally ready to divorce himself from the field-but Washingtonians have heard that song and seen that dance before.  Shanahan’s contract may say he has the final say-but we all know that the man writing the checks always has the final say.  Given that the ‘Skins continue to make money hand over fist despite such terrible outings this past decade, the man writing those checks probably realizes he only needs to appear to be making changes rather than actually making them. 

Still-there is hope.  In Washington there always is (and only seems to be) hope for the football team, but hope nonetheless.  The Number 4 pick overall and a coach that knows what he’s doing are definitely steps in the right direction-and Bill Romanowski seems pumped up in this clip where he’s forecasting a Super Bowl for Washington.

Oh-and if you have a Clinton Portis jersey you may want to put it on Ebay, like, now.  With his spat with Jason Campbell over the last day gaining heat, he’s inability to do anything worthwhile on the field and a guy who already traded him running the team…well…let’s just say Hilary might be the only Clinton working in Washington come Spring.

Tiger has been laying low throughout all of this, isolated from the entire world. However there is somebody that wants Tiger to know he is ready to support him- offering both support and a place to crash.

In a recent video from Redskins tight end Chris Cooley, the football star offers Tiger a place at the Cooley mansion, saying that he could bunk with fellow house guest and backup tight end Todd Yoder. Cooley lists things the two could do which includes putting up Christmas lights, making rap videos, and playing Tiger Woods PGA Tour.

“I knew he could just use a friend who has his back and is there for him- and that friend could be me,” says Cooley in his video invitation.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I4Vx02AMFzs[/youtube]

1. Chris Cooley dyed his hair an extreme shade of blond, perhaps paying homage to Ochocinco.
2. He broken his ankle early in the game and was feared to be out the rest of the season.

Despite the fact Cooley is one of the only bright spots on the disaster that is the Redskins, he’s my fantasy tight end on two of my five fantasy football teams. Good thing that the injury isn’t as bad as it seems, Chris’ brother Tanner reported on The Cooley Zone that Chris will need a few pins but could make, “a speedy recovery.” The post would of been news if Cooley wasn’t scooped by ESPN NFL Insider Adam Schefter who tweeted that Cooley could be back in 4 weeks.

Tanner tweeted a few hours ago that Chris has completed the operation and is all right (and was kind enough to post a photo)- but it doesn’t answer the question Tanner originally asked, “How do you get scooped on your own injury report?”

I am now convinced that Adam Schefter is just that good.

The District unveils its new "Wrong Way" sign....

I kept thinking to myself “I really have to lay of the ‘Skins.  Everything you write about them is just terrible.  I’ll wait until they do something right before I post about them again.”

Well after the Warriors of Washington lost the battle of Little FedEx Horn, I’m not sure that day is going to come. Zorn has been relieved of his calling the play duties, Campbell benched-these things are as close to  “positives” as Washington will see for a while.

At this point, I think this youtube video is about as close as I can get to something to be positive about.  Lionel Richie in the background is very relaxing to be honest.  I grieve for you Washington-I suggest you start getting interested in hockey real quick.

Redskins faithful, your favorite team lost to the Detroit Lions.

I’m sorry-maybe you didn’t hear me.  The DEEEEE.  TRRRROOIT.  LIIIOONNSSSSSS…..

While I do think that Jim Zorn isn’t helping the situation, and any responsible organization would fire him from being head coach tomorrow-let’s keep in mind that this is not a responsible organization.  I think we all know who is to blame for this “bottom of a public toilet” they call a football team here in DC-but since you can’t fire him…well…Zorn is going to go.  The question is just…when.

It’s kind of like throwing out your coffee mug because the coffee tastes bad when your $4.5 million coffee pot is broken-it doesn’t really make sense, but its all you can do.

In any event-Redskins fans, prepare for endless, endless talk about what is wrong with the Redskins from now until they beat an NFC East team via all forms of local media.  My deepest condolences.

Tracking the Media Meltdown

(Note: At 8:31p I don’t see an official story on the WaPo covering the game in my RSS feed.  Sad.)

Sports Bog: Someone’s got to go.

Sports Bog: Worst loss by a DC Sports team in 2009

So the Redskins managed to win a game yesterday, a boring 9-7 affair that was supposed to be a confidence building blow out.  I even started Clinton “Fantasy Killer” Portis in my league this year (over Fred Jackson, btw) because the consensus was “the Skins were going to bounce back hard.” (Note:  I will never ever start Clinton Portis in a fantasy league again.)

Well a 2 point win with no TDs against what is clearly one of the worst teams in the league during your home opener isn’t going to build a lot of confidence in your football program.  Which may be why some fans were booing the Skins yesterday at FedEx field-to which I say good, they deserved it.

Yes, despite the effort by the NFL and its franchises to engender a truly familial feeling between its team and its fans, the brotherly love has been seeping out slowly and surely since Dan Snyder took over the team.  Sunday some paying fans decided to express their feelings about that, and I applaud them for doing so.   Not only has this team underperformed on the field, but there has been well documented mistreatment of the fan base off the field as well.  Any fan, or non-fan really, has the right to voice their displeasure in any way they see fit (See: First Amendment).

Skins fans have seen this dance before, and they’ve been watching it for years now.  Close wins in games that should be blow outs, barely losing games they have no business in all to either not make the playoffs or make the playoffs and then do nothing.  Skins fans know that a team that cannot get into the end-zone against the Rams at home, could very well lose to Detroit on the road.  They weren’t booing a victory, but that they’ve been duped into watching a rerun.  Again.

Now to the responses from the players:  I can appreciate Randle-El’s plea not to boo because the team doesn’t appreciate it.  I think Chris Cooley doesn’t really get it when he says Skins fans should try and be the best fans-my guess is that a lot of fans feel like they aren’t rooting for the best team.  What do they have to cheer for?

The Skins, as players and a franchise, need to realize that although they think they are athletes competing on gridiron of war-they are not going to war.  They are not representing and playing for our best interests in the greater wide world-they are entertainers.  We are entertained by football, and when we are not entertained by football (as when we are not entertained by anything else) we get to voice our displeasure.

Which brings me to Robert Henson, who took it upon himself to lash back at fans of the Skins for booing.  Rather than anyone saying “Yeah we can understand the teams frustration” or “we need to do better,” Mr. Henson decided to tweet that “All you fake half hearted Skins fan can .. I won’t go there but I dislike you very strongly, don’t come to Fed Ex to boo dim wits!!” Well Henson, that might be because Skins fans feel like they are cheering for a bunch of half-hearted Skins players.  Then after explaining to these “dim wits” what real Skins fans do, and how much better he is for earning more money then most people, Henson offered some half heart apology after 90% of twitter handed his moronic statements back to him.  If I was paying some-one’s salary and they weren’t pulling their weight, they’d be lucky if all I did was boo.

Point being, if the Redskins want to avoid being booed, they need to win-and win like a team that is in control of a game.  Score more points, particularly touchdowns, against weak teams (read: DETROIT this week) and then beat a team that is good.  If they want to beat the Giants 9-7, I think the fan base would be okay with that.  They aren’t in that position though.  Washington’s football club has boxed themselves out of “getting the benefit of the doubt” and as such, close wins against horrible teams aren’t going to cut it.  If they want to get back in the good graces of the sports fans here in DC they need to win in Detroit, they need to get in the end-zone more than once and they need to win by 2-3 scores.  Anything short of that and they’ll be lucky to not get booed at the gate against the Bucs the following week.

Don’t even contemplate what happens if they lose to the Lions-which for Skins fans is sadly a very real possibility.

It’s an amazing testament to the NFL’s drawing power that a team like the Redskins still have the following they do.  Since 1997, the ‘Skins have posted just three winning seasons, signed ineffective, aging former superstars to contracts for ungodly amounts of money, sued fans, tried to stop you from walking to the stadium, or at least made you pay for parking even if you didn’t drive, and have supported the nuttiness that is Daniel F. Snyder.

None of which has dissuaded the Redskins faithful.  It is still one of the most profitable sports franchises in the world, potentially racist logo and all, despite the many missteps of the past twelve years. Still they show up, not just paying the overly expensive face value for a ticket, but often paying 2-3 times that through the “secondary” market.  “Oh well” you’re thinking, “If this is what the market demands…”

But maybe it doesn’t.

Unfortunately, it looks like the ticket sales for the ‘Skins aren’t all they are cracked up to be-and it probably cost you a lot of extra dough to boot.  The Post reported today that the people in the Redskins ticket sales office sold lots and lots of tickets to brokers (which, as Deadspin points out, is a fancy way to say “scalper”) directly.  You know, rather than to fans who wanted to go to the game.

So guess what-if you bought a ticket from Stub Hub, or (like I did) Ebay and you paid more than face value for those tickets last year, there is a chance you got hosed.  Not just by the scalper, but by the Redskins as well.  Honestly, of all the anti-consumer, disloyal, unfriendly and just bad things you can do-this takes the cake.  In most states there are laws that prevent the sale of tickets directly to brokers to protect consumers from being over charged for the value of the ticket.  Creating a scarcity of tickets by not making them available directly to fans is abhorrent, and I’m kind of glad I’m not already a fan-because this wold be something that might put me over the edge.  The idea that I could have maybe bought my tickets for a fair price but couldn’t because the team I spend hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars a year on was complicit in this act?  Unconscionable!

The official story is that this was the act of rogue employees who have been “dealt with” (whatever the heck that means!) and that Snyder was shocked and outraged-but I remain skeptical.  Especially since the one broker who spoke with the post said he was offered the lower seats only if he bought more expensive ones as well.  It seems very possible that this was just an easier way to sell tickets, and create a demand around a franchise that, frankly, hasn’t been good for a long time.

Between the ‘Skins’ excuse that it was actually only a small portion of the actual tickets sold, and the “Broker’s” opinion that without him it would be really hard to get tickets I am about to lose the coffee I had for lunch.  This isn’t a case of someone buying a bunch of tickets to lift a TV ban so that folks can see the game-this is a case of the company you support actively ripping you off.

And it won’t matter.  Fans won’t see one dime of that money back, and the organization will continue to think of the next way to squeeze a dollar out them for, at best, a mediocre product.  And DC will just keep showing up.  Maybe the Nationals should triple their ticket prices and sell them exclusively on the secondary market-demand might go up.  Hopefully a team that is performing, like the Caps, will engender this kind of blind loyalty when they fall on bad times and under perform.  There is a lot mediocrity in DC sports, but the ‘Skins seem to be the only ones going out of their way to treat their fans like garbage.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r5WqAFfBC2Q[/youtube]

Let’s say Jason wasn’t happy, however oblivious to whom the culprit is, taking out his frustrations on an unnamed rookie.

Recently he hasn’t posted a lot of stuff that really caught my attention, to the point I was about to remove his RSS feed from my Google Reader.

But then this came along.

“We were cruising around on our new land in Wyoming the other day and we found an old dead cow. So we decided that we would get rid of it by setting it on fire. Needless to say, it was a success.”

That’s all I really gotta say. A cow fire?

I’m not an agricultural type so I’ll let you guys comment on if the act is ok or not, everybody else is already writing about it. Apparently it’s actually not that cruel of an act, the cow was already dead and it stops the spread of disease by burning it before it decomposes. That’s probably why they burned Darth Vader at the end of Return of the Jedi.

If the photos aren’t enough, Chris says he hopes to get a video up soon.

I wonder if Comcast will sponsor that video.

But April showers bring the buds of May-and all the bad news of the past month seems to be shaping up nicely for DC Sports fans-Need proof?  Read on:

The Wizards had just finished a dismal 19-63 season-by far the worst team in the East (only the Kings in the West did worse).  No playoffs for the first time in years.  The $100+ million dollar man, Gilbert Arenas, played in a total of  2 games for 31.5 minutes (At over $14 mil for the year, that’s $7 mil a game, or $465,189 per minute).

And now: “Flip” Saunders heads the team-and he has a pedigree of at least getting out of the first round of the playoffs.   Gilbert Arenas looked, well, not awful in his two games and at least seems to be running around-presumably he will be better for next year.  All that losing seems to have paid off too, with the Wizards having the second most chances of getting the top pick in the draft-and can only finish as low as 5th.  In a class heavy on PGs and low on big guys-picking high is more important than ever this year.  

Skins, Nats and Caps after the jump.

The Redskins looked poised to fall victim to another “Dan Snyder is crazy” fit and trade half the damn city to get Mark Sanchez-only weeks after the Campbell/Cutler SNAFU.  Snyder sated his appetite for wasting money by picking up Mike Williams-a relatively young bust OT who hasn’t played for a few years and is listed at 370, but probably is much closer to four-hundo.   (Aside: As a Bills fan,  we wasted the #4 pick on this “stud” in 2005.  After starting 5 games and then getting cut-well, let’s just say I hope I don’t run into him on the metro as I might not be able to control myself).

And Now:  Dan Snyder was, thankfully, tied up and kept away from the phone.  The best move of the day for the Redskins was made by the Jets-because they traded up to get Sanchez.  The Redskins were then forced to do something competent and picked up a handful of good players including (likely) game changer Brian Orakpo, Kevin Barnes to pick up where Shawn Springs left off-and Cody Glenn who has some upside.  Plus, it’s April-and the Skins are always Super Bowl winners in April.

The Capitals looked like choking dogs-again.  All of DC (yes, even you-don’t front) thought the great 8 and company were due for another early exit and another off-season of having to hear why Sid the Kid and the Pens are better than you.  Down 3-1, I couldn’t tell if the Caps were shaping up to be more like McGrady’s Rockets or DC’s Wizards…

And Now: With a little bit of luck and a little bit of effort the Caps pulled off the improbable rattling off three straight against the Rangers-concluding in last nights HOLY CRAP THAT WAS AWESOME 2-1 victory.    The hated Pens start their series with the hometown heroes this Saturday.

The Nationals…well okay the Nats have it backwards-shocking, I know.  Last week they had just won their first (and so far only) back to back games-and a series against the Braves.

and now they are back to usual form, having dropped every game since then.  They are in serious, serious danger of having only 4 wins for the month of April with no relief (even from their relievers) in sight.   Well at least they figured out that one pitcher, Joel “What Lead?” Hanrahan should no longer be allowed to pitch when we have a lead….that’s something, right? Edit: Spoke to soon! The Nats stole one from the Phils last night and Zimmerman is the club’s streak hit leader at 18 and counting.  A bit more good news!

Still, overall, Washington Sports seem much more secure then they did last week.  Here’s hoping it keeps up for a while.