Today Gilbert Arenas could prance through Chinatown wearing nothing but a bandolier and smile, and there would be no one to cover it. For today, every member of the District Sports Media Elite will be at the National Cathedral for the memorial service of George Michael, not the singer.

If you are from D.C. that appositive will not be necessary. But a lot of people move here from other places!

Tony Kornheiser: He will be there. I heard him say it on his radio show. (No radio show from TK today; you'll have to make your own obsessive jokes about Arenas' birthday party.) Joe Gibbs: He will be there too. Maybe he will refrain from any Brit Hume moments, at least this time! Maybe he will try to freeze the pallbearers. These are hard things to know in advance.

Which is why I will go to this service. Maybe while there I will see Dan Steinberg. True story: Last week my son came bounding out of school thrilled because he'd seen a picture of me in the newspaper. He drew from his pocket a carefully folded piece of the Washington Post with Steinberg's woodcut portrait. Baldism: It's never too early to start.

fig. a

fig. b

This has been a great couple of months for D.C. sports news. Shanahan. Agent Zero. The Washington Times massacre. The invention of HDTV. Wise vs. Kornheiser! Campbell vs. Portis! Riggo vs. Snyder! McKenna vs. Cal Ripken's publicist! Washington may have only one team that can win anything, but storylines we got.

Wait just a second... The AMA's...Hmmmm...Isn't that a Dick Clark Productions production?

Why, yes, it is!

And ain't Dick Clark Productions owned by Dan Snyder?

Why, yes, it is!

Well, alrighty then. The world makes sense again...

(AFTER THE JUMP: Jason Campbell's nemesis NEVER started a single playoff game? You can buy a high school football field, but you can't buy a win over DeMatha? Why is everybody talking about concussions now? Mike Sellers is right? Why is the Wall Street Journal talking about the Redskins now? The movement to oust Dan Snyder has not succeeded? So now trucks bashing Dan Snyder will be driving past Dan Snyder's home?)

***

Sonny Jurgensen's still tough on poor Jason Campbell. Earlier this season, during a Redskins radio game broadcast, Jurgensen repeatedly called for Campbell to be benched.

After four games, Jurgensen said the team would be undefeated if the Redskins backup, Todd Collins were in the lineup instead of Campbell.

And the Hall of Famer piled on some more hate in the 3rd quarter of Sunday's game in Dallas when Sam Huff, Jurgensen's former teammate and current partner in the Redskins radio booth, said something nice about Campbell.

"This is the best game I've seen him play!" Huff yelled.

"That's not sayin' a lot," mumbled Sonny.

Awesome Trivia about Jurgensen and Campbell: In his career as a Redskins starting QB, Jurgensen won the EXACT SAME number of playoff games as Campbell has so far.

That would be: Zero.

Awesomer trivia: Jurgensen never even started a playoff game. He made one playoff appearance in his career, as a reliever for starter Billy Kilmer in a 1974 19-10 loss to the Rams. Jurgensen threw three interceptions, including a pick-six on a fourth quarter drive and the Skins down by just a field goal.

That's sayin' a lot.

***

There were rumblings among the local prep football scene that the Good Counsel quarterback's dad bought his son the starting quarterback job. A few weeks ago, in fact, the field at Good Counsel was named Dancel Field after Bernie Dancel, who paid for it.

Along with being a financier and philanthropist, Dancel is the father of Good Counsel QB Zach Dancel.

But now it's tough to say dad's wallet got the son anything that wasn't deserved. Zach Dancel was 10-16 for 186 yards and threw the winning touchdown pass in the fourth quarter as Good Counsel ended DeMatha's long run of WCAC titles with a 14-10 win over the weekend in Annapolis.

It's a huge win for the Good Counsel program. So huge that years from now folks will think Dancel Field was named after Zach, not his dad.

***

Speaking of tough times for DeMatha footballers: DeMatha alum Brian Westbrook sat out his Eagles' game in Chicago last night after getting his second concussion in three weeks. "He's symptom free right now," Chris Collingsworth told the NBC audience last night.

Everybody's talking about concussions lately. I think that's less because everybody's getting concussions than it is that every news organization stole a story idea from the New Yorker's Malcolm Gladwell, who did his concussion story last month.

The Washington Post sports page did its big concussion story on Sunday. (Has Kids Post done the concussion story yet? If not, what's up with that?)

But all the talk about concussions got NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell to say that players should alert doctors if a teammate looks brain damaged. That gave Mike Sellers, for whom image is everything, the chance to act tough:

"We ain't no snitches over here," Sellers told AP.

Sellers should work more on holding onto a football than foisting that tough-guy act on everybody, but his point is pretty hard to argue with: With all the conflicts of interest at work, a system that depends on players policing players has no chance of working. 'Course, the NFL knows that.

Like Sellers, Goodell's just worried about his image.

***

Another story everybody's done: The Wall Street Journal has just now gotten around to its Redskins-Are-In-Trouble-With-Fans story. This one's gets some small things wrong: The WSJ writer says that under Joe Gibbs the Redskins won "two Super Bowls," while it was really three, and that at RFK during the glory days "the upper decks at RFK Stadium inside the District literally swayed from side-to-side," when the famous movement inside the structure was the lower decks that hopped up and down.

But, as usual, the Journal nails the big picture: "[W]hat this season has exposed, more than anything," the story goes, "is that the team held a special place in the hearts of fans here—one that was once intense and affectionate—and that this bond is badly fractured."

And now I see everybody's already written about the Wall Street Journal story. Get back to typing up Kornheiser/Wise quotes, Steinberg!)

***

Somebody should probably buzz the Wall Street's Journal news desk and let them know how much momentum the once profound anti-Dan Snyder movement has lost lately. It's either the win against Denver,  or a lot of protesters decided, say, reducing global warming was a better cause than needling a lousy football owner.

In any case, the effort to raise enough money to buy Metro ads urging Dan Snyder to unload the Redskins flopped. Despite scads of local media coverage, that effort, spelled out on the web site sellourteamdannyboy.com, netted just $1,421, or a little more than 17 percent of the amount required to actually get on the buses.

Organizer Charles Tomasch isn't giving up the fight just yet. He says he has offered everybody who donated to the cause the chance to get their money back, or to put the funds into another project.

Now, Tomasch is trying to rally the troops to pay for mobile signs.

From his web site:

James Goulden of DC Mobile Ads happens to be a lifelong Redskins fan who is onboard with the cause. He has given us a special price of five 8 hour sessions plus sign production for $1200. This would allow us to still give $160 to MDA.

What’s even better is that he will drive the sign wherever we like. This can include:

1. Danny Boy Snyder’s house
2. Vinny Cerrato’s house
3. Around Fedex Field during a Redskins game.
4. Verizon Center during Caps and Wizards games.

It would be fun to see what happens if the sign truck starts cruising around Snyder's Potomac neighborhood or his stadium on game days.

***

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And he won. But it took eight years before Stewart was told by the courts he could carry his sign into the stadium here.

Times and venues have changed. It's unclear if Rockin' Rollen's case will help victims of the Redskins latest purge. Will somebody who had their poster taken please sue Dan Snyder so we can find out?

***

Also, for the eating-disorder-looking print edition, I squeezed BeerInTheBathroomsGate™ for a few more drops. Completists will want this umpteenth revisitation upon the same story so they can see the only appearance of "oral-fecal" in a sentence. Kind of like getting the repackaged Elvis Costello's Greatest Hits every three years, just for the remixed-again version of "Mystery Dance."

***

David Alperin checks in with some more Dan Snyder weirdness.

Alperin was the first guy to tell me that Snyder changed the sign policy at FedExField. Before the Tampa Bay game, stadium guards confiscated a sign he made saying "Love the Redskins, Hate the Owner."

(AFTER THE JUMP: Fake cheering at FedEx? You're going to use "Douchewellian" again? AND the trademark sign? El Al disputes charges that its security is as Douchewellian as Dan Snyder's? You're going to promote the Great Dan Steinberg again? GEICO signs good, Snyder Sucks signs bad? Why would anybody go to Snyder's "Night of the Quarterbacks"? Brett Haber plays the feud with his former boss?)

Before making the sign, Alperin had checked on Redskins.com, Snyder's own site, to make sure that it was within the rules to bring it to the game. It was. When Alperin told the confiscators he had looked at the team's own rule book, the guards told Alperin that the rules had been changed "last night" and took his sign anyway.

Alperin now says that while attending the Eagles game he noticed that Snyder's message control efforts go way beyond that latter-day book burning.

"The crowd noise after DeSean Jackson scored and for the remainder of the game was fake," Alperin reports. "It was pumped in over the speakers to create the illusion of excited fans.  I looked around and the majority of the crowd looked like someone just killed their puppy.  There was no energy.  The only cheering I did was to boo Campbell, Snyder & Cerrato."

When will the Douchewellian™ tactics cease?

(Alperin, by the way, says he will not be renewing his season tickets after this season.)

***

The other day Cheap Seats Daily mentioned how a friend was given a total body frisk by a guard looking for anti-Snyder signs at the gate before the Eagles game, and threw in a line that the security checks were tougher to get into FedExField than to "board an El Al flight."

That prompted the following response from Ron Glickman, account manager for El Al Israel Airlines Ltd:

"Enjoyed reading your comments about the security checks at FedExField, but I must assure you, the checks that one would go through for an El Al flight are a lot less hands on as your article suggests. All of our checks are first to screen the passengers and provide them with a sterile environment as they check in and on the aircraft. If anyone is ever searched, it is always a last resort and we rarely do a body search. In fact, I don’t think that we have done any in the past year in the entire United States."

Glickman then plugged El Al's "code share flights" with American Airlines from DC to Tel Aviv.

***

The Great Dan Steinberg, who has chronicled the Prague Spring of Redskins Nation like nobody's business, had another golden nugget yesterday: The Skins gave away Geico signs at the gate of the Redskins/Eagles game, while confiscating and destroying all other signs.

I guess this means David "Yeah, That's the Ticket!" Donovan, the Redskins chief operating officer and neo-Karl Swanson, was caught lying again? Donovan's been on a spree all week — saying Philly fans weren't in FedExField, that only a few posters were confiscated at the Monday game, that Redskins fans aren't acting any different this season, etc. And during his own personal WhopperFest, Donovan has also asserted that the Redskins have a policy against all signs, for safety reasons.

Now come tales of Monday's Geico banner giveaway by the team Donovan chiefly operates. To find out that what Donovan has been saying wasn't true is just, well, business as usual.

Nobody ever heard of Donovan until the Washington Post's ticket scandal investigation broke, when he came out to say the team doesn't really sell to scalpers and doesn't really sue its season ticket holders — both big, bad fibs.

And ever since that coming out party he's kept up a pace for fibbery that's just awe-inspiring. I can't ever remember a public figure being caught in so many lies in such a short period of time. If untruthiness were an Olympic sport, well, Donovan'd be on a podium and they'd be playing our anthem. Sorry, Gov. Sanford, you'll have to settle for the silver medal. (For a different take on the guy, the commenter on the fan message board Hogs Haven says he was once a neighbor of Donovan's, and remembers him being "of good character." Then the ex-neighbor adds, Donovan "knows who signs his paycheck.")

(I had heard Geico commercials on Snyder's sportstalk station, WTEM, in the days leading up to the Eagles game saying that the "first 10,000 fans" to show up at FedEx would get a "free gift" from Geico. But they never mentioned what the gift was. Now we know why.)

***

Another victim of the Skins crisis: Snyder is running commercials for the Redskins party he's throwing next Tuesday, dubbed "Night of Quarterbacks" and featuring speeches from Sonny Jurgensen, Joe Theismann and Jason Campbell, at a pace that seems desperate.

Pretty much every break on his radio sportstalker, WTEM, includes another spot for the party. So every 10 minutes or so, you hear: "Space is limited!"

Tickets are $106.50. On the invitation, suggested dress is "casual business attire." I wonder if Snyder will admit couples who show up wearing "Dumb" and "Dumber" shirts.

Actually, I wonder if anybody will show up.

***

But, there are some winners in the Skins soap opera: Rich Tandler tells me his RealRedskins blog has never been more popular.

"They say that Redskins TV ratings are down and that team merchandise sales are down," Tandler says. "But the hits are booming at my website. I’m on pace for a 30% + increase in unique visitors to RealRedskins.com for October compared to September. Page views already are up 30% and there are five days to go in the month."

Why?

"It seems that giving fans a place to vent is good for business," Tandler says.

Now Brett Haber, who used to work for Dan Snyder, wants a piece of that. Haber is now touting a message board to bash the Redskins owner. It's been accepting viewer harangues since yesterday afternoon.

Haber recently found out that his former boss at the Redskins Broadcast Network has banned him and Channel 9 and allegedly everybody with a camera from interviewing patrons in FedExField's official parking lot. Haber's peeved at Snyder. Snyder learned how to control the media while putting WUSA news employees on the payroll to run his infomercials and preseason game telecasts, a situation that the CBS affiliate always concealed. Just as WRC now tries to deny that its news employees, even the ones wearing licensed Redskins shirts on the air and carrying "Redskins Broadcast Network" microphones, are working for Snyder.

***

(Full disclosure: I freelance music reviews for the Washington Post.)

Story tips? Wanna Play the Feud? Tube amps for sale? Send to: cheapseats@washingtoncitypaper.com

The Redskins stink. Like, really stink. Jason Campbell  stinks. Dan Snyder stinks. Oh my, does Dan Snyder stink.

Chris Cooley doesn't stink. But his different sort of attention-deficit disorder, which has in the past led him to show the world his naughty bits and film himself burning cows, is maddening.

Last night his look-at-me!-look-at-me!-ADD caused Cooley to blonde his hair and leave his helmet off while the TV cameras rolled.

Then Cooley's ankle rolled and he's likely gone for 2009. Cooley had been quieter for a couple weeks, seemingly aware that it ain't cool to be cute when his team was a national punchline. But then this. So the last image of Cooley this season will be him being carted off the field with his head glowing from all that bleach, looking sad and ridiculous all at once.

(AFTER THE JUMP: Dan Snyder's jack-booted thugs were out AGAIN? It's harder to get into a Skins game than an El Al jet? ESPN protects Dan Snyder? Snyder's lonely? ESPN rejects Campbell? PG County lets the Redskins walk for BeerInTheBathroomsGate™? Two free toppings? Have I died and gone to PapaJohn's?)

Dan Snyder's attempt to kill the message was in full force. I didn't go to the game, so everything's anecdotal, but there's so much.

Tales of scuffles with security over signs and t-shirts blasting the owner abound. The only first-person account I got was from a friend who called me from FedExField just after being searched at the gate like he was boarding an El Al flight.

He asked the frisker, "Are you looking for anti-Snyder paraphernalia?"

"As a matter of fact, I am," the guard told him.

***

ESPN seemed to be protecting Dan Snyder throughout the telecast. The commentators, particularly Ron Jaworksi, wanted to blame all the team's ills on Jason Campbell.

The one shot I saw on TV of Snyder in the owner's box, he was standing at the back, not in his normal seat up front. He looked frightened and smaller than I'd ever seen him, and even more lost than duty-free Jim Zorn down on the sidelines. Snyder's box looked pretty empty in that shot.

Someday, people will feel sorry for him.

Someday.

***

Though it now belongs to the world, I can't let go of BeerInTheBathroomsGate™.

Yesterday I spoke with Norma Lindsay, the chief liquor inspector for Prince George's County, about the photo and video evidence that Dan Snyder's beer vendors had been setting up shop in the men's rooms at FedExField for at least a year.

Lindsay said she hadn't heard of the bathroom sales until last week, after Cheap Seats Daily linked a youtube video that had been, you know, leaked by a disgusted fan. (If you haven't watched yet, it's a must-see film with all sorts of fab moments, from the surprised tones of a urinator catching on to what's going on — "Beer in the bathroom!" he says — to the requests for pot.)

But once the story broke, her office was flooded with calls from sickened citizens.

“Our phones were ringing off the hook last week,” Lindsay says. "Everybody — us, the [P.G. County] health department, everybody — got involved. That sort of conduct is absolutely against code, because it's a health issue. There's every sort of health inspector in the world at that stadium for Redskins games, but nobody had ever heard of that or witnessed it before. I can't even imagine who would would want to buy a beer in the bathroom. That was frightening.”

Lindsay says her agency didn't level any sanctions against the Redskins for the bathroom beer sales, and adds that the team cooperated with the county officials who inquired. "They assured us they had fired the man in the video," she says.

From now on, she says, PG's health and liquor inspectors will add public restrooms to their rounds of spots to check out when looking for bad liquor distribution.

“Nobody ever thought of looking in the men's room for beer sales," Lindsay says.

Cheap Seats Daily, flushing out the bad guys, one at a time...

More to come...

***

Let's end with a shred of good news: Today, for the first time following a home game all season, you can get free pepperoni AND free extra cheese on your Redskins special PapaJohn's Pizza.

To paraphrase Warren Zevon: Enjoy every slice.

***

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***

All day yesterday, Dan Snyder's radio station, WTEM-AM, was pushing an event called "ESPN-980 Night of Quarterbacks: Three Quarterbacks. Three Generations." That's a dinner produced by Snyder's sportstalker that is, at least for now, scheduled for Nov. 3 at Union Jack's in Ballston. The featured guests, according to the radio and web advertisements, are Sonny Jurgensen, Joe Theismann, and Jason Campbell.

Quite a haters triangle there, eh?

(AFTER THE JUMP: How many people showed up at FedEx yesterday? The waiting list guy's now estimating Redskins crowds? Vinny Cerrato looks like Balloon Boy's dad? Even Barno bails on the Redskins? Jim Zorn mines for a silver lining?A lot more about Led Zeppelin at the Capital Centre?)

Let's review: When Theismann came to the Redskins in 1974, he cockily announced he would win the starting quarterback job here and “put the old men on the bench.” The "old men" Theismann referenced were Jurgensen and Head Coach George Allen's pet, Billy Kilmer. Theismann's attitude turned rivals—Jurgensen and Kilmer—into best buddies, united in hating the kid.

Jurgensen, for his part, has apparently not gotten over his disdain: Last season, during Redskins radio broadcasts, Jurgensen repeatedly referred to ol' No. 7 as "Theese-man." Lore has it that when he was in college at Notre Dame, Theismann changed the pronunciation of his name from “theese-man” to “thyze-man” for one big reason: It rhymed with "Heisman," as in Heisman Trophy. (Almost worked: Theismann finished behind Stanford’s Jim Plunkett in the 1970 Heisman voting. Lore also has it that Theismann blamed his loss of the big prize on voters’ sympathy for Plunkett, whose parents were blind.)

Then we have Campbell. Jurgensen has made it clear during game broadcasts this season that he wants Campbell on the bench. And out of the booth, Jurgensen declared last week that the Redskins would be 4-0 if Campbell were sitting and backup Todd Collins was allowed to play. Well, Jurgensen got his wish yesterday, with Campbell benched for Collins as the second half of the Kansas City Chiefs debacle started. Campbell's reaction? He stopped talking to the press, and left the locker room without making any statements about what transpired.

So, heading into can now be billed as the Night of the Former Quarterbacks, the questions are: Will Jurgensen call him "Theese-man"? Will Theismann call No. 9 a geezer? Will Campbell pull the no-talkee act when he hits the podium?

Tickets are $106.50. "Space is limited!" Sure it is.

(I once paid $9.50 to hear Led Zeppelin*. I won't be paying $106.50 to hear this.)

***

Skins fans who've only known the disasters at FedExField always say they wonder what it was like going to a game at RFK Stadium. Yesterday's game had one thing in common with the good ol' days: The crowd looked to be about 55,000.

The announced attendance was 79,572. Please.

This from the folks with the 200,000 people on the waiting list.

***

Watch this video, as Balloon Boy spills the beans on his family, and tell me Balloon Daddy doesn't look like Vinny Cerrato. I dare you!

***

Highlight of yesterday's locker-room interview between Snyder's main broadcaster, Larry Michael, and head coach Jim Zorn:

Michael: How down is this football team?

Zorn: The silver lining is we're playing pretty good defense...

Geez. Just walk away, JZ.

***

The end of the Washington Redskins season came at 4:05 p.m. EST. That's when BARNO1, the last man standing in the Skins corner on local blogs, posted the following message on the Great Dan Steinberg's D.C. Sports Bog:

I want to apologize to everyone on the WaPo blogs for my insanely optimistic predictions for the 2009 Redskins. I could not have been any more wrong. I will be taking some time off from the blogs except to continue to apologize and occasionally respond to comments that are addressed to me.I still love the Redskins with all my heart, but needless to say I'm not okay right now.Take care.

For weeks, Barno1 has been the lone holdout against the Skins and/or Snyder bashing that has taken over the Sports Bog. Him giving up on the team is like Pete Rose giving up on parimutuel wagering.

***

* I just found out a bootleg exists of the Led Zeppelin show I attended, on May 28, 1977. I was a little dirtball heavily under the influence of gin and orange Kool Aid—the Falls Church Margarita—so I don't remember much other than the dance Robert Plant and Jimmy Page did across the stage during the opening number, "The Song Remains the Same," the lasers and Jimmy Page's bow, which make me chuckle now but left me all goosebumpy back then, during the intro to "Whole Lotta Love," and Robert Plant announcing that John Bonham's drum solo during "Moby Dick" was 35 minutes long. That last one can't be true. Must have been the Falls Church Margarita talkin'. But I want to test my memory, so I'm gonna buy the bootleg, using some of the money I'll save from not paying $106.50 to hear Jason Campbell at SportsTalk 980 Night of Quarterbacks.

***

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But, it's only preseason, the team won, he's only in the second year of Jim Zorn's offense, he's had several offensive coordinators in his career, he...ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ...what? where? Oh, sorry...I nodded off going over all the defenses of Campbell.

1-7 stinks. But it ain't that surprising.

***

Speaking of same ol': George Michael's gone, but his legacy lives on at WRC.

Michael worked for Dan Snyder but never told his viewers that. Now, we have Lindsay Czarniak, the station's co-lead sportscaster since Michael's departure, wearing licensed Redskins products on the air while working for Snyder's broadcasting department. And we have her partner Dan Hellie co-hosting "The Jim Zorn Show" with Larry Weisman, a Dan Snyder staffer who writes press releases disguised as news stories for the team. Just as the Redskins web site teases Czarniak's work on preseason games, the team teases Hellie's work on "The Jim Zorn Show."

Snyder owns both broadcasts.

Hellie and Czarniak, despite the infomercial work and how silly it makes the WRC news operation look, are still allowed to report on the Redskins for WRC's news shows.

That's the way the station's boss wants it.

AFTER THE JUMP: Still whining about WRC reporters being BFF's with Dan Snyder? Will Tom Sherwood give speeches for the mayor? Snyder creates Trickle-Down-Gouge-enomics? Beckham can't score in DC? Dunn and Zimmerman are copycat sluggers?

Michael Jack, president and general manager of WRC-TV/NBC4, said so in a press release from the Redskins Park in February that announced that Channel 4's journalists were now beholden to Snyder, and would work on the FIVE (!) weekly Snyder-produced Redskins infomercials the station will broadcast: “We think the NBC brand and our No. 1 rated newscasts, combined with the Redskins brand, will be the perfect fit as we look to produce year-round programming,” said Jack, who probably learned a lot about the profitability of selling out to the Redskins from Michael before canning the sportscasting legend last year.

In the same release, Janice Schmidt, a Redskins senior vice president,  gushed that the team was "pleased to expand our relationship" with WRC, and how great it was to see "the No. 1 television station and the No. 1 sports team in Washington joining forces."

Why stop with just selling out to the Redskins, Mr. Jack? Why not have Tom Sherwood give speeches for Mayor Fenty? And get Pat Collins to go gang-banging for MS-13!

Is Jim Vance OK with all this crap?

I'll stop typing these conflict-of-interest rants just as soon as I get my invitation to the WRC news department's Redskins salon! I know it's coming!

***

The FanZone, a private parking lot near FedExField did gangbuster business.

The FanZone positioned itself as the anti-Snyder Parking Lot. It was marketed by WJFK, Dan Snyder's competition in the sportstalk radio realm, with longer hours, no tailgating restrictions — and a discounted price.

"While some tailgating has been toned down" read the pitch, "we’re taking it to the next level! We're opening early and staying open late."

A season pass cost $300, or $50 cheaper than Snyder's cheapest parking pass.

There's no mention of FedExField or the Redskins anywhere in the solicitation.

The FanZone passes sold out for the season in no time flat.

Nobody in their right brain would pay $300 for parking in middle-of-nowhere PG County before Dan Snyder bought property there. Now, all because of Snyder, $300 is a bargain!

Forget supply-side or demand-side! Snyder's the leader of the Gouge-Side School of Economics.

***

More than 22,000 came to RFK to see David Beckham and his Los Angeles Galaxy mates not score against DC United on Saturday. Remember when Beckham sold out the stadium and had Craigslist all atwitter with scalping offers? Seems like only yesterday.

There are few things sadder in the sports page than the box score of a 0-0 match. The Washington Post's Steven Goff reports that United was without Coach Tom Soehn because of a suspected case of swine flu. It's the new sports hernia.

***

Texas Monthly has an incredible feature on Texas Tech football coach Mike Leach. What a guy. There's no local connection to this story, 'cept I went to school there, and Leach is the first Techster the national media has cared about since longtime DC resident John Hinckley. But even if you've never been to Lubbock, you'll love Leach and the story, or I'll refund the time and money you spent reading it.

***

The Nats only got 26,307 for Friday night's loss to Milwaukee, despite the Lerners flooding the market with $1 tickets. I figured a much bigger crowd woulda showed on the day the team introduced The Future. The weather must have mussed everything up.

Then only 19,000 and change showed up for Saturday night's loss, despite all the goodwill from the Strasburg signing and even though it was Frank Howard Bobblehead Night.

On Sunday, the Nationals ended the long post-signing losing streak and avoided yet another sweep.

Ever notice that whenever Adam Dunn hits a homer, Ryan Zimmerman does, too? It's spooky.

***

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If you can avoid the folks on commission who are trying to sell you club seats and get you on the bogus season ticket Waiting List, it's a fine event.

Even if you don't get caught up in the Sanchez vs. Campbell debate, you can marvel at the marketing monster that is the NFL as you're standing among several thousand average-looking people each wearing an average of several hundred dollars worth of licensed Redskins apparel, watching nothing take place on Dan Snyder's, um, not-so-JumboTrons.

Believe it or not, there are worse ways to spend a Saturday.

In other not-really-news, visitors overwhelmed the District this weekend, in every possible way, crowding and closing off the streets, jamming the Mall for just-past-peak cherry blossoms, checking out and participating in parades, and so on. It was enough to make me feel anxious for a sweltering, humid weekend deep in August when the Mall looks and feels like the Sahara.

One of my weekend obsessions these days is what Andy Alexander, the Washington Post's ombudsman, is saying about things at the city's long-dominant daily. This week he's writing about how the paper doesn't do a good job of disclosing its ethical and reportorial standards, as other prominent papers do.

OK, so disclosing them to the public is one thing–good point, ombo.

But then he takes it one step further: "A separate question is whether The Post adheres to the policies in place. In my first two months as ombudsman, I've found a disturbing lack of attention to the standards and ethics rules."

Alexander then goes on to talk about how "a surprising number of staffers told me it's been years since they reviewed them." So the lack of attention to the standards doesn't mean that Alexander has found actual violations of the standards, just that people aren't, like, having in-house seminars about them.

That seems like a non-issue. If you want to talk about the standards and rules, can't we come up with some sort of wrongdoing first?

Unreal: The Washington Times sent someone overseas to cover President Obama. We are talking original WashTimes content here!

WaPo has the scoop on tourism season here in D.C.: It's up! Actually, it's down. Well, maybe in-between, or something like that. You try to figure it out.

An amazing bit of insight from a WaPo subhed on the fate of the national economy: First quarter ended on an upswing, but it is not certain that the worst of the crisis has passed. Now that's taking a stance!

All this news about Jay Cutler possibly joining the Redskins is killing me. I've generally ignored the rumors in favor of March Madness and the impossible hope that Skins management have learned its lessons about paying too much for either mediocre players (Archuleta) or over-the-hill stars (Bruce Smith, Jason Taylor, Prime Time). But now I can't look away. The underachieving Skins appear poised to get the not-quite-great Cutler from the underachieving Broncos. I feel bad for Jason Campbell.

Campbell is still a young quarterback with a promising arm. He has yet to really take hold of the team. He doesn't win games in the last seconds. He fumbles. He tosses interceptions. He makes 4th Quarters incredibly frustrating. But I still think he's the best quarterback the team has had in a long time (not saying much, I know).

Today, Wilbon lays out the Cutler vs. Campbell debate perfectly:

"You know that phrase, popularized by Bill Parcells: "You are what your record is." Well, Cutler is 17-20 as a starter in Denver. He never led his team to the playoffs. Closer to home, which the Redskins have little interest in, Jason Campbell is 16-20 with no starts in the playoffs either.

So the difference is what, exactly?...

There isn't a bit of difference between Cutler and Campbell, except the Redskins never really want what they already have. They'd rather give Ryan Clark to the Steelers and watch him contribute to a championship team so they can steal washed up Adam Archuleta from the Rams for a bunch of draft picks."

Can someone please explain to me why the Redskins are going after Cutler?

Nearly all the ads, as far as I can tell, are for sales of pairs or groups of tickets to this Sunday's Skins/Eagles game.

Steve Czaban, the voice of the fan on Dan Snyder's sports station, WTEM, called on fans to kickstart a "Give Your Tickets to an Eagles Fan" movement for the game to protest the ineptitude of Redskins management.

The Skins have no realistic shot at the postseason after the loss to Cincinnati.

As if the meaninglessness of the game for the Redskins, Snyder's beer and parking costs, and advances in TV technology didn't provide enough incentive to follow Czaban's lead and stay home, weather.com predicts rain and a high of 40 degrees on game day.

The only reason to show up would be to see if or how many fans boo Clinton Portis, Santana Moss, Jason Campbell and Jim Zorn.

Come to think of it, that might be enough to get me out there.