But now it's all clear: Bowlen set Snyder up!

Turns out Bowlen was still paying off Shanahan's huge coaching contract. The only way he could get out of writing more big checks to Shanny was to get some other NFL team to hire the guy he'd just fired. Kind of like alimony payments, where you keep paying until somebody marries your ex-wife.

So, as soon as Shanahan signs the deal with Snyder that will be announced later today at Redskins Park, Bowlen's off the hook for a big chunk of his ex's nut.

From the Denver Post:

Bowlen will be relieved of roughly $7 million in expenses today when the Washington Redskins announce Mike Shanahan as their new coach. Shanahan, who was the Broncos' head coach from 1995 until he was fired after the 2008 season, completed a five-year deal Tuesday evening with the Redskins, according to two sources familiar with the negotiations.

Shanahan will receive approximately the same average guaranteed salary — $7 million a season — he had during his final contract with the Broncos. He still had three years remaining on his deal when he was fired nearly a year ago.

The Broncos will still owe Shanahan approximately $3.5 million per year in 2010 and 2011 to essentially have him coach the Redskins. Then again, Bowlen will save roughly $3.5 million each of the next two years now that their former coach is no longer unemployed.

Bottom line: Bowlen hoodwinked Snyder again!

And this deal is a clearer-cut hoodwink than that Portis-for-Bailey-plus-draft-picks hoodwink back in 2004!

Before moving on, let me repeat something from above: Shanahan was fired by Bowlen a year ago for losing a four-game division lead in the last four weeks of the season to the San Diego Chargers, a team coached by Norv Turner, who wasn't good enough to coach Dan Snyder's Redskins.

Got that?

(AFTER THE JUMP: Shanahan and Allen won't keep fans from fleeing FedExField? Sherman Smith says the worst came to pass? The Wall Street Journal doesn't think the Skins are the worst team in the NFL? Ben Olsen won't be leaving United after all? The New York Times runs a sad correction to its George Michael obituary?)

***

From the sound of things, the mere hirings of Mike Shanahan and Bruce Allen ain't going to be enough to retain season ticketholders. The members over at Dan Snyder's message board, extremeskins.com, are polling themselves about who's going to renew their tickets for the 2010 season.

The results are informal, but it should be considered that the extremeskins posters are the most devout followers in the burgundy and gold flock. And as of last night, the respondents saying they ain't coming back outnumbered those that would be buying season tickets again by a huge margin. Most of the naysayers threw in some explanations about why they're dropping out, and listed things like the on-field product, lousy game-day experience, cost, economy, availability of single tickets through StubHub and eBay, and, overwhelmingly, disdain for Dan Snyder.

My favorite post came from the extremeskins member who goes by stew, who told the board that he had dropped off the Redskins seasons ticket rolls in 2008, and couldn't be happier with the decision. From stew:

This was my first year not renewing tickets, not buying merchandise, and not shopping at Redskins sponsors stores. Honestly, its been great! I bought a 50 inch big screen, a PS3, and a new L shaped sectional couch, with the money I would have spent on my season tickets. I have enjoyed the hell out of my TV and PS3 and have received compliments on my couch... some of which came while watching the Skins lose.It just isn't worth it right now. Snyder has his hands too deep in my team for me to let him put his hands deep into my pocket. When his attitude and personality change... and there is proof of this, not just what people say, then I will rethink my stance on spending money on this team. Its liberating knowing I am part of his profit loss, and there has been one. I am part of what is getting Snyders attention. If we drafft a QB, I will know that Snyder still has his hands all over my team and I will not support moves like that with my hard earned money. I still love the redskins, but I will not contribute to Snyders profits while he is destroying a franchise that I have been passionate about since my childhood.The good thing about this mythical waiting list is that the games will never be blacked out... the tickets are sold, no need to black out any games... I can watch them all from my 50 inch big screen silly.

If the timing wasn't off, I would have accused stew of basing his lifestyle on my charticle on how to spend the money you won't be spending on Redskins season tickets!

But, the thread and all its vitriol confirmed one thing: Snyder needs to announce he's building a Jumbotron real, real fast.

***

Long recap of the 2009 season in the Washington Post by all the folks on the Redskins beat. The best part comes late, with a quote from Sherman Smith about how he consoled Jim Zorn at year's end:

"I told him all the reasons why people were telling me not to come here all came true," Smith said prior to the Redskins' final game.

***

And, with the 16-game preseason schedule for the 2010 season over after that loss to the San Diego JV, today we'll find out who the next Skins coach will be.

Everybody still says Mike Shanahan is really coming to town. By the time I hit the send button on this load, given the growing buzz, he might already be here.

I remain dubious. Sure, Shanahan rode John Elway the way Red Pollard rode Seabiscuit, who had a face sorta like Elway's, but couldn't hit the winner's circle without him. And Elway ain't coming here. Shanahan's also  an anti-climax to the fan base. He won't sell any tickets, and Dan Snyder needs somebody to sell tickets. He needs a surprise. And a Jumbotron.

But I read one simple sentence over the weekend that made me dubious about my dubiousness. This from the Houston Post:

Texans offensive coordinator Kyle Shanahan could join his father, Mike Shanahan, in Washington.

Hmmm. I'm no Mike Leach, but if I've learned one thing about football, it's this:  If you want to work with your dad, get him to coach for Dan Snyder. Ever since Snyder took over the Redskins, coach after coach has hired his son shortly after taking the job. You can look it up. Well, you don't have to look it up, actually, because I already did look it up:

Marty Schottenheimer, Snyder's first head coaching hire, got the family plan going by naming his son, Brian, as the quarterbacks coach right after coming to Redskins Park. Brian had never coached in the NFL before coming here for the 2001 season. Marty also got Snyder to pay his brother, Kurt Schottenheimer, as defensive coordinator.

But after just one season with Redskins Park serving as Schottenheimytown, as Jesse Jackson would call it, along came Steve Spurrier—and Steve Spurrier Jr.

Little Steven, who hadn’t had any coaching job in the NFL before he started cashing Snyder's checks, was receivers coach for both of Dad's disastrous seasons (2002 and 2003).

Spurrier Sr. left after stocking up his and Junior's bank accounts with Danny Dollars, so Snyder brought Joe Gibbs back in 2004. Gibbs said during his reintroduction speech that the main reason he got back into football from NASCAR was to jump-start son Coy Gibbs' coaching career. Coy Gibbs had never coached football at any level -- he served as something called "lower assembly specialist" for Joe Gibbs Racing before his father came back to Redskins Park. But Coy got put on Snyder's payroll with the title "quality control specialist-offense." And so much for the career jump-start: Coy got out of football in 2007 and took another job Daddy created for him, running a motocross team for Joe Gibbs Racing.

But the bring-your-son-to-work scheme lived on at Redskins Park even after Coy Gibbs' departure. Right after Al Saunders, he of the 700-page playbook, came in as Gibbs' offensive assistant in 2006, he got the team to hire his son, Bob Saunders. Lil' Bobby had also rode Dad's coat-tails all the way to the bank when Al Saunders was on the Kansas City Chiefs staff.

(AFTER THE JUMP: Gregg Williams brings in his youngster, too? Why didn't Jim Zorn put some more Zorns on the payroll? Does Bill Cowher's all-daughter brood leave him unqualified for the Skins job? Did the nepotism work out well for Dan Snyder? Does anything work out well for Dan Snyder? Has hiring the son ever worked in the NFL? TV exec kills off Redskins broadcast, and fans celebrate? What's going on with reachforthewall.com?)

Gregg Williams' son, Blake Williams, was brought in as an offensive intern. (Jim Zorn's only son, Isaac Zorn, is still in high school, and we now know his dad lost his job before he came of age.)

The nepotism binge hasn't paid any dividends for Snyder: None of the coaches on the family plan left here as winners. It hasn't worked for anybody else, either. For folks who think the Shanahans' arrival means another Lombardi is coming to Ashburn: I looked at the coaching staffs of all Super Bowl winners and couldn't find a single father–son duo. The closest I came was with Weeb Ewbanks, head coach of the 1969 champion New York Jets, who had son-in-law Charlie Winner as linebackers coach.

So, again, I'm not feeling Mike and Kyle. But Bill Cowher's only got daughters.

***

How far have the Redskins fallen? Well, via the FiveToolTool (and wasn't that Alfonso Soriano's nickname?): The Skins were banished by at least one station in the Skins usual viewing market by season's end:

In a move that reflects the nature of the Washington Redskins' season, WVBT Fox 43 had decided not to air Sunday's scheduled 4:15 p.m. game between the Skins and San Diego Chargers and instead televise the crucial NFC East clash between the Philadelphia Eagles and Dallas Cowboys.

This is the first time in memory that the Redskins have been pre-empted on TV in Hampton Roads.

Bruce Rader, sports director at Fox 43, said he suggested the change when Fox switched the Eagles-Cowboys game from 1 p.m. to 4:15.

At the Old Dominion men's basketball game Wednesday night, Rader explained his reasoning.

"Honestly," he said, "the Redskins are just unwatchable."

Rader told the Virginian Pilot that the station got "almost 150" emails after announcing the station would be jettisoning the Redskins. How many were pro-Skins?

"About five," he said.

Asks the Tool: "Redskin Fan, is this the lowest moment of the Snyder Era, or were the past few appearances on national television more degrading?"

***

I thought from the beginning that the Washington Post's launch of reachforthewall.com, a site dedicated only to competitive swimming, was a silly waste of sports resources. So I surfed over there last night, for the first time since its launch, to see how still the waters were -- and everything looks pretty still. But I found one horrible/amazing story. 'Course, that story wasn't about the sort of competitive swimming I'd expected to find. Instead, it was a tale of two friends from Denville, NJ, who went to a local pond and came up with an idea even stupider than the launch of reachforthewall.com:

A snippet:

According to local police and the Morris County Prosecutor's Office, [Steve] Savare and an unidentified 37-year-old man visiting him entered the water about 2:45 p.m. in a contest to see who could swim from the shore, under ice, to an open spot in the water and then swim back under the ice.

A neighbor watching the men saw them swim in different directions and become trapped under the ice, Savare about 30 yards from shore and the friend about 6 feet from shore, Morris County Prosecutor Robert Bianchi said.

The neighbor and a family member called 911, then ran to the edge of the lake, broke through the ice, and tried to rescue the 37-year-old, aided by four township police officers who had responded to the 911 call.

The man eventually was pulled to safety and was administered cardiopulmonary resuscitation. He was taken to Morristown Memorial Hospital, where he was in stable condition yesterday, Bianchi said.

Savare had disappeared, and it took a dive team about 45 minutes to find his body. He was pronounced dead at Morristown Memorial Hospital at 6:15 p.m.

No further comment.

***

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

John Feinstein doesn't like the way the Redskins complied with the NFL mandate to interview minority candidates before hiring a coach. Feinstein doesn't believe that Dan Snyder ever really thought Jerry Gray, a black defensive coach who reportedly has interviewed for Jim Zorn's job while Zorn still has it, could be a head coach for the Redskins. Gray was already turned down by at least one college, Memphis, before he was used to put the Redskins in compliance with the so-called Rooney Rule.

Feinstein writes:

Gray has as much chance of being the next Redskins coach as Mike Krzyzewski has of being voted Man of the Decade on the campus at the University of Maryland.

Feinstein, while blasting the way the Rooney Rule is administered, takes no position on whether the NFL should adopt the Clooney Rule, the Looney Rule or Soon-Yi Rule.

It's just a joke! Remember?

***

Bring Mike Leach to Redskins Park (cont.): Jerry Gray is from Texas Tech, same as Mike Leach, who would have met the criteria for the Looney Rule. Leach got fired yesterday after allegedly mistreating a player. (Hey, Dan Snyder: The greatest offensive mind in the game is still available, 24 hours after his firing! Get him!)

In today's Washington Post, Sally Jenkins jumps in ahead of the curve and takes up for the deposed coach.

"You can hear the sound of a railroading in Lubbock," Jenkins writes, "and it's not coming from the train station."

Leach had been taking a beating in the mainstream media before Jenkins talked sense here. But when everything comes out, everybody's going to be on Leach's side, or every football coach at every level is going to be fired.

Anybody who didn't love Leach before Craig James got him fired for (allegedly) mistreating the ESPN announcer's son should love him now. While most folks who have millions of dollars at stake keep their mouths shut about their ex-employers until the last check clears, Leach fired away at the school that John Hinckley made infamous.

(AFTER THE JUMP: Leach calls everybody "liar"? Craig James is the real villain in the Mike Leach Story? Craig James is the real villain in the Washington Federals demise? Awesome Trivia™: Craig James is the last white guy to do what? Annapolis' own Travis Pastrana's gonna jump what tonight? Is he crazy? Can the NHL take New Year's Day from college football? Is the NBA heading for a showdown with Jesus?)

A snippet of Leach's goodbye-for-now statement:

Over the past several months, there have been individuals in the Texas Tech administration, Board of Regents and booster groups who have dealt in lies, and continue to do so. These lies have led to my firing this morning. I steadfastly refuse to deal in any lies, and am disappointed that I have not been afforded the opportunity for the truth to be known. Texas Tech’s decision to deal in lies and fabricate a story which led to my firing, includes, but is not limited by, the animosity remaining from last year’s contract negotiations. I will not tolerate such retaliatory action; additionally, we will pursue all available legal remedies.

Not that it would excuse real player abuse if he is indeed guilty, but: Leach also pointed out in his letter that Tech has been to bowl games for 10 straight years, and claimed that the school "has the highest graduation rate for football players of any public institution in the country." ('Course, the same school gave me a diploma, and I didn't even buy a book my last year there, so that stat's worthless.)

The Leach story ain't going to go away, and when all is said and done, I'd bet real money the villain will be Craig James.

Maybe that's just a wish. But all you need to know about James to dislike him: His real name is "Jesse James." DC football fans of a certain age don't even need to know that to loathe him. They remember James as the guy who more than any other player helped quicken the demise of the Washington Federals of the USFL. He was the Federals top draft pick and marquee player in their inaugural year of 1983. But after one horrible season for James and the team, he used an injury to get out of his contract and move to the NFL. He went to the New England Patriots and immediately became the player he never was in a Federals uniform. Awesome Trivia™ about Craig James: His 1,227 yards rushing in 1985 makes him the last white running back to run for more than 1,000 yards in a season.

By then, the Federals were defunct. Thanks, Craig!

I can think of no better payback to Craig James for what he did to DC than for Dan Snyder to hire Leach as offensive coordinator or something bigger. Leach's teams score more points during timeouts than the Skins do in whole games.

***

Like a lot of guys on New Years Eve, Travis Pastrana is gonna get behind the wheel of a car tonight and put his life at risk.

All sorts of sports are claiming holidays as their own. It's getting like dogs peeing on a patch of grass. Tonight comes the latest example, as motorsports daredevils continue their attempted takeover of New Year's Eve: Pastrana, Annapolis' own former motorbike phenom turned suicidal entertainer, will take a long drive off a short peer tonight in Long Beach, hoping to fly a Subaru about 250 feet onto a barge while the television cameras roll. It's all sponsored by caffeine-pusher Red Bull. Last New Year's Eve, Robbie Knievel jumped the fiery fountain (or did he?) at the Mirage in Las Vegas before a national TV audience.

America loves the sports/holiday nexus. For most of the last century the whole country linked Memorial Day Weekend and the Indy 500. Football and Thanksgiving have been paired forever, too, first with high schools and then the pros.

And, as college football stupidly let its grip on New Year's Day slip -- the big games won't be played until next week -- hockey steps up and says, "Thank you very much":  The NHL makes a power-play for New Years Day, promoting the crap out of a Boston Bruins/Philadelphia Flyers game to be played outdoors tomorrow at Fenway Park.

This is the NHL's third stadium-hosted Winter Classic, and good for Gary Bettman for coming up with an idea that is simultaneously stupid and cool.

But, I see trouble ahead for some sports/holiday pairings. Because America also loves Jesus, here's a New Year's 2010 Prediction: The grumbling about the NBA taking Christmas as a day to hypermarket itself is gonna get louder soon. The NBA started putting a marquee matchup or two on Christmas during the Michael Jordan Era, but really kicked its holiday promotion into overdrive this year, with five games telecast nationally this Christmas.

Even some of its own were blasting this year's tacky tack. "I actually feel sorry for people who have nothing to do on Christmas Day other than watch an NBA game," Orlando Magic Coach Stan Van Gundy told the Associated Press, in a story that appeared in the Washington Post. Van Gundy's complaints were about family issues. I bet if the NBA doesn't tone down its Christmas blowouts, this'll become a Jesus issue. I can't wait!

Though, it's hard to deny that the Christmas games do get basketball attention the game wouldn't otherwise get. Should the WNBA to plan an Easter Eggstravaganza or somesuch? Looking at my sportswatching calendar, Easter's still pretty open.

***

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

In this space yesterday, I sorta blasted Wise for the piece, minus the "sorta." But, being a good guy -- him, not me -- Wise talked to me anyway last night about the kiss-and-kiss-and-kiss-and-tell-and-tell-and-tell column.

He says he wrote it because he's tried to craft an identity at the Washington Post as the "heart on your sleeve" columnist. That path led him to "follow around' the mother of Baylor basketball player Carlton Dotson as she dealt with her son murdering his friend and teammate, and to coax hired goon Donald Brashear to open up about the brutal childhood that led him to throw fists for a living. And to, well, confess to some sort of personal sexual derring do in a column.

"That's who I always want to be," Wise says of being a heart-on-your-sleeve writer. "Sometimes it would cost me logic in my columns, sometimes friends, but that was going to be me."

So when he couldn't come up with anything to write about Tiger Woods' sexual derring do, he just kept looking at his sleeve.

(AFTER THE JUMP: Did Wise get any dates out of his column? George Michael and Ric Flair go live? George Michael's feuds with John Riggins? And Frank Herzog? And everybody?)

"When an opportunity like Tiger comes up to write about," he says, "and I'm struggling inside about why I haven't come up with a funny column or a thoughtful column, and I'm national columnist, well, I start thinking: What am I doing? Why is the post paying me if all I'm doing is going to Redskins games and saying if Jim Zorn is a fruit loop or not?"

The response has been shocking, Wise says.

"I figured I'd get a couple nice emails and couple people would go off on my and then the caravan would pass and that would be it," he says. "But I've never gotten more personal emails for a column ever, even for coming out against the Redskins nickname. On the comments section, I get people with keyboard courage who don't put their names and say things like,'Don't ever compare yourself to anybody!' But people who wrote to me personally at my Post email account were like 95 percent supportive, just unbelievably supportive."

Wise says some of the support was a little too graphic.

"People say, 'Bravo, you've allowed me to confront some things about myself!' and those are great, but then I got a lot of intensely personal emails about how they threw their family away or their marriage away or a guy who said his wife needed to be validated by men all the time. These are strangers. Obviously, I put myself out there and so I'm flattered by it, I guess, but it blew me away."

He hasn't gotten any proposals from women yet, Wise said. He didn't sound unhappy about that.

He'd write the column all over again.

***

Also yesterday, I mulled the sellout portions of George Michael's legacy. But I ran out of digital column inches before following through on my plan to say nice things about Michael for doing more for pro wrestling around here than anybody since Vince McMahon. To make up, here is Michael interviewing Ric Flair during his WRC newscast hours before a 1992 show at the Capital Centre.

No other sportscaster in America would have put the Nature Boy or any other wrestler on the air in character, live or not.

***

Last night I came across "The Unexpected George Michael: The Sportscaster Who Invented Himself, and His Past & Furious Pursuit of Success," an amazing Washington Post profile of George Michael that ran in October 1986. What a story!

The piece, which clocks in at 5368 words, was written by Stephanie Mansfield for the Style section. It goes deep into Michael's disavowing of his own childhood, spent in St. Louis with the name George Gimpel.

It reminded me that there really were two Michaels during his long run at WRC: There was the bitter, paranoid Michael who always felt inadequate compared to rival Glenn Brenner over at Channel 9, and the less uptight entertainer Michael who got comfortable with himself and dominated DC sportscasting after Brenner's death. (Michael gave an amazing live, on-air tribute when Brenner died, in which he cried along with the whole city -- even President George Bush issued a memorial statement.)

The bitter, paranoid Michael was in charge when Mansfield's piece came out. He squabbled with everybody.

Here's a passage that goes over a feud Michael was having at the time with John Riggins:

Bring up the name John Riggins and George Michael's face clouds over. His relationship with the former Redskins star, he says, was "one of the least enjoyable aspects" of his time in Washington. Riggins never liked him, he says, because of his friendship with Joe Theismann.

In fact, the two had an argument not long ago at Chadwick's, witnessed by Riggins' attorney and a local television director. Riggins wanted to know why Michael was the only sportscaster who didn't interview him the night he was released from the Redskins. Michael says he couldn't find him. Riggins called Michael a liar, then told the sportscaster to "put on his worm shoes and get out of here."

Michael describes the confrontation in detail, saying "it was fairly hot." Another witness says the story is exaggerated. "John embarrassed him," Riggins' attorney Douglas Woloshin says. "He wasn't in control of the situation."

For the record, the lawyer says, "John never mentioned he doesn't like George because of Joe Theismann. He just doesn't like George."

And George also didn't mind trashing Frank Herzog, the Redskins play-by-play announcer and, at the time, the Channel 7 sportscaster:

And don't seat Frank Herzog next to Michael at the next rubber chicken dinner. "I'd tell him to go to hell," Michael says. "I have no use for him."

Four years ago in New Orleans, he says, WRC weekend sports anchor Scott Clark was ejected from a Georgetown University NCAA basketball game for not having the proper credentials. According to Michael, it was Frank Herzog who blew the whistle. (Herzog denies it.)

"He had him thrown in jail!" Michael booms dramatically. "One day, Frank Herzog and I will meet, somewhere privately where no one will ever know about it. I will carry that grudge for life."

NCAA rules stipulate that credentials to cover the Final Four are given only to members of the press who cover those teams from the beginning of the tournament. Clark, who is leaving the station next month amid rumors of professional friction between himself and Michael, now admits "we were in the wrong on a technicality" when he tried to use another station's credentials. "I didn't go to jail," Clark says.

"That was a such a petty thing," Herzog says, unaware of any feud. Michael, he says, has always been "very cordial." "Besides, that was four years ago."

Says Michael, "Things like that I don't forget."

The story is also a reminder of when sportscasters had real clout in this town, and when newspapers thought it was OK to put the time and effort into stories that could hit you like a train.

The Michael profile does that. Sadly, it is only available through the Washington Post archives. If you have access, use it to retrieve Mansfield's work. Thank me later.

***

The second EagleBank Bowl kicks off today at RFK Stadium at 4:30 p.m. My sense is this year's game got far less advance coverage than last year's, and not just because Navy was in the 2008 Bowl. I'm far more intrigued about how many people show up today, and how EagleBank will spend my TARP money this year, than by whether Temple or UCLA wins.

***

(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

I say no one should. Yes, Zorn is responsible for this terrible, terrible offense. Six points is almost never enough to win a football game in 2009, and certainly won't be in 2010, either. This was supposed to be the guy's strong suit---West coast offense, keep the chains moving, score points.

Yet here's the thing about Zorn: He's a leader. Even when the team is sinking and things could never look worse, the guy has the right attitude, doesn't make excuses, and doesn't blame other people. Perhaps it's those characteristics that explain why this team hasn't quit on him. There's no magical solution to the Redskins' woes, though there are some big names out there, including former Steelers coach Bill Cowher, who might, just might, undergo a long-enough mental lapse to work for Dan Snyder. Such a move would pump up the fan base and perhaps do absolutely nothing for the product on the field. Management experts call it "shiny object syndrome."

Trivia question for Post watchers: When was the last time this reporter landed a story on a page other than A1?

Post ombo Andy Alexander goes soft this week, pegging a profile of the Post's food critic to the Thanksgiving holiday. I must say, however, that I am unlikely to heed Alexander's recommendation: "After Thursday's Thanksgiving dinner, when your stomach is groaning from gluttony, take a moment to reflect on Tom Sietsema."

Diana Sims Snider pisses me off. She's an Alexandriite who showed up in Saturday's "Free for All" page of the Post. Her gripe? She couldn't stand the Post's coverage of the Archdiocese of Washington vis-a-vis the city's pending same-sex marriage legislation. The local arm of the Catholic church warned the city that it would discontinue certain charitable activities if it had to work in a same-sex-marriage-is-OK environment.

Snider couldn't stand the way the Post wrote the story:

The Post's anti-Catholic bias continues unabated ["Catholic Church gives D.C. ultimatum," front page, Nov. 12]. To call the Archdiocese of Washington's announcement that it may have to discontinue certain social programs if the gay-marriage law is passed an "ultimatum" was both charged and inaccurate. The archdiocese has a long partnership with the District but was fairly alerting officials that it will not sacrifice its religious beliefs.

Quoting D.C. Council member Mary M. Cheh (D-Ward 3), who called the church's response "somewhat childish," was outrageous.

Couple of points here: First of all, it's an ultimatum, which is defined as a "final peremptory demand." How else to describe the church's craven power play? Dialogue? Constructive engagement on a sensitive issue?

But what really gets me is Snider dissing the Post for, like, quoting a public official. She says that's "outrageous," in case you didn't read the blockquote carefully. How ya figure? First of all, Cheh understated the case. It's not "somewhat childish," it's childish, or perhaps extremely childish. This is the classic case of taking your ball and going home. And that's something that children do at a much greater rate than adults. So Cheh is dead on.

However. The point isn't just that Cheh had it right. The point is that even if Cheh had misspoken, misportrayed, or gone over the line, it is never, never, ever "outrageous" for a newspaper to quote a public official. In fact, it's the newspaper's obligation to do just this. Think about libel law. As any good media attorney will tell you, a special privilege attaches to quoting the remarks of elected officials. If one of these individuals opens her mouth and happens to libel someone, any newspaper who quotes that libelous statement is pretty much immune from liability, simply because that newspaper is quoting a public official---it's fair game.

So, Diana Sims Snider, develop a little respect for the civic duty of a newspaper in your open, democratic society. And keep the great copy coming! Let's talk Monday.

“We have no intention of trying to control our fans’ varied ways of expressing their views on the Redskins organization and the team’s performance,” former newspaperboy turned Redskins COO  David "Yeah, That's the Ticket!" Donovan said in the very brief ban-lifting statement.

“We’ve disappointed our fans so far this season, and I’m as disappointed as they are,” added Dan Snyder. “I understand that some fans want to express their feelings with signs and they should do so, as long as they stay within the boundaries of good taste and don’t block the view of other fans.”

This gives the "He's learning as an owner" crowd something to throw out as they perpetuate that myth.

The "He's a D-bag!" set, meanwhile, gets plenty to work with here, too.

The timing of Snyder's lifting of the sign ban was grotesque, since it was announced too late for anybody going to the Denver game to even get word. Much worse: The announcement also surely has something to do with the fact that Snyder's sponsoring a fan sign contest this Friday with his sportstalker, WTEM, at Dave & Busters at White Flint Mall as part of a Redskins pep rally.

Snyder's station sponsored the same sign contest at the same venue before last year's home game against Dallas.

(AFTER THE JUMP: Sign policies show Dan Snyder's a hypocrite? Dan Snyder ran the same sign promotion at Dave & Busters last year? Dan Snyder likes signs? You can call Albert Haynesworth lazy, but not cowardly? Tank McNamara's neither fair nor funny? Dunbar's season ends atypically? Spingarn's season ends typically? Will somebody tell Mike Miller to stop dressing funny until his damn team wins?)

From a preview of the 2008 sign sweepstakes: "A pair of tickets to the game will be awarded to the winner of the best 'Beat Dallas' sign." The same prizes are used to draw fans to Snyder's event this year.

Bottom line: Dan Snyder used to encourage fans to make those dangerous, eye-poking thingamajigs. Like the Geico sign giveaway promotion Snyder put on during the Monday Night Massacre revealed, if signs put money in Snyder's pocket, he likes 'em.

What a champ.

***

Who's not a coward? Albert Haynesworth.

Outta shape? Sure seems like it. Malingerer? Sure seems like it.

But not a coward. Haynesworth went down in a big heap in the 4th quarter and stayed there.  It's a routine he goes through pretty much every game. The replays didn't show where his injury could have occurred, but he acted like he was in a lot of pain. But, as the cameras showed him being helped off the field yet again, you could see that he was wearing no protective pads in his pants.

"Albert doesn't even appear to be wearing knee pads," Dan Dierdorf, the CBS commentator, commentated.

The pads weigh nothing. Not wearing them seems almost masochistic, or maybe it's intended to send a message of invincibility to opponents. A lot of players these days are sending the same message. But why take up this no-gain, more-pain habit? Especially if you just got paid 42 million large, like Big Al?

***

By gametime yesterday, the Redskins had earned "object of pity" status from some quarters of the Washington Post. The paper's comic books blog, Comic Riffs, had a poll asking readers if Tank McNamara had "crossed the line" of fairness to Dan Snyder in its Friday panels.

The strip in question featured a mythical contract negotiation between Steve Largent, representing Jim Zorn, and Snyder's management team. The debated line-crossing segment had Largent saying all time spent on the Redskins is "garbage time." Forget fairness. I'm more concerned that the strip didn't cross the line from unfunny to funny, yet clearly did cross into "what-the-hell-are-you-talking-about?" territory.

In any case, the recent Tank material is nowhere near as brutal to the Skins owner as when the strip named Snyder its "Sports Jerk of the Year" in 2001.

***

Big news from Saturday's DCIAA semifinals doubleheader, held at Cardozo's beautiful stadium: Dunbar WON'T be in the Turkey Bowl. The dynastic Crimson Tide got walloped by Woodson, knocking Craig Jefferies' squad out of the Thanksgiving Day championship for the first time in a dozen years.

At the "Unsurprising" end of the spectrum: Spingarn, which provides fodder for my Washington City Paper Education Issue column every year, ended the season as the worst team in the city.

In other words, Spingarn's football program enjoyed a typical year: Still another new coach was hired, not enough kids to field a team show up when practice starts in the summer, the Green Wave goes on to lose every game, mostly by blowouts, etc.

Spingarn cemented itself as the bottom of the bottom with last week's 55-0 loss to Woodson. That left Spingarn at 0-8, having been outscored by opponents 378-24.

Wait 'til next year.

***

With Saturday's latest fourth-quarter disappearance against previously nosediving Detroit, the Wizards stuck to the script of their version of "Sleepless in Seattle" --- "Winless in November." The line between fatalist and realist was obliterated years ago among Bullets/Wizards fans. This franchise still wears lousiness just like destiny. Given the past and present, Mike Miller's game-day costume -- from his hair on down, it's an outfit loaded with look-at-me accessorizing --  exudes nothing but silliness. My inner geezer is sure his get-up should go.

***

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Hmmm.

Does this mean Riggleman had to agree to let the Lerners bring Earl Weaver out of retirement to have final say on the pitching rotation?

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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Another Redskins game that ain't a sellout. Another Redskins game that won't be blacked out.

The graphic above is from the latest installment of the now regular email blasts that precede every home game.

But no matter what your head tells you, remember: Dan Snyder says the Redskins have a waiting list of "over 200,000" names of folks who want tickets but can't get them.

And remember this, as your watching the Skins/Eagles game on local TV and see a sea of empty seats: The NFL has a blackout policy!

What's going on around here is sorta amazing, ain't it? A "Monday Night Football" game against the hated Eagles -- a rematch of the Body Bag Game opponents! -- and Skins management feels it has to lie ("visiting team returns," "limited number," etc.) to try to get folks to take tickets?

How low has Snyder taken the operation? Well, if the Redskins were a dance, you could lay the limbo pole on the floor and Snyder could still sneak his franchise under it.

***

Vinny Cerrato opened his radio station on Dan Snyder's sportstalker, WTEM, declaring he wanted to be "perfectly clear" about some things: Jim Zorn is the Skins head coach for the rest of the season "and hopefully into the future." Sure, "perfectly clear" is a Nixon tag line. And Cerrato sounded crazy while he delivered it.

(AFTER THE JUMP: Snyder doesn't talk to the media? Did anybody tell the New York Times? Snyder tells Brian Mitchell he's sorry? Brian Mitchell believes it? Debbie Yow wants you to call her Dr. Yow? She's a doctor? Really? Charlie Brotman can tell stories? Ron Jaworski doesn't blame Jim Zorn, either? Why do races get such scary names?)

Cerrato also was manic when he said Snyder doesn't have to come out and address the mess he's made of what was once among the top shelf of NFL franchises but is now among the most despised. "Dan has never spoken to the media for a decade now," Cerrato says.

Huh. I thought Snyder posed for photos and talked to the New York Times a few weeks ago.

***

Brian Mitchell has been declawed. In an interview during the "John Thompson Show" on Dan Snyder's sportstalker, WTEM, Mitchell said he'd just had a conversation with Snyder, and that the owner apologized for cutting Mitchell in 2000 to make room for Deion Sanders.

Mitchell, who ripped Snyder brutally on WTEM for a couple years before Snyder bought the station and fired him, sounded genuinely touched by the words of contrition.

Then again, Snyder needs Mitchell right now a lot more than Mitchell needs Snyder. So during the Eagles game this Monday, Snyder is installing Mitchell into the FedExField "ring of fame" or "hall of stars," or whatever the hell that list of names at the stadium is called now,

Mitchell's appearance on the field should be, like so much about the "Monday Night Football" outing, very odd. Until recently, hardcore Skins fans thought of Mitchell as a turncoat because he was so tough on his former team after Snyder cut him.

But the way the Skins have played this season, what once seemed like hate now just sounds like the truth.  And the fans are so united in despising Snyder, any enemy of the owner is a friend of theirs. So cheering Mitchell is the same as booing Snyder.

That means Mitchell's appearance might provide the only cheers from Skins fans all night.

***

Before Cerrato's desperate announcement, Rick Snider of the Examiner wrote what everybody's feeling: Jim Zorn ain't gonna make it through the season. Snider's piece is mean and fun, like so much of the Redskins coverage these days.

***

Ron Jaworski went on "The Tony Kornheiser Show" to talk about the upcoming telecast of "Monday Night Football," where Jaworski still works.

Asked about the home team's bizarre off-field behaviors in recent weeks, Jaworski said that he'd "gone through every single play" of Redskins games this season, and came to the conclusion that everybody knows:  "It's not about the play-calling."

But: Jaworski picked the Skins to cover the spread.

(If I quote one more radio interview, I'm going to have to pay royalties to the Great Steinographer...)

***

Debbie Yow's official University of Maryland bio refers to her as "Dr. Yow." I didn't know she was a doctor. And, after reading the bio, I still don't. It says she's got a masters degree from Liberty University and "a doctorate (honorus causa) from the United States Sports Academy and an honorary doctorate for professional achievement from Elon University."

Sounds here like Yow just showed up and sat on a stage to get her ceremonial sheepskin. So why would she use "Dr. Yow" as a title? Any psychologists out there explain these behaviors?

***

Charlie Brotman's PR firm, Brotman-Winter-Fried Communications, held its 40th anniversary party last night. I've stolen a bunch of stories from them over the years, with a drag racer with a colostomy bag and a family that makes its living pulling each other's hair coming to mind first.

At the party, I got Brotman to start talking about the old days, which ain't hard, and in no time flat he told tales about picking up Ted Williams at a local hotel and taking him to a real estate extravaganza in 1969 and working with Ray Leonard before the Thomas Hearns rematch and getting Nixon to sign a ball at RFK (which Brotman still has in his office) and bringing in Tiger Woods when he was 16 years old for a charity function and so on and so on. What a life. I could have listened all night, but Charlie had other duties. He's a DC treasure.

***

I got a press release from Brotman's firm today about something called the Gynecologic Cancer Half-Marathon, scheduled for DC on Nov. 8. I gotta say, as noble as the cause is, the race's name is jarring. When's the Scurvy Run-Walk? Or the Crushed By a Metrobus 10K? Or the Trust Me This Is Really the Worst Way to Die Tri?

'Course, I wouldn't have noticed the press release if the event were called the Life Is Great Race. And no matter the name, I ain't entering. No pain, no pain!

***

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Redskins security seized anti-Snyder paraphernalia at the FedExField gates before the Tampa Bay game a few weeks ago, without any honorable explanation for the seizures. The guards' heavy-handed tactics kept shots of bags on people's heads and "Snyder Sucks!" posters off the Fox airwaves for a few hours on that Sunday afternoon, but Snyder's strategy has otherwise totally backfired. Those whose agit-prop props were taken by Snyder's jack-booted thugs or otherwise censored got really motivated, and are now among the leaders of some very organized campaigns to demonstrate against the Dan Snyder Administration on a much bigger stage: "Monday Night Football."

***

The Third Coming? Mike Florio, the one-man TMZ of the NFL, rumors that Joe Gibbs will return to the Redskins to save Dan Snyder again.

The Gibbs rumors might take some steam off Snyder for yesterday's Steve Largent blasts. Largent, a former U.S. Congressman (awesome trivia about Largent: he lost his last election because Oklahoma voters were outraged by his stance against... cockfighting!), told a Seattle radio audience that Snyder is humiliating his buddy and onetime Seahawks teammate simply to avoid paying him the $6 million remaining on the head coach's contract. Largent says Zorn told him that Skins officials, presumably meaning either Vinny Cerrato or/and Dan Snyder, tried bullying Zorn into quitting by waving a copy of his contract in his face, and repeating the clauses that state that wholesale subservience is required or the team can fire him for cause. That sounds unbelievable, unless you've heard several dozen similar accounts of bizarre and mean behavior from Snyder from former employees.

Snyder was seen yesterday at practice talking to Zorn. Standing side by side, Snyder came up to Zorn's sternum. You know Zorn would like to go to the top of the boss' head with an elbow drop. But in his press conference after practice, Zorn simply said, "I have to hold back on any feelings."

God god. Forget a new set of eyes. Jim Zorn needs to grow a new set of balls.

(AFTER THE JUMP: Doc Walker puts a happy face on Skins' budding playcalling disaster? Sherm Lewis looks like Chief Zee without the headgear? Sam Elliott shills for horse racing? Horse racing leads to domestic bliss? Where's Karl Swanson when you need him?)

Zorn should tell the world what it already knows: He's being treated like dirt by a bunch of loser fools just so they can save a few million bucks. Snyder's putting a hurt on Zorn's image that he ain't going to recover from.

On Snyder's sportstalk station yesterday afternoon, Rick Walker tried to put a positive spin on the Skins' switch to a new play caller during a spot on John Thompson's show. Walker, calling in from Redskins Park, said the mood at practice was upbeat, that everybody in the organization was down with the plan to let Sherman Lewis take over Jim Zorn's game-day responsibilities, and basically insinuated that everything about the Redskins was suddenly just peachy.

Then John Thompson stopped the peachiness with a simple question: What's Jim Zorn's role going to be come kickoff against the Eagles on Monday?

Walker hemmed and came up with "clock management," then he hawed some more. And then Walker hemmed some more. Then, he told it like it was: "I don't know!"

Nobody knows what Zorn will be doing. At Fox-5 last night, sportscaster Lindsey Murphy reported that Jim Zorn "will be involved in the pass protection.". WUSA's Brett Haber said Lewis will only be able to call "a type of play," and not make actual play calls, because he's not familiar enough with the Skins playbook. Wowee. Now the Skins are saying that Sherm Lewis's playcalls will be filtered through Sherm Smith, not even Zorn. And he's the head coach?

Why not just make Zorn sell beer in the FedEx bathrooms? Get your bingo jokes ready, people. This is gonna be a disaster.

***

Walking around practice in a burgundy Redskins sweatsuit, Sherman Lewis sure looked like Chief Zee minus the headdress.

Speaking of: In chronicling how the Washington Post grounded and pounded on Dan Snyder in every section of the paper yesterday, I neglected to mention that Courtland Milloy held court for Metro with an assault on Chief Zee. The timing does seem odd.

But damn if Chief Zee isn't the most racist mascot in pro sports. There's nothing else even close.

***

Speaking of geldings... Shocker of shockers: Somebody's marketing horse racing to the masses! Laurel Park has been running commercials on Dan Snyder's sports station for this weekend's DeFrancis Dash.

The spots feature a voiceover that sure sounds like the great Sam Elliott, telling a tale about a father/son relationship enhanced by days at the racetrack.

Sure, the track has torn apart a whole lot more families than it's helped, but, it's still fabulous to hear any mention of racing in the mainstream media.

***

I was wondering whatever happened to Karl Swanson. I'd reached out to the Redskins top PR man a lot lately. But, no return calls. No return emails. Not even a "no comment"! But I wasn't taking it personally: These are tough PR times for the Redskins, what with the organization all messy and beer being sold in the bathrooms, but "Karl Swanson" wasn't even getting any hits in Google news. So I called and emailed Swanson yet again just to find out if he was still with the team.

And at long last, Swanson responded yesterday! He's still on the job. Swanson gave no explanation for the radio silence.

Maybe it's me.

***

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***

You don't need to read the Washington Post;s redesigned weather page to forecast the perfect shitstorm that is heading for Raljon on Monday evening.

The rest of the paper has all the evidence. There's no section of the Post that doesn't hold horrible news for Dan Snyder.

Mike Wise fills up the front page of Style with a profile of The Man Who Would Be Snyder, John Kent Cooke.

Some of the bitterness from Cooke, whose birthright to become owner of the Redskins was never exercised:

"Dan Snyder destroyed the reputation of this franchise," Cooke said. "I sure as hell don't like the way he gutted the organization after we left. And he commercialized the Redskins like my father would have never commercialized the Redskins. People brought cushions and pennants to the games. You know how they got those? My father gave them out at fan appreciation days."

Cooke also took issue with recent controversy over tickets. "Suing season ticket holders?" he said, incredulously. "My God, it's embarrassing. We would have never done such a thing."

(AFTER THE JUMP: Mike Wise dusts off Bobby Beathard to throw some jabs at Snyder? The Post's Business section tells readers that Snyder's a lousy businessman, just for the hell of it? The bingo caller line, again? The bingo caller last called plays for the Detroit Lions? How much would you have to get paid to go to a Redskins game? Eastern gets its first and last win? )

Better still, Wise dusts off long-ago general manager Bobby Beathard to unload on Snyder. While pretending to be saying how the younger Cooke would have been good for the Redskins, Beathard's really getting back at Snyder for giving him a low-ball offer to return to the team as GM in 2002, as Marty Schottenheimer was getting shown the door:

"I think he learned so much from his father [that] John would have been a great owner," Beathard said. "His dad wasn't a hands-off guy, but he wasn't a meddler. He didn't want to come over and want to watch films or tell us who to take."

Instead of paying Beathard a decent wage, Snyder rehired Vinny Cerrato.

Then, if you jump over to the Business section, Steven Pearlstein writes a few fab and devastating paragraphs about Snyder. And everything Pearlstein says is as easy to understand as, say, "The Emperor's New Clothes."

"What do you call a business that consistently overcharges its customers for an inferior product, hires the wrong people and pays them above-market wages, and yet still manages to be one of the most profitable and valuable franchises in its industry?

Here in nation's capital, we call it the Washington Redskins.

Economists, however, have a more generic name for such an enterprise. They call it a monopoly.

It should be apparent at this point that, whatever his other virtues, Dan Snyder isn't the business whiz he's cracked up to be. From the traffic jams and drunken crowds to the soggy hot dog rolls and the endless TV time-outs, a Redskins game at FedEx Field may be one of the worst entertainment experiences you can buy at any price. And that's not even taking into account the opera buffa now playing out on the field and in the locker room.

But for the fact that Washington football fans have no other choice, the Redskins by now would be in bankruptcy court, right alongside Snyder's other big fiasco, Six Flags."

The brutalest part comes later, when you realize Pearlstein's story is about an upcoming Supreme Court case, and all the Snyder hammering, beautifully written and dead-on as it is, is totally gratuitous!

Then there's the Post's sports section, which is full of the theme that all national reporters will use when the Philadelphia Eagles visit for "Monday Night Football":  The latter-day Redskins are the most messed up franchise in the NFL, and maybe in all of professional sports.

This has been said a lot lately, and will be said a lot more over the next week, but can't be said enough: Dan Snyder just promoted a bingo caller to be an NFL play caller, a job he last held in 2004 with a horrible Detroit Lions team.

Despite all Snyder's wacko meanness, it looks like Jim Zorn ain't gonna follow the owner's plan and quit. So unlike the last two Redskins coaches, Joe Gibbs and Steve Spurrier---both of whom walked away from contracts worth millions---Zorn's going to get paid.

Take THAT, Mr. Snyder!

***

Last week, the The Great Dan Steinberg reprinted a Craigslist ad he'd found before the Kansas City Chiefs game, in which a Redskins fan said he wouldn't go to FedExField---unless somebody paid him:

Don't want to go to the game? ME NEITHER. I will, however, watch my beloved Skins for a fair price...I'll only attend if the compensation is adequate.

Earlier this week, I tracked down the fan who placed that ad. The good news for Dan Snyder: That fan, Mike Stuart, says nobody offered to pay him to go watch the Redskins/Chiefs game.

"I did not get any offers, at least for what I was asking for," Stuart tells me via e-mail. "Instead, I was offered plenty of tickets FOR cash, the most laughable being 'I have 2 tickets in 417 row 15 for the Eagles on Monday Night for $150 for the pair and 2 in 133 row 21 for $260 for the pair.' I think he may have gotten this game confused with a Caps playoff game from last season."

Stuart says he's mad at his friends who used their tickets, and that he doesn't intend to go to any more games this season, and is looking forward to watching the franchise bottom out and start over.

"I don't see single winnable game the rest of the way," he says. "Funny, even though I've bled burgundy and gold my entire life, I actually see that as a good thing."

***

Have-Nots Update: In last week's Bowl for the Bottom, host Eastern defeated Spingarn, 38-12. That means Spingarn, now 0-6 and having been outscored 285-18, will be the city's only winless football team this season, barring something crazy. As for Eastern, the Spingarn game might be the last win in the school's history. Next school year, because of a DCPS reorganization plan, Eastern Senior High School will have only 12th graders, and therefore likely won't have enough players to field a team. And after that, DCPS plans to close the school at least temporarily, and some folks think permanently.

But, if Eastern is indeed going out, they didn't go out on bottom...

***

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As if vending beside urinals at Redskins games wasn't viral enough: Jennifer Donelan of WJLA put BeerInTheBathroomsGate™ on her station's evening news, and even took a few seconds to give Washington City Paper kudos for blowing the lid off Snyder's newest revenue stream.

Here's Donelan's WJLA piece. Wait til the 50-second mark. Don't take a pee break or beer break or both, or you'll miss my work. And remember: TV puts on 10 pounds, and I've been watching a lot of TV lately.

Otherwise, I think I nailed my line. Thinking ahead: "I'd like to thank-thank...both my readers-readers...and the Academy-Academy..."

Reading between the lines of Donelan's copy, it looks like the Redskins fired the beer man caught on tape dispensing beer in an environment teeming with second-hand poop. A commenter on City Desk yesterday wrote that he was a vendor at FedExField, and he found the bathroom vending "disgusting." But he warned Redskins patrons who are "worried about sanitation" that they should really "stay far away from the lemonade."

Yucky!

***

Sticking with local media, via DCRTV: Two more guys fired by Dan Snyder will have a radio show to bash their former boss. WTOP will give John Riggins and Frank Herzog at least a tryout for a weekly show called "Ask Riggo." (The first installment of Riggins/Herzog is going off the air as we type. "We should do this again," Riggins said to Herzog at sign-off.)

(AFTER THE JUMP: Does everybody who despises Dan Snyder get a radio show? Will Laveranues Coles get a program? Timmy Smith's out of jail? Dan Snyder benched Jason Campbell? Jeff George who? Dan Snyder will put Jason Campbell back on the field Monday night?  Night of Quarterbacks what?)

Herzog lost his 25-year gig as Redskins announcer a few years ago to make room in the booth for Dan Snyder's sidekick, Larry Michael. Riggins had a radio show on Snyder's embarrassing Triple-X sportstalk network, but got canned by Snyder last year when he bought WTEM-AM, a station that could actually be heard in DC.

Riggins, meanwhile, has been brutal on Snyder and Vinny Cerrato in recent Youtube monologues.

Riggins and Herzog join an army of folks who've been grinding their axes with Snyder over the public airwaves. Brian Mitchell, who crushes Skins management on Comcast and during Sunday night spots on WUSA-9 TV, has been fired not once but twice by Snyder: The first firing came in 2000, when Mitchell, the NFL's all-time leader in kickoff and punt return yards, got booted off the Redskins to make space for one of the owner's early jock sniffees, Deion Sanders.

Then Mitchell got canned by Snyder yet again last year when his former boss bought the sportstalk station WTEM, where Mitchell had been a co-host of the "John Thompson Show."

And there's LaVar Arrington, the afternoon drive-time star at WJFK, a rival to Snyder's sportstalker, WTEM. Arrington was once an owner's pet, but has been blasting Snyder since the end of the 2003 season, when he went through a contract negotiation with the Redskins owner. Arrington claims that Snyder pulled a bait-and-switch during negotiations, in the process eliminating a huge bonus that Arrington says he was promised.

The turning point in the player/owner talks, Arrington said a year later, came when Snyder asked him to sign a contract that had "666" written somewhere on it.

“[M]e and my agent, we are Christian people and we were alluding to the fact that there were three sixes in the total of the contract,” Arrington told FoxSports interviewer James Brown. “Three sixes, I think if you are a Christian you know what three sixes means. It is the mark of the devil.”

Arrington then asked Snyder to crunch the numbers in his contract a little bit to “get those three sixes off.”  The team did so, and Arrington say he signed the contract without re-reading the re-worked contract. He later discovered that the way Snyder got rid of the "666" was by removing the $6.5 million signing bonus Arrington says he was promised.

Arrington has had a lot to say about Snyder, all of it brutal, ever since.

The FCC would have to open up some more frequencies if everybody screwed by Snyder were to get a radio show, of course. But if I could pick, I'd like to see Laveranues Coles get a forum where he can tell that story about Snyder threatening to ruin his career and turn him "into Terry Glenn" during a nasty contract negotiation. Recap: After Snyder threatened to send a "flat-screen" television to Coles' house so he could watch football at home, since he'd make sure that Coles wouldn't be playing the game anywhere if he didn't play along with Redskins management, Coles got his wish and was traded to the New York Jets.

***

Timmy Smith talks about the Super Bowl, not about prison. Yes, Skins fans, the team used to be in the Super Bowl pretty regular.

***

A moderator at Extremeskins.com reports that Dan Snyder and Vinny Cerrato left the owner's booth at halftime and didn't come back. Jason Campbell got benched at that time.

Did Jurgensen's cigar smoking buddy, Snyder, personally put JC on the bench? Snyder wouldn't personally get involved in lineup changes, and force a coach to to accommodate Jurgensen's whimsy, would he?
Oh, right! Jeff George who?

But now reports are that Jason Campbell will be back in the starting lineup for Monday's game with the Philadelphia Eagles. Zorn, however, wouldn't confirm that, as if he's not making that decision, either. So maybe Snyder is calling this shot, too? He wouldn't want Campbell back in the lineup, would he?

Oh, right! Snyder's still trying to sell his Night of Quarterbacks!

Yesterday, in this very space, we blew the lid off the latest listener contest for Dan Snyder's sportstalk station, WTEM-AM, in which the Redskins owner promises to send his cheerleading squad over to winners' houses and make them wash cars.

And in this week's analog edition, we blow the lid off Dan Snyder's cheerleader past, from his 2000 rackumentary "Beauty on the Beach," all the way up to his latest scheme, which tells the cheering crew to put down their pom poms and pick up sponges and service his 25-54 male audience.

And, as promised, throughout all this lid-blowing we've run the same photograph of all those sudsy blondes, again and again and again.

That's the shot that got The Great Dan Steinberg so lathered up he rudely barged into the comments section to pooh-pooh our Snyder/T&A expose. TGDS basically accused Cheap Seats Daily of hypocrisy and of being as exploitative as Dan Snyder!

Just because we ran this photo of sudsy blondes!

That hurts.

What kind of message does that contest (and this photo) send to the Little Ladies of Football? Think of the children, Dan and Dan!

(AFTER THE JUMP: Could Snyder's layoffs at Redskins Park have helped this car wash debacle along? Is it Sherm or Sherman? Dan Steinberg reveals Lewis' bingo past? Dan Steinberg conceals reveals his own bingo past? How loaded is the Skins' 2009 schedule with Snyder humiliatees? Yankee Stadium ain't the only ballpark in use this October? Nationals Park gets loaded with readers?)

Butt seriously, this new low/high in Snyder's cheerleader marketing schemes might have something to do with personnel changes.

Donald Wells, the longtime director of the Redskins cheerleaders who predated Snyder, got fired a few months ago. Wells is now director of marketing for Sweethearts for Soldiers, a cheerleader-centric charity based in San Diego.

Wells' replacement as Redskins cheerleader director, Stephanie Jojokian, told me on Tuesday that she wasn't aware that any of her cheerleaders were going to be washing cars. Melanie Treanor Coburn, the Redskins Cheerleaders director of marketing, did not return phone calls. Jojokian says Treanor Coburn is on maternity leave.

***

While there is no agreement on whether to call him "Sherm Lewis" or "Sherman Lewis," everybody agrees the Redskins hiring of an "offensive consultant" is going to do nothing other than humiliate Jim Zorn.

But only TGDS took time to write up Sherm Lewis's past as a bingo caller this morning.

For whatever reason, the ever-humble Bogger leaves out his personal past with the churchy game. In 2002, when he was Just Plain Dan Steinberg, JPDS blew the lid off DC bingo queen Vanessa Woodland in a fabulous City Paper cover story. Read it here.

***

Zorn isn't the first guy Snyder's humiliated here, of course. We've already heard Jon Jansen gloating over the greatness of taking part in ending the Lions losing streak with a win over Washington.

But there's a lot of Snyder haters on the schedule this year.

Mike Nolan is doing better than OK in Denver. Nolan's the guy who Snyder kept delivering vanilla ice cream to during the 1999 season just after buying the Redskins,  a super twerpy way of saying that he thought the Redskins defense was bland.

Snyder had  started at middle linebacker for the Super Bowl Champion Pittsburgh Steelers during a stellar NFL career and therefore was quite qualified to render such judgements never played a down of foootball at any level in his life but still felt qualified to render such judgements.

From the San Franciso Chronicle's telling of the Nolan/Snyder ice cream tale, which has been told a billion times but not enough:

"It happened twice," Nolan said of the ice cream deliveries. The first time, rapidly defrosting gallons of extravagant flavors were placed outside Nolan's office door with a note saying, "No more vanilla."

"I wrote him a note, saying that my kids would enjoy the ice cream and that the advice was well taken," Nolan said. "(I was) thinking he was kidding. Then I found out he wasn't kidding."

When Nolan stayed conservative with his defenses, Snyder went industrial. Nolan showed up one day to find a hand cart parked at his desk with melting 5-gallon drums of ice cream.

Fast forward to 2009...From an AP story that appeared on washingtonpost.com yesterday titled "Once dismal Broncos defense thriving under Nolan," a different image of Nolan's abilities as a manager of men emerges. As in this quote: "In this defense, I see pride, I see hunger, I see a battle for respect," linebacker Mario Haggan said.

Has anybody said any of those things about this year's Redskins? Well, when I look at Albert Haynesworth, I guess I do see hunger. But that's another story.

Denver's 4-0, and Nolan's defense is given as the reason. The Skins play Denver at Denver FedExField on Nov. 15.

Gregg Williams is doing ok, too. Dan Snyder rejected and humiliated Williams after a Gitmo-esque interview process that had the Skins former defensive coordinator shacking up at Snyder's Potomac mansion, the one with a good view of the River. No sensible explanation was ever given for bypassing Williams for Jim Zorn as head coach.

(My fave rumor out of Redskins Park, still being told, has Williams getting blackballed as head coach by Joe Gibbs because he wasn't godly enough, which would explain why Snyder ended up with Zorn, who appends a biblical proverb  to every autograph. Geezus Chrysler!)

But Williams is now with 4-0 New Orleans, and is getting a lot of kudos for the undefeatedness of his team. Michael Wilbon, who has taken to putting Williams' name in his columns about as often as Charles Barkley's or Michael Jordan's, credited the defensive coordinator with Sunday's big win over the previously undefeated Jets in a Tuesday story:

Okay, we knew the New Orleans offense was great, but how about Gregg Williams's defense? Yes, Gregg Williams. That guy. Getting it done. The Saints harassed the Jets all over the field and forced Mark Sanchez into some killer INTs.

Skins play New Orleans at home on Dec. 6.

Norv Turner ain't doing that great. Turner, the last head coach Snyder fired midseason, has his Chargers at 2-2. But San Diego's .500 seems a helluva lot stronger than the Skins' .500.

Washington plays at San Diego on the last weekend of the season in what will surely be a meaningless game for at least one of the teams.

***

Major League Baseball's playoff series are all on as of today. But Nationals Park is always available in October. So a literacy group decided to book the big room today to try to get publicity.

This morning, a crowd in the hundreds, or what a typical Nationals/Marlins game would draw, was expected to show up for "Read for the Record," which organizers claim will be an attempt to set the record for "largest one-day shared reading experience ever." Representatives from the Nationals, including Stan Kasten, did some reading.

The book everyone will be sharing is called "The Very Hungry Caterpillar." Too bad Dmitri Young wasn't around for this one.

***

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Bottom line: Cheap Seats Daily's hype of Dim WitsGate™ is validated!

From all the hate going Henson's way on Sunday's postgame shows on local sportstalk stations, I was certain this was going to develop into the biggest Redskins controversy ever generated by an inactive linebacker using new media. Or at least one of the biggest Redskins controversies ever generated by an inactive linebacker using new media.

And now it's on the front page!

Also, it's always nice to see former longtime DC resident the Great Dan Steinberg, the Woodward & Bernstein of Dim WitsGate™, on A1.

(Full disclosure: I still have my 35-year-old "Nixon Resigns" issue of the Washington Post in my paperboy bag in the basement. I'll get 'em out for Halloween. Hence the "-Gate" fetish...)

***

There they go again. Dan Snyder is using his web site to go to war with the Washington Post.

(AFTER THE JUMP: Is Henson being used to take heat off the real Redskins villains? Pravda's Ashburn bureau strikes again? How would you copy-edit multiple Twitters? Leonard Shapiro now using out-of-town newspapers to blast Dan Snyder? The NFL's blackout policy is as big a sham as the Skins waiting list?)

"Robert Henson did not get on the field on Sunday," read the faux news article written by Skins PR man Gary Fitzgerald and posted yesterday on Redskins.com, "but somehow he’s the talk of the town and strangely enough he’s a big headline in The Washington Post...Henson’s apologies on Twitter and in his Monday media session--as well as Zorn's comments on the young linebacker--were not fully included in a Tuesday story in The Washington Post. The article focused more on the mistake and not the contrition."

I pity the tool who had to put a byline on that.

If the organization hadn't already proven it can't do anything right PR-wise, I'd be wondering if this whole Post-bashing exercise wasn't a ploy to deflect the media's attention away from Jim Zorn, Dan Snyder, Jason Campbell, Vinny Cerrato, and the parking and tailgating fiasco at FedExField.

They'd all be getting more play, and taking a bigger beating, if Henson wasn't all thumbs.

***

For those not obsessed with the Redskins off-field soap opera, Steinberg's A1 story had an interesting copy-editing situation, if that ain't oxymoronical. Here's how some of Robert Henson's Twitter ramblings appeared in the Post:

"No I didn't play but I still made more than you in a year and you'd [gladly] switch spots with me in a second," Henson wrote during a string of responses. "I was talking to the fans [who] said the crazy stuff, I'm use [to heckling] but I've never been booed in my own stadium. Again that was for the half hearted but if everyone wants to jump in come on. The question is who are you to say you know what's best for the team and you work 9 to 5 at Mcdonalds [sic]. You don't wanna follow me anymore then fine but we play for you and win lose or draw we represent you!! My guy on the Rams said they never got booed even when they didn't win a game."

That paragraph was made up of more than one of Henson's Twitters, yet was treated as a single quote.

I've never come across this situation before, and I'm guessing AP Style hasn't yet weighed in on how to treat multiple Twitters. So this is a time for Post copy editors to leave a lasting mark on their craft. I'm going to have to stare at my WWABD bracelet ("What Would Andrew Beaujon Do?") before I decide if this is correct copyediting or not.

***

Leonard Shapiro had to go to Miami to run this story blasting Dan Snyder as the worst owner in the NFL. I can't find it locally. Why didn't the Washington Post run it?

***

Now that everybody but the crazies accepts that Dan Snyder's season tickets waiting list is bogus and has been bogus for years, I wish somebody would expose the NFL's blackout policy as a similar fraud.

All you need to know: The Skins home games ain't sold out -- the team was selling general admission tickets for the Rams game through email blasts all week -- yet the games are on TV.

Case closed. Shut up.

Obviously, the NFL owners have as much motivation to enforce the blackout rule as they do to enforce the steroids prohibition.

Oh, right: Only baseball players and cyclists are dopers!

***

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Robert Henson is in a bad place right now. The Skins sub-benchwarmer used Twitter to go after home fans for booing at the game, and cast the disgruntled masses in the stands as "dim wits" and folks who "work 9 to 5 at mcdonalds."

Henson, who wasn't even on the active roster for the game, went from unknown to reviled in a matter of keystrokes.

When I first heard of Henson's comments during the postgame shows -- WJFK gave a running account of the naive blasts --  I was sure somebody hijacked his twitter account. Unfortunately for him, it looks like nobody did. Henson's twittering later claimed he went after the fans only because he had things thrown at him.

Nobody's buying it.

From the sound of things, this could be a deal breaker between the rookie and the fans, at least those that really are dim wits or really do work 9 to 5 at mcdonalds.

In any case, Jim Zorn and Jason Campbell should buy Henson a meal before he leaves town. Henson is going to take a whole lot of heat that woulda gone their way today.

Some writers also expressed befuddlement over the crowd's behavior. Like Henson, writers don't pay to get into the games.

(AFTER THE JUMP: Snyder's the root of all booing? Jim Zorn: Read My Lips? Sonny Jurgensen vs. Jim Zorn, Round II? Juwan Howard is still in the NBA? How much would you pay for Juwan Howard's pants? The Nats are on the entrance ramp for the Road to 100 Losses?)

***

The discord in the grandstands trickled down all over the place. Some posters on the Dan Snyder-owned message board, extremeskins.com, and callers to the postgame show on the non-Dan Snyder owned WJFK, explained that the noise was at its core about dissatisfaction with management.

I agree, especially after hearing one angry lady call WJFK to rail against Snyder, telling host Chad Dukes about showing up at FedExField with her family and having her son's water bottle confiscated at the gate.

"We paid $500 for the tickets!" she huffed at the beginning of a long tirade.

It is amazing that so many people still pay that sort of money to be treated as Snyder treats them. And we haven't even talked about how the new parking rules worked out, Lexus lanes and all...

***

After the Rams game, I will no longer wonder why coaches hold pieces of paper in front of their faces while calling plays. When the Redskins had second and goal in the third quarter, the Fox-TV cameras showed Zorn on the sidelines and I clearly read his lips: "20 draw," he said, then a couple more sentences with "draw" in 'em.

The Skins then ran a draw play that everybody else sniffed out, too. It went nowhere.

I was typing when Fox went right back to the same shot of Zorn on the sidelines, so I couldn't read his lips while he was making the call that will come up in his exit meeting with Dan Snyder: an option pass from Portis on third and goal. Boooooooooo!

If I ran a team, I might hire a smart kid from Gallaudet and give him a pair of binoculars on game day and see what happens. Bill Belichick's probably already done it.

***

For the second week in a row, the postgame interview between Sonny Jurgensen and Jim Zorn was way more entertaining, and had harder hitting, than the game.

Sonny started off telling Zorn if he were quarterback he'd have called a timeout rather than run that option pass to Portis, because coaches only call that play in that situation if  they have no faith in their quarterback.

"Then I take you out of the game," Zorn snipped to the Skins legend.

If I had to bet, I'd say, as the great Keith Jackson used to say during every big game he broadcast, "These two just plain don't like each other."

Sonny also got into Chris Cooley's craw on the air about the offense's non-production. Smart money says this has gotta be Sonny's last year in the booth, and he's going out on fire.

***

Juwan Howard lives to cash another paycheck: The former Bullet has just signed a one-year deal with the Portland Trail Blazers.

Howard was the oddest case of the many underachievers who took Abe Pollin's money in the 1990s. He was beloved when he came here from Michigan, before a holdout and some DUI arrests and getting in trouble hanging out with Chris Webber.

Portland is his seventh team. Blazers General Manager Kevin Pritchard said Howard brings in said the forward will bring a "wealth of experience." A wealth of wealth, too: The guy's gonna put in 16 years in the NBA! Around here, Howard is regarded as a bust, but, again: 16 years!

I passed up a chance to buy a pair of Juwan Howard's Bullets used warmup pants for $12 at some charity auction years and years ago because they wouldn't fit. They still wouldn't fit, but I'd pay $12 for 'em today.

***
The Nationals are cruising on the Road to 100 Losses: The Mets take another at federally funded Citi Field, leaving our boys just 2 defeats away from triple-digits.

The latest loss brought a milestone: It guaranteed the Nats last place in the Eastern Division...again. We'll have to wait a week or so before the team also locks up National League and Major League worst honors.

***

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