***

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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Hate to stomp on the weather beat that others at City Desk are already covering with gusto. But I'll stick to forecasts, and stay away from the retrocasting favored by the boss.

So, Sunday in Landover at kickoff: 47 degrees, rainy, winds 13 miles an hour from the north and 100 percent cloud cover. That used to be called "Redskins Weather!" around here. Now, it's called "You Can Get a Redskins Ticket for 17 Cents Weather!"

On a related note...

Redskins Ticket Watch: More than a thousand ads for Skins/Chiefs tickets on Craigslist this morning. Asking prices in just the first few listings I found went from "Way below face value!" to "Half Price!" to "75 percent off!" to "Make an offer!"

Face value's a pipe dream. Come to think of it, with 47 degrees and wet on the horizon, 17 cents might look like a windfall by kickoff. In any case, folks who intend to show up at FedExField might need to bring something to cover their heads from all the precipitation.

Like, bags or plates, maybe?

(AFTER THE JUMP: Vinny Cerrato is told it's the talent, stupid? Snyderatto = Rosie Ruiz? Snyder changed the copy in the cheerleader car wash contest AGAIN? Will the Great Dan Steinberg fall for the not-actual-cheerleaders picture bait AGAIN? Ronnie Mervis and Dan Snyder use the same advertising firm?)

***

Great Moments in Uncomfortable Radio: Randy Covitz, a beat writer for the Kansas City Star covering the Kansas City Chiefs, came on this morning's "Inside the Red Zone," the mystifying show hosted by Redskins personnel wizard/Six Flags investor Vinny Cerrato.

Cerrato was going over the problems that young head coach Todd Haley was having with his 0-5 Chiefs when Covitz blurted out: "We know it's not the coaching. It's the talent!"

We know that, Vinny? Right? A guy can't win without talent, for crissakes! We know that, Vinny? Right? So how come Jim Zorn's on the hottest seat?

On a related note: Washingtonpost.com's Dave Goldberg rates the Skins front office as the worst in the NFL.

***

Vinny Cerrato no longer takes phone calls from listeners on his show, as he did when then-new WTEM owner Dan Snyder gave the longtime sidekick the program early last season. 'Course, the Skins briefly had a winning record at that time.

Times have changed, alas. So Vinny has more airtime to fill all by himself.* He used much of it to today to counsel Redskins fans repeatedly that a football season "isn't a sprint, it's a marathon."

And Snyderatto's got just the role model for marathoning: Rosie Ruiz.

*I just discovered that The Great Steinographer transcribed almost every portion of Cerrato's show other than the KC interview and the marathon references. I mean, Cerrato's show goes off the air at 10:00 a.m. This latest load of Steinography was posted at 9:24 a.m. How big is Steinberg's staff? How many fingers does he have? How great is he?

***

Dan Snyder's Cheerleader Fetish Update: More toning down going on at the Washington Redskins cheerleader car wash.

For the unfamiliar: Dan Snyder's sportstalker WTEM recently launched a Redskins Cheerleader Car Wash contest, where cheerleader's will pick up a sponge and hand over their pride to somebody in the 25-54 year old male demographic that the station covets.

Cheap Seats Daily has written about the car wash as critically and as often as the Washington Post editorial board does Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. And Snyder has heard our roar. Or, well, he's tweaked the language in the ad campaign to make it less pervy.

First he removed the dudes and their pre-masturbation conversation that were featured in the original radio commercial for the contest. Now, he's also de-perved the copy in the online advertisements.

Original: “How would you like to see the Redskins take on the Cowboys? — AND have the Washington Redskins Cheerleaders soap up and scrub down your car???”

Tweaked: "How would you like to see the Redskins take on the Cowboys? – AND have the Washington Redskins Cheerleaders give your car a great SpongeTech wash???"

(Spongetech, a sudsy sponge manufacturer, is a sponsor of the contest, and a company that was recently kicked off the trading board by the Securities and Exchange Commission for allegedly shady accounting and disclosure practices. But that's not the yucky part.)

So cheerleaders no longer are on "soap up" and "scrub down" duties. They just have to "give your car" a wash. Different, yes, but still humiliating.

But how come Snyder won't let go of the picture of the cheerleaders all sudsy and rubbing down a car — though "not actual cheerleaders" were used for the photo shoot, according to a small-print caveat — that has been featured in the campaign?

Until he does, Cheap Seats Daily has no choice but to run that photo again! (Take that, TGDS!)

***

Something's fishy about the ongoing guerilla marketing campaign from Mervis Diamond Importers.

Ronnie Mervis has put himself out to unhappy football fans as the guy who can replace Dan Snyder as owner of the Washington Redskins.

There's so much rancor toward Snyder in this area, just by offering himself up, Mervis has brought an incredible amount of attention to himself and his jewelry firm. But it's sorta odd that Both Mervis and the Washington Redskins are listed as clients of the same advertising firm: ROI Advertising of Northern Virginia. Mervis is also a big advertiser on Snyder's sports station, WTEM.

Snyder's probably in on it.

***

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Above is an ad e-mailed out by the Redskins ticket office this week. As you read this, remember, for chuckles, that just a couple months ago Redskins executive Mitch Gershman was claiming in press releases that the team had a waiting list of "over 200,000."

Sure, the Skins waiting list has long been bogus. But this year it's also become apparent that the NFL's blackout rule is enforced as stringently as its steroids policy.

(AFTER THE BREAK: Where's Chris Cooley in that photo? Clinton Tortoise? Lord Farquaad? Lindsay Czarniak cheers on teams that don't pay her? Is the NY Times reporter on Dan Snyder's payroll, too? Another Have-Nots bowl this week?)

FedExField this Sunday would be a good place and time to test my theory that Dan Snyder has mucked up the Redskins every bit as much as he mucked up Six Flags.

Tickets to Skins games have been overpriced, based on demand, since FedExField opened. I've never been to a game there when tickets couldn't be had for far less than face value. I used to half-joke, based on experience, that if you simply held a $20 bill in the air in the stadium parking lot on game day you'd get mauled by folks trying to unload spare tickets.

But, the bottom is about to fall out of the Skins ticket market, and that could happen this weekend with KC in town: Craigslist had 908 separate ads hawking Skins/Chiefs tickets posted when I checked late last night.

So: Six Flags stock, which sold for $11.92 shortly after Snyder took over the theme park chain in 2005, now goes for 17.2 cents.

I wonder if Skins tickets will be worth any more than that this weekend.

Anybody willing to sell Redskins tickets for 17.2 cents, please e-mail cheapseats@washcp.com.

***

Interesting thing about that photo the Redskins marketing department is using to move excess tickets this week: Two tight ends are up front, Todd Yoder and Fred Davis. But no Chris Cooley. Sort of like the box score to last weekend's game in Carolina.

Seriously, after spending the summer yelling "Look at me! Look at me!" and hoping to become the face of the franchise through any number of off-field stunts, Cooley's disappeared. Cooley had no catches on Sunday, and only showed up in the highlights because he had mimicked Santana Moss's silly first-down routine after a play.

Cooley's used up most of his attention-getting tricks by now, too. The guy's going to have to burn two cows or show two penises to get noticed.

Or, you know, catch some passes.

***

The Skins' lousy season has produced some giggle-friendly new nicknames. Among them:

"Clinton Tortoise," attributed to WTEM hosts Andy Pollin and Steve Czaban; "Albert Buttersworth," all over sports radio; and, the clubhouse leader by several strokes, "Lord Farquaad," for Dan Snyder, which I first saw two weeks ago on Snyder's own message board, ExtremeSkins.com, and has since caught fire.

Damn, that's funny.

***

The New York Times has been writing a lot about the Redskins these days. The Times' coverage of the Dan Snyder administration is very different from the Washington Post coverage.

While the Post and Snyder go at it behind the scenes and in print, the Times' Skins stories, all from reporter Judy Battista, have sometimes been fawning.

Sometimes, they're just plain fictional. (Double-dare you to match the headline with anything in the story!) Battista referenced that latter story, which insinuated for no apparent reason and with no evidence to support the insinuation that ex-Skins GM Charley Casserly was impressed by Dan Snyder's coolness this season, in one of her pieces this week, saying "Snyder was still feeling patient" a little more than two weeks ago."

Says who?

What is it with Times reporters named Judy getting snowed when they cover D.C. matters?

***

Lindsay Czarniak led off her sports report on WRC-TV's 11 o'clock newscast last night with an incredibly enthusiastic segment on the Wizards three-point win over Detroit, pumping up Gilbert Arenas' stats and Flip Saunders revenge. I'd never seen such fervor for a preseason NBA game.

The excitement was catchy, and seemed totally genuine: Czarniak works for Dan Snyder, but not Abe Pollin, and so she wasn't wearing any Wizards' gear as she gushed.

If you follow sports in Washington, I guess preseason is the best time to get excited, before hopes and dreams get crushed.

***

Update on the Road to 11 Losses: We now know there will be no 0-11 season in local high school football.

Anacostia's chance at having the losingest year in D.C. high school football history got waylaid last Friday, as the Indians beat Eastern 36-0 in a matchup of really down programs.

Anacostia, which went into the game 0-6, has scheduled 11 games this year, one more than the standard 10-game season, and far as I can tell, no D.C. school has ever had an 0-11 record. But Anacostia just couldn't find a way to lose to Eastern, which didn't have a football team at all last year because of a lack of players, and so far is 0-4 in the 2009 season.

Eastern, which only has 8 games listed on its schedule, now has its biggest game of the year this Friday when it hosts Spingarn in the latest Have-Nots Bowl: Together, Eastern and Spingarn have been outscored 397-19 and have an 0-9 record.

Somebody's gotta win!

***

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