D.C. officials are paving the way for license plates that promote theWashington Redskins and eight other home teams, a quick-and-easy proposal intended to satisfy sports fans without sliding into a slew of offerings that have roiled political waters in various states.

A bill before the D.C. Council would allow city residents to opt for specialty tags that display a local team’s logo to the left of the plate numbers and retain the distinctive “Taxation Without Representation” message along the bottom.

The Department of Motor Vehicles has no objection to the sports plates but needs six months to implement the initiative once it passes into law, Director Lucinda Babers, told the Committee on the Environment, Public Works and Transportation on Tuesday

Currently, the District only offers three specialty plates to all drivers—one for the Anacostia River, and two for veterans. The Times says sports plates are safe and keep the District from sliding into "political" issues, but there are probably dozens of others that might be popular with residents. Considering how many black Greek organization plateholders there are on District roads, a "Divine 9" series would probably go over well. Plates for arts, schools, and neighborhoods, could also be pretty well-received.

What kind of specialty plate would you be interested in?

The story is part of a larger package built around a poll with a couple dozen questions about how area residents enjoy sports. Questions include things like what respondents' favorite teams are, how they follow their teams, and whether they bought team gear.

The conclusions weren't particularly surprising: D.C. is sort of lukewarm on sports. But the Post uses a heck of a lot of words to say that.

The survey was taken July 29-Aug. 29, which seems like a particularly long time to run a survey, but according to Post sports editor Matt Vita, "The poll was conducted by the Post's in-house polling department. I'm not a polling expert, but the method they used—they call it Addressed Based Sampling—-allowed for multiple mailings and calling times. As I understand it, this method just takes longer to complete."

And even though the poll was taken when some of the country's biggest sports—hockey, football, and basketball—were not in season, Vita says, "We asked questions about people's general interest levels, which don't tend to vary a lot by season."

Considering the paper already rolled out some of the poll questions a month ago, it's not entirely clear why it merited enormous real estate in the paper this week. But there was one tidbit that made the whole thing worth waiting for, in Sunday's spread. News luminary Luke Russert—son of the late Tim Russert, a Buffalo Bills fan—had this to say on the subject:

“Where do people find that inspiration, where do people find that yearning to believe in something bigger than themselves? In Buffalo, it’s the sport teams...Whereas in D.C., yeah, we root for our teams, but we’re much more defined by the brainpower in our city, the politics, the gentrification, the think tanks, the programs. In a town that has so much opportunity, the sports kind of get marginalized.”

Aha! It's the gentrification!

Photo by the malones via Flickr/Creative Commons Attribution Generic 2.0 License

Donovan the Viking: He arrived from Philadelphia amid so much hope and excitement. And then: A belly flop. Are we talking about Jayson Werth? No, silly—Donovan McNabb! The Redskins appear close to a deal to send last year's franchise savior to the Minnesota Vikings in exchange for a pair of sixth-round draft picks. We might settle for seventh-rounders if the Twins could take Werth as part of the bargain. +2

Walter Reed Joins the Navy: A sword that once belonged to Army physician Walter Reed—the guy who discovered that yellow fever was mosquito-borne—was officially handed by an Army general to a Navy admiral, symbolizing the official close of the century-old Georgia Avenue military hospital, and its partial transfer to the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda. Meanwhile, D.C. and the State Department may split the old campus, with plans for a supermarket and an embassy enclave among those under consideration. It's unclear whether Wegman's employees or foreign diplomats would ever get access to Dr. Reed's old sword. -1

Amnesty for Illegals: Illegal parkers, that is. D.C.'s Department of Motor Vehicles announced plans for an amnesty for ticket scofflaws: Folks with unpaid tickets written before this year can avoid penalties or points if they pay up in the next six months. There are more than 4 million unpaid tickets out there, totaling $245.7 million. Half of that is owed by drivers from Maryland or Virginia. +1

Bikeshare of the Now: 32 new Capital Bikeshare stations—that's 265 bikes—will soon grace D.C.'s neighborhoods. About a year after its inauguration, the popular system is expanding to accommodate demands from its users. And, bonus: 18 high-traffic stations that are frequently completely empty or full ("dockblocked") will get some relief with additional docks. A statement from DDOT Director Terry Bellamy boasts that this will "expand the program's capacity by 22 percent in the downtown area, by 80 percent in our East of the River operations and by an average of 38 percent throughout each of the additional Wards." +3

Yesterday's Needle rating: 39 Today's score: +5 Today's Needle rating: 44

Behold "The Chief Tank Top" available through Palace 5ive for $26.

The 14th Street NW shop, which markets boards to skateboarders and garments to folks who want to look like skateboarders, bills its  Native-American-in-shades design as a "slightly updated, slightly twisted version of the Redskin's logo."

And there's gotta be at least one guy out at Ashburn who would add "slightly perturbing" to that description, considering how protective he is of the brand.

Photo by Nick Barkley

I wrote that there's no quick fix for the damage caused by the quarterback's treatment short of the team brings back McNabb for another season or acquires Cam Newton. Then I attempted a joke saying if they might be able to solve things using next week's NFL draft to bring back Doug Williams.

So I giggled like the Pillsbury Doughboy last night when the Redskins announced that their special guest announcer at next week's NFL draft would be... Doug Williams!

Redskins spokesperson Tony Wyllie says via email that the McNabb situation and/or fan discontent about the QB's treatment didn't come into play in the team's selection of Williams as a guest representative on draft day. "Race was not a factor in the decision at all," Wyllie adds.

But Mark Gray, former host of The Sports Groove on WOL, would surely also get a giggle out of the Skins' PR move.

Before the Redskins had announced their invite to Williams, Gray told me that a good portion of his radio show's largely black audience over the years let him know they felt the franchise disrespected Williams when they dumped the first black QB ever to win a Super Bowl after the 1989 season to make room for Mark Rypien. (Awesome trivia: For all his local renown and postseason fantasticality, Williams' record as a regular season starter for the Redskins was 5-9, even though his entire stint with the team fell within the Gibbs I years, the most successful era in franchise history.)

“A lot of folks are still salty about the way Doug Williams got treated on his way out," Gray said.

The Redskins' handling of Williams' exit plays into the perception that race has played a part in the franchise's bungling of McNabb's benchings for Rex Grossman, Gray said.

Harold Bell, another longtime sportstalk host on WOL, hears from the same folks Gray does.

Bell says that until his benching and the soap opera that followed, McNabb hadn’t been particularly embraced by the “black community.” Bell thinks McNabb's non-confrontational public pose has allowed the Redskins to get away with what, to Bell, was essentially a public emasculation.

“Donovan McNabb’s all about corporate America,” Bell says. “He is more worried about his image than he is about having people respect him, or about getting the respect that he should have demanded from the Redskins. He’s also more worried about his Campbell Soup ads and his Bank One ads and his bank account.”

And while Cam Newton, barring the theft of Mel Kiper's laptop, won't be on the board when the Redskins pick, Bell's constituents would recommend that he play arena ball or the CFL rather than come here and let the team repeat the mistakes made with Williams and McNabb.

“I talk to people who would tell Cam Newton: 'Please stay away from here! Do NOT come to Washington! Go to Canada! Go anywhere but here!’" Bell said.

That's left the fans here and everywhere time to dwell on basketball, and hockey, and bitterness.

Here's a representative example of the latter, taken from a poster named Hail to Da Skins 21 on the Dan Snyder-owned Extremeskins, responding over the weekend to a thread that asked for comment on NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell's post-lockout open letter to the players/propaganda for the masses:

Both sides r dumb....Just get the damn CBA done !!!!! I already hate the players cause 98 percent have either beatin the redskins...sucked for the redskins ....or have played for dallas .....I hate the owners cause of Snyder......so no matter who says wut they wont win over this fan just get the CBA done.....

Reading between the ellipses of Hail to Da Skins 21's tirade, there's a message that should scare all the football folks no longer hanging out downtown and anybody who makes a buck off the local NFL franchise.

The NCAA Tournament's been a pretty good one so far, after all. D.C. United drew 18,000-plus and won big. And, damn, did the Caps look good on Friday in New Jersey...

In an altercation that left Washington Redskins player Brandon Banks with stitches—and his friend Christopher Nixon, with serious stab wounds—the buddy of the football player may have thrown the first punch, according to charging documents.

The court papers for Jason Dacosta Shorter, who has been charged with assault with a dangerous weapon, also say that police have obtained security footage that shows the blow-by-blow of the incident, which happened in front of the Park at Fourteenth nightclub at 920 14th Street NW, around 3 a.m. Saturday.

The argument, which reportedly began with a comment about the fact that Shorter was wearing white after Labor Day, took place as Shorter left the club. Court papers say there's video of Shorter pulling a knife and then hiding it behind his back as words flew. Nixon then allegedly punched Shorter. It wasn't clear from court papers whether the blow was dealt out of anger or in an effort to preempt a knife attack from Shorter.

By this point, Banks might have been trying to break things up, according to media reports. A bouncer also intervened, getting between the parties.

But Shorter allegedly "reached over" the bouncer to stab Nixon, according to the court documents. Nixon and Banks, the documents say, "then became engaged in a physical altercation in which defendant repeatedly stabbed" the football player and his friend.

Both men were later hospitalized: Banks with a stab wound to the abdomen, Nixon with multiple stabs to the face and upper body. Nixon is in critical condition; Banks' wounds were superficial.

Cops originally arrested Shorter on assault with the intent to kill, but prosecutors filed the lesser charge of assault with a deadly weapon. That Nixon initiated the physical part of the altercation could be a reason why the lesser charge was filed. William Miller, spokesman for the U.S. Attorney's office, says the office reviews every case in order to decide what charges will be first presented to the court. "In this case, the U.S. Attorney’s Office charged Mr. Shorter with assault with a dangerous weapon. Because the matter remains under investigation, we have no additional comment on the case."

As an interesting side-note, this is the kind of nightclub crime that prompts the city to impose an emergency closure of a spot like Park at Fourteenth. But Alcoholic Beverage Regulation Administration spokeswoman Cynthia Simms says it's unlikely that such a sanction is coming. Why? "The incident didn't happen inside the club," Simms says.  If it had, she says, the club would likely have been shut down for a period.

Though it doesn't face being closed, Park at Fourteenth will probably face an ABRA inquiry over the fact that Shorter, allegedly a patron of the establishment that night, had a weapon on him even though he would have gone through the club security.

Read below to see the charging documents.

Congestion Nation: Apparently traffic has gotten so bad that the Weather Channel has started covering it, as if it were a natural phenomenon like fog or a snowstorm. The network has a Thanksgiving travel rating up today, which ranks the southern portion of the Beltway the seventh-worst road in the nation this weekend. Friday, though, temperatures should warm up a little. -1

Okay, Fine, Touch My Junk: All the panic about how bad security lines would be at airports today turns out to have been in vain, as anecdotes and Twitter updates are pouring in from DCA, IAD, and BWI that everything's moving just fine. Which means if you're still on the way to the airport, you've got plenty of time to ask the the Transportation Security Administration to make out with you and still catch your flight! +2

Jobs Are Better Than Stuffing: A few years ago, it would have been tough to imagine treating word that D.C.'s unemployment rate was 9.7 percent as good news. But we go to war with the economy Wall Street and decades of deregulation have left us with, not the economy we might wish we had. Which means today's announcement—the fifth-straight month the unemployment rate has ticked down here—is actually something to welcome. The bad news, of course, is that lower unemployment most likely means more people have simply given up and stopped looking for work—thus rendering them officially invisible in labor statistics. Don't think for a minute any politicians will let that stop them from hailing the news, though. +2

Playoffs?: Hope springs eternal in the hearts of Redskins fans; we went to a Chuck Brown show one summer at which the late Lil' Benny led the crowd in a chant that the Skins were going to the Super Bowl, a few weeks before yet another losing season kicked off and only a few months after the losing season before that had ended. And so it's hardly surprising that at 5-5, the team has people talking about how it could make the playoffs. Such talk is the very definition of preposterous optimism, but hey, it's Thanksgiving. +1

Yesterday's Needle rating: 44 Today's score: +4 Thanksgiving bonus: +4 (we like turkey) Today's Needle rating: 52

Shootings Linked: When someone fired shots at the Pentagon last week, it seemed like a harmless enough incident; no one was hurt, after all. Now comes word the same weapon was used to shoot up the Marine Corps Museum and, possibly, a Marine recruiting center in Chantilly, and suddenly, what seemed like a prank—albeit a sick one—looks a lot more threatening. (Nota bene for the shooter: Like the Wu-Tang Clan, the U.S. Marine Corps is generally believed to be nothing to fuck with.) -3

Smoggy Days Are Here Again: Breathing in Washington can be complicated by any number of factors: heat and humidity, in the summertime; heat and humidity in the fall, too, thanks to global warming. And also, according to the National Resources Defense Council, horrible air quality. The group will release a list tomorrow that ranks D.C. among the "Filthy 15" worst cities in the nation for bad-air days. Philadelphia, New York, Houston, and Los Angeles also ranked high. Those are some of the biggest cities in the country; apparently we have enough hot air to make up for our relatively small size. -3

This Post Brought to You By Creative Loafing, Inc.: The Bowl Formerly Known As the EagleBank Bowl was in dire need of a new name, mostly because EagleBank has seen better days financially. So now RFK Stadium will play host to the "Military Bowl presented by Northrup Grumman." Which seems reasonable; the military, after all, is a major sponsor of Northrup Grumman, so why shouldn't the defense contracting firm give something back? The renaming fuss was good for one thing—it briefly reminded people that RFK Stadium hosts a college football bowl game. -2

DeAngelo Hall of Fame: The last time a Redskins player made four interceptions in one game before Sunday, it was Sammy Baugh—who was mostly famous for being a quarterback. Which shows you how long it's been. Which, in turn, explains why the Pro Football Hall of Fame wants the jersey DeAngelo Hall wore in the Skins victory over the Chicago Bears. Fortunately for the folks in Canton, Dan Snyder can afford to buy Hall a new one. +2

Yesterday's Needle rating: 54 Today's score: -6 Today's Needle rating: 48

Welcome to The Daily Show: If you suddenly feel like the air around town is somehow more ironic, it may not just be because of the hipster riding past you on a track bike. Jon Stewart has arrived in D.C., five days ahead of Saturday's Rally to Restore Sanity, to tape this week's Daily Show episodes from the Harman Center for the Arts in Chinatown. The guest tonight is Austan Goolsbee; his boss, Barack Obama, shows up on Wednesday. We assume the invitation for Washington City Paper editors to appear as a group on the show has simply been delayed in the mail. +3

Sweep-up Time: D.C. isn't anywhere near as rigid as New York in enforcing the alternate-side street parking rules designed to allow for regular street cleaning. That may be because we don't clean the streets as often. At any rate, street-sweeping will end this week until the winter, as the Department of Public Works switches to leaf cleanup mode. Which means, the weather notwithstanding, it is officially fall. +2

More Statements About Nothing: Maybe rural Virginia isn't Wale's base. The president of the University of Mary Washington, Rick Hurley, has apologized to Fredericksburg, Va., residents who were upset by profanity uttered by D.C.'s biggest rap star at a concert Saturday night. If the university had known Wale was so foul-mouthed, it would have put the concert inside, Hurley says. (Give him points for not saying he would have canceled it.) -1

Super Bowl Bound?: It took the Redskins 16 games to win four games last year. This year, they've done it in seven. The Skins beat the Chicago Bears, 17-14, in an error-filled game that should probably have resulted in the loser being shipped off to the Xtreme Football League. Might the team be motivated by our pessimistic preseason forecast of a 6-10 year? If so, we'll accept thanks for the inspiration in the form of Super Bowl tickets. +2

Friday's Needle rating: 48 Today's score: +6 Today's Needle rating: 54

© 2010 Michael W. Hicks

Sam Huff is the best reason to listen to Redskins radio broadcasts. The Hall of Fame linebacker and Redskins/Giant legend, who has been handling Skins games for about 30 years, has seemed wobbly in the booth for a while.

But by now that wobbliness has reached a level of consistency that makes the audience stay tuned so as not to miss whatever wackiness will come next.

He's thrown so much crazy stuff out there this year,  partners Larry Michael and Sonny Jurgensen have to be on clean-up alert whenever their beloved cohort's microphone is on. During an exhibition game against Baltimore, for example, the refs dropped a penalty flag as the Ravens offense was approaching the line of scrimmage.

"Its gotta be holding!" said Huff. Michael and Jurgensen pointed out the ball hadn't been snapped.

That's carried over to the real games. After Houston Texans' punter Matt Turk booted the ball into the end zone in overtime of yesterday's game, Huff offered: "Matt Turk....I think he used to play for the Giants."

"He played for the Redskins!" yelled Michael and Jurgensen.

"I knew the name from somewhere," said Huff.

And as placekicker Graham Gano lined up to attempt a long field goal to win in overtime, Huff took the opportunity to ask, "If he misses, do they call the game?"

Michael and Jurgensen told him: No, they keep playing.

Huff, who turns 76 next week, was made iconic by a 1960 CBS documentary called "The Violent World of Sam Huff," and played in just one overtime game during his career. But it's the most famous OT in NFL history: The 1958 championship game between the Baltimore Colts and his New York Giants.

He still thinks those rules are in place.

Because when Gano missed, Huff huffed: "Double overtime!"

A producer could be heard in the background explaining to Huff that there's no such thing as double overtime in the regular season. Bottom line: Awesome radio.

Photo by Darrow Montgomery

At least Dan Snyder's talking.

But some of Snyder's statements during his binge of recent interviews ring cliched and bogus.

Take, for example, this exchange between the owner and some of his PR staffers about Snyder's most recent big-bang offseason acquisition:

Q:With Donovan McNabb joining the team this year, looking back on your tenure as owner of the Redskins, is this the most confident you’ve been in a Redskins quarterback?

Snyder: “Sure. As owner, yes. As a fan, I was clearly confident in Sonny Jurgensen and the rest of the greats..."

Oh, really? Snyder is hoping these interviews will restore his fanboy bona fides, and every Redskins fan has to pledge allegiance to Sonny. But claiming that he was "confident in Sonny Jurgensen" is a little much.

Snyder is 44 years old. He says in the interview that he went to his first game as a six-year-old. (Snyder's not your typical dude, so let's forget the wackiness of a man in his middle ages recollecting being "clearly confident" in anything at such a young age.) Say he became a Redskins fan at the beginning of the 1971 season, when he was five years old. That means Dan Snyder the fan would never know Jurgensen as really anything more than a second-stringer.

Let's look at his stats: The Jurgensen of Dan Snyder's era of fandom had but 13 total starts from 1971-1974, his last four seasons in the NFL, and no more than four starts in any one of those seasons.

And Sonny threw only 19 TD passes (of a career total of 255) in that span, an average of less than five per year. Not exactly confidence-building numbers.

Then again, maybe Snyder's just trying to cash in on the reputation that Redskins fans have had since Babe Laufenberg for having more faith in the backup QB than the starter.

"Sales of these seats have been poor and thus we put our heads together to move inventory," writes Will Ober on his personal blog. "Our department was tasked with creating a television commercial as part of a new marketing campaign focusing on the new image of a revamped Redskins team and front office."

The not-yet-kickstarted TV campaign, as posted by Ober, features three folks — Bruce Allen (dubbed "The Architect" in the spots), Mike Shanahan ("The Leader"), and Donovan McNabb ("The Franchise Quarterback") — who will save the team and sell some tickets. That means the Skins' top three selling points heading into this year's training camp have one big thing in common: None of 'em were at last year's training camp.

Among the campaign's key catchphrases: "Redskins Club Seats: It's Everything The Ultimate Fan Could Want."

I'm no Georgetown grad student, but that strikes me as wrong. And not just because of its dubious accuracy. The "Club Seats"/"It's..." construction strikes me as lousy syntax.

Ain't "Club seats" plural? I mean, if it were me, I'd wouldn't say, "Redskins Club Seats: They Is Totally Overpriced!"; I'd say, "Redskins Club Seats: They Are Incredibly Overpriced!"

You bet I'd say that!

To end on a positive note, however: The campaign's use of the circled R and feather logo to replace the "Are" in another of the new catchphrases — "Are you in?" — looks brilliant.

Sure, that logo will only mean something to geezers who still hold the George Allen Era dear: It was last seen on Skins helmets in 1971, Allen's first year here as coach.

But that's the demographic Bruce Allen, George's son, has been soliciting ever since he got here.

The Redskins announced their training camp schedule yesterday: "MIKE SHANAHAN AND THE WASHINGTON REDSKINS TO OPEN REDSKINS TRAINING CAMP PRESENTED BY RE/MAX ON JULY 29" is how the press release is headlined.

"Mike Shanahan and the Washington Redskins" are opening camp? And not just "the Washington Redskins"? The head coach's name now comes before the team in official announcements?

There is no "I" in team; but there is in "Top Billing!"

Good for Shanny. But this name change could cause problems with the TV people. NBC will now have to bill the opening game as "Dallas Cowboys vs. Mike Shanahan and the Washington Redskins."

Though, to be fair to the new coach, there is precedent for moniker switches of this sort. Just not in football. This stuff happens all the time in pop music, when the lead singer's head gets too big. Like when the Supremes went to"Diana Ross and the Supremes"? (And who can't forget "Scandal featuring Patty Smyth"?)

And for all these years we thought John Elway was the Diva!

The "presented by Re/Max" portion of the camp announcement, meanwhile, is nauseating, but not surprising. I don't know if anybody's ever sold naming rights to a football practice before. But this is a Dan Snyder Production, after all. And Snyder sells more naming rights than Re/Max does three-bedroom ramblers. My fave: Snyder wasn't satisfied with just having a scoreboard on his game broadcasts, not without a commercial attached to it. So he went out and got a sponsor for the scoreboard. Then one sponsor wasn't enough. So to get the scores from around the league, listeners first had to put up with “The GMRI scoreboard brought to you by McDonald's Restaurants."

A commercial within a commercial! Brilliant!

Yeah, for all Snyder's talk about the Redskins tradition, you know he'd have his team's uniforms looking like a Nascar fender if he could get away with it.

Here's the full release, as posted on Snyder's web site:

MIKE SHANAHAN AND THE WASHINGTON REDSKINS TO OPEN REDSKINS TRAINING CAMP PRESENTED BY RE/MAX ON JULY 29

LOUDOUN COUNTY, VA – Head Coach Mike Shanahan will kick off his inaugural training camp with the Washington Redskins on Thursday, July 29, at Redskins Park in the heart of

Loudoun County, the team announced today. Fifteen practices will be open to the public, highlighted by Fan Appreciation Day on Saturday, August 7, at noon.

Before coming to training camp, Redskins fans should fill out their Training Camp Fan Invitation, which will be available on www.redskins.com beginning on July 6. Fans should print out the invitation and bring it with them when they visit Redskins Park.

The practices listed below are open to the public free of charge. Parking lots will open approximately 90 minutes prior to the scheduled start of practice and gates will open one hour prior to the start of each practice.

Thursday July 29 4:00 p.m. Practice

Friday July 30 8:30 a.m. Practice

Saturday July 31 8:30 a.m. Practice

Sunday August 1 8:30 a.m. Practice

Monday August 2 8:30 a.m. Practice

Tuesday August 3 8:30 a.m. Practice

Wednesday August 4 8:30 a.m. Practice

Thursday August 5 8:30 a.m. Practice

Saturday August 7 Fan Appreciation Day at Noon

Tuesday August 10 8:30 a.m. Practice

Wednesday August 11 8:30 a.m. Practice

Sunday August 15 Practice (TBD)

Monday August 16 8:30 a.m. Practice

Wednesday August 18 8:30 a.m. Practice

Thursday August 19 Practice (TBD) – Camp Breaks