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.

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

Why, yes, it is!

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

Why, yes, it is!

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

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

***

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

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

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

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

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

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

That would be: Zero.

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

That's sayin' a lot.

***

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

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

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

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

***

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

***

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

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

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

***

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

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

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

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

From his web site:

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

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

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

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

***

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

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

***

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

***

David Alperin checks in with some more Dan Snyder weirdness.

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

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

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

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

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

When will the Douchewellian™ tactics cease?

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

***

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

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

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

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

***

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

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

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

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

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

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

***

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

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

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

Actually, I wonder if anybody will show up.

***

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

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

Why?

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

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

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

***

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

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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!

***

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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Here's the opening:

Sonny Jurgensen: You had one offensive touchdown...

Jim Zorn: Thank you.

Sonny Jurgensen: You've got to get into the end zone...

Jim Zorn: Yes.

Uh oh.

Dan Snyder and Jurgensen are cigar smoking buddies. Jurgensen wanted Jeff George. So it's a good bet that in private Snyder's getting everything the Redskins listening audience got from Jurgensen and then some.

(AFTER THE BREAK: Albert Haynesworth don't play that? Folks want to trade in Jim Zorn et al on something with less mileage? Even the all-news station is piling on? Snyder's dastardly deeds have trickled down to 'Bama? Everybody but the Washington Post thinks Michael Jordan's a jerk? ANOTHER blonde DC sportscaster?)

***

Watching Albert Haynesworth take a knee or lying down on the job for no obvious reason, I was reminded about what my hero Boudreaux said in 1999 about Dana Stubblefield, a defensive lineman who went from all-pro to narcoleptic bum after taking Haynesworth-like money from Snyder to come here from San Francisco. Boudreaux's words: “I can hear him saying [to Dan Snyder], ‘Football? You pay me $47 million…and you want me to play football? Mister, a man with that kind of money don’t play football!’"

Boudreaux is a genius.

***

Knowing what we now know, it's time to re-read Erik Wemple's pre-game insider analysis of what was going to take place in the Meadowlands. He nailed it.

Right?

***

The fans around here aren't happy with what they saw. Over at Dan Snyder's web site, extremeskins.com, one of the smarties proposed a "Coach for Clunkers" program, to trade in the same ol' coaches and players and give newbies a shot.

WTOP this morning offered listeners a chance to join the mob. "If you'd like to jump on the pile, call us!"

The only thing boring about the Redskins are the games!

***

What kind of flash point is Dan Snyder? Well, the Birmingham News ran a column about him as a pariah and a symbol of everything that's wrong with everything over the weekend.

The Birmingham News!

***

So Michael Jordan's still getting coddled by the Washington Post? Well, check out the write-up of Jordan's Hall of Fame speech that ran in Saturday's Post, and the write-up in Yahoo Sports.

The commenters to Michael Lee's Post story all echo the Yahoo version, which was basically that Jordan is a troubled meanie.

It got so bad that Michael Wilbon came in to try to soften the damage from the Yahoo piece a day later, with a column praising Jordan's bizarre bullying — he flew in a high school classmate to help make the old varsity coach look bad — for its "unvarnished" qualities.

Ok. In any case, after reading elsewhere about what a jerk he was, go watch this Jordan dunk over Patrick Ewing from back in the day. Still chilling after all these years. He wasn't human on the court, so why expect him to be humane off it?

And, Jordan ain't the only one holding grudges: Abe Pollin has never let go of the bitterness from his alliance with Jordan.

***

This is what diversity looks like: Former George Michael intern Lindsay Murphy joins Fox-5's Redskins wrap-up show, joining former George Michael protege Lindsay Czarniak on WRC and Sara Walsh at WUSA in DC's blonde sportscaster corps.

Get with the program, WJLA!

***

The Washington Post ran three photos of Woodson's win over Lake Braddock in the sports page on Saturday. The section named a Woodson player its star of the day. That's fine. As long as sports sections name high school stars of the day, there'll be a market for newspapers. (Really!)

But the other two shots had caption writers humiliating specific Lake Braddock players. One caption had the Lake Braddock QB throwing "an incompletion" and another photo of a Woodson running back as he "runs over" a Lake Braddock defender. Both Lake Braddock players were named in the captions for no good reason.

Whoever wrote these captions went out of his or her way to embarrass kids. This is the sports journalism equivalent of child abuse. Not nice!

***

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