That doesn't mean there's no reason for the burgundy and gold faithful to watch football this weekend, though. Just a short jaunt up the Baltimore-Washington Parkway, fans are preparing to cheer on their own team, as the Baltimore Ravens play the New England Patriots for the AFC title. The Ravens have been trying to lure cranky Redskins fans away for a while now; just in time for Sunday's matchup, Famous DC has posted a guide to jumping on the Baltimore bandwagon.

And in NFC action, the pride of Dunbar High School, Petworth native and Maryland grad Vernon Davis and his San Francisco 49ers teammates will take on the New York Giants (who the Redskins, inexplicably, beat twice this season). Here's a look, via Fox Sports Net, at Davis' D.C. days:

So a Super Bowl ring could still come to D.C. this winter, even if it's not on a Redskin's finger. And hey—maybe next year, they'll bring back Mark Rypien. He's only 49!

The site says it got the info about Dancel from "his father." That would be Bernie Dancel, the assistant coach and mega-benefactor of the Good Counsel football program. Zach has had a stellar career playing at Dancel Field, which opened last season at the Olney school and was built with donations from Bernie.

The Dancel family foundation, which has built YMCAs and contributed to hospital wards in Howard County, gives money away like it grows on trees, and much of the funds have been earmarked for Good Counsel football. The Dancels have also subsidized the tuition of several Good Counsel players, and paid for perks such as a team trip to San Diego.

According to Scouts.com, the New Mexico offer is the first Zach has received from an FBS (formerly known in NCAA parlance as "Division 1") program. Previously, he'd been wooed by Towson and Stony Brook.

New Mexico's program is led for now by Mike Locksley, who is in his second year as head coach at the school after making a name as one of the greatest recruiters in college football as an assistant at Maryland, Florida and Illinois. Locksley is a D.C. native, and he created a pipeline of gridiron talent from this area to whatever school employed him. Dunbar alums and future NFL'ers Vernon and Vontae Davis and Arrelious Benn went where he was.

Locksley's run out west has been disastrous. He was accused of sexual  discrimination by a university employee shortly after he was hired, then was accused of assaulting an assistant coach at a football meeting.

He's posted a 1-19 record thus far. So even if Dancel accepts the UNM offer, there's little chance Locksley will be around long to mentor him.

But, as of the Halloween season, there is job opening for Zach with the Lobos: New Mexico QB Brad Gruner just had season ending surgery after stabbing himself with a knife while carving a pumpkin. 

Locksley Recruits Vontae and Vernon Davis

For years it was agreed that nobody was a better college recruiter than D.C.'s own Mike Locksley. He was responsible for developing a pipeline of gridiron talent from the District to whatever school hired him as an assistant. Two examples: When Locksley was at Maryland, he landed Dunbar's Vernon Davis, now of the San Francisco 49ers. Davis recently signed a contract that made him the highest paid tight end in NFL history. And when Locksley moved over to the University of Illinois, he brought in Dunbar's Vontae Davis, Vernon's little brother and a future Miami Dolphins' first-round pick.

But after years atop the recruiting game as an assistant, Locksley was given his first head coaching job by the University of New Mexico before last season. And he's been a disaster. He had sexual discrimination suits and assault charges filed against him within his first few months at the school. A prize recruit from Coolidge was found to be ineligible, but not until after heading out to New Mexico to join the team.

And now he's in the middle of another brouhaha over whether he bullied a sports reporter for the Daily Lobo, the student newspaper, in a local bar after the kid wrote that the program was in "shambles."  (How many NCAA horror stories begin with "Coach walks into a bar..."?)

The school insists that no low blows were delivered by the Lobos coach during the encounter, but Locksley and New Mexico administrators made the situation much worse by obtaining the security video of the incident and then hiding it.

Still, as we learned from Bobby Knight, any and all misconduct of this sort would be fine, if only the Lobos could win now and then. But the Lobos are losing ugly. Last weekend's 56-14 trouncing by Utah put Locksley's squad at 0-3. The Lobos have been outscored 180-31. That puts Locksley's career record as a head coach at 1-14.

"Shambles" seems kind.

In the battle for celebrity endorsements, Mayor Adrian M. Fenty struck first, with a go-go concert celebrating his campaign. And now Council Chairman Vincent Gray is getting into the act, too.

Tonight, at Ozio, Gray will mingle with "young professionals" and NFL tight end Vernon Davis—a Dunbar graduate who also played basketball and competed in track and field, then went on to play three years at the University of Maryland—to raise money for his campaign. You, too, can talk about the San Francisco (and ask Davis if you should draft him this year in fantasy football) for a suggested donation of $25 or $50.

His powers will now face their greatest test: Locksley just took the head coaching job at New Mexico. Shortly after taking the job, Locksley landed two of the top prospects in DC's prep class of 2009: Coolidge’s heralded quarterback Emmanuel Yeager and the city's top receiver, also from Coolidge, Derrell Person. (However, Yeager, who went to three different high schools here and whose recruitment was marked by questions about his transcript, recently dropped off the New Mexico squad, citing family issues back in DC.)

So I ask Vontae, who was lured to Illinois by Locksley and thrived there, the question that every rival recruiter in college football has been wondering for years: What's Locksley's secret?

"It's no secret. He doesn't have a secret," says Vontae, a No. 1 pick of the Miami Dolphins in this year's NFL draft. "He's a DC guy, and he makes DC guys feel comfortable with him. He won't tell you anything he doesn't mean." (The Chicago Sun-Times reported that Locksley's salary of $479,233 while with the Illini made him one of the highest paid workers on the state’s payroll.)

Though Locksley's workplace is now two time zones and a world away from DC, the Davises remain convinced that he'll still work his recruiting magic — even in Albuquerque.

"Oh, he's going to bring talent that New Mexico has never seen before now," laughs Vontae. "Let me tell you that!"

You gonna argue with him?

Davis, a 6'3", 253-pound former University of Maryland star and now tight end with the San Francisco 49ers, has done his share to speed the city's transition away from hoop-centricity and toward the gridiron.

He and his little brother Vontae, a University of Illinois defensive back and recent first round pick of the Miami Dolphins in the 2009 NFL draft, grew up on Emerson Street in Petworth, and can now make a claim on being the best sibling athletes ever to come out of DC. Vernon, 25, and Vontae, 21, are only the third pair of brothers, behind the Mannings and the McDougles, ever to be chosen in the first round in NFL.

The Davises were back in their hometown over the weekend to run a free youth football clinic at their shared alma mater, Dunbar Senior High School.

"With the success of the guys coming out of DC, me being a high draft pick and then my brother being a number one pick, that's brought a lot of attention to the football here, to the talent and people all over respect that now," says Vernon. "I'm excited what DC has done with football, what's happening here now."

The athletic facilities here have never lived up to the talent level, both brothers told me. Vernon says he wasn't even the best athlete in his neighborhood growing up. But for reasons that by now just sound cliche, we'll never hear about the kids who had better tools. "Guys went in a different direction than I did, to the streets," he says.

Things have improved quite a bit in recent years around Petworth and on the city's football scene, however. The field at Dunbar has gone from dirt to artificial turf, the bubbled and worn out track surrounding the gridiron has been replaced, and the locker rooms and training facilities have been upgraded since the Davises toiled for the Crimson Tide.

But they're not complaining about the lot they were dealt."I was just talking about this with my brother, remembering the locker rooms, and how small the [Dunbar] workout room used to be," says Vernon. "But we were talking about how much we got done in those little spaces. We worked so hard, and we had the the coaches behind us. So it's not about the size of the room, it's about the work you put in, and the people, and we had incredible support from the people here."

"But I tell the guys there now: it's a blessing they have the facilities that we didn't have," adds Vontae. "Things were a lot rougher when we were here. The locker rooms, the field, all of it. But if we had the fields they've got, we probably would have been even faster than we were."

The Davises admit that their profession will keep them away from DC except for an occasional fall Sunday.

"I love DC," Vontae says. "But I'm moving to Miami to live. You can't beat that."

DC's own Vernon and Vontae Davis, the 3rd set of brothers ever to be drafted #1 in the NFL, will come home to put on a free youth football clinic this Saturday at their alma mater, Dunbar.

Along with being Exhibit A on how much gridiron talent can be found within the underappreciated DCIAA, the Davis brothers tale shows how valuable a great recruiter can be to a college program.

Both were wooed out of high school by Mike Locksley, a Ballou alum who for the last decade has controlled the flow of DC-area football talent the way the Corleone family once did olive oil.

Locksley landed Vernon, now a tight end with the San Francisco 49ers, while he was recruiting coordinator for Maryland. After a year at Florida, he moved to Illinois as offensive coordinator and brought Vontae (the top pick of the Miami Dolphins in the 2009 draft) and scads of other area phenoms (Eddie McGee, Arrelious Benn) to Champaign.

Locksley has now taken over the football program at New Mexico, his first head coaching job.

And early indications are the DC kids will keep going wherever he goes. Even to Albuquerque: Coolidge's heralded quarterback/receiver tandem of Emmanuel Yeager and Derrell Person committed to New Mexico after Locksley got the top job.

New Mexico!

The Davises camp is designed for kids 8 to 18 years old, and will run from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. Admission is free.

(BTW: the other sets of sibling first rounders are (obviously) the Mannings, Eli and Peyton, and (never heard of one of 'em) the McDougles, Jerome and Stockar.)