I think the Redskins did something right. God knows what kind of drills Zorny was running that knocked out two DEs the first practice of two-a-days but it happened. (By the way, Smoot got hurt as well and Rodgers is still recovering and I'd be suprised to see startes at CB against the Giants 44 days from now.) But, all the negativity goes away for a day or so. Injuries are part of football. When people say stuff like "well, the Pats would have won it all if Brady wasn't injured in the Super Bowl" I think they are stupid. Injuries are a part of any sport and are emphasized in football. You have 325 plus pound guys banging into each other as hard as they possibly can. An ACL might go out from time to time, which is a mess for the player, but never should be for the team they play for.
The reason is because injuries happen all of the time. If you haven't gotten some depth along the defensive line and two DEs go down, all of a sudden you are in serious trouble. The first day of training camp. Yes the Skins got this guy from the Vikings for a pick but guess what, he is injured and isn't practicing. I still stand behind the fact that the Skins should have gotten some guys to bolster both lines in the draft. They didn't and the first day of camp it bit them directly in the butt. But for once, for once, I think they came through. I thought the big trade would bring us Favre and his West Coast O expertise, but the Jason Taylor pickup was somewhat brilliant. As much crap as I might want to give Cerrato from time to time he looked at what happened the first day of camp and reacted. Young Danny boy is in the draft war room with him, and I am sure helped to ignore the gaps in the D (and O) lines.
However, when bad went to worse, Cerrato actually took care of it. A second round pick seems like a hefty price to pay (on top of a sixth round pick two years from now that I could care less about.) But I would take the trade for a chance to contend this year, which would become even tougher with a more anemic pass rush than we had last year. If Cerrato looked at his team and saw this weakness and pulled off this deal after Daniels went down for the year, he is a genuis. Campbell is young. Everyone else is old. This is the year to make it happen with the team Gibbs put together, and I think Cerrato recognizes this. Getting it done in nine hours may not have happened but we will never know because the Skins are the only organization more secretive than the CIA in DC. Heck, we don't even know if Campbell has the whole playbook yet. Cerrato did a good job as long as this guy wants to play. If Taylor is still hungry, if he wants to prove Parcells wrong, if he wants to put a big ring on his finger, watch out.
It may be the sweltering heat that accompanies the Post's coverage of the Skins for at least three pages of the Sports section. Or it could be the fact that we can all go see the Skins work out, or it may be the fact that ESPN has a distraction from the Brett Favre reality show that runs all day every day, but I am ready to watch this team go. Everyone says that this trade means nothing and we will still finish last in the toughest division in football. I agree that its the toughest division in football, and I honestly have no idea if we will finish last. If Eli Manning can win the Super Bowl over the Pats, we can win the division or at least wild card it and knock off the division champs like the Giants did. We are the underdogs to straight out of the gate. I love proving everyone wrong, and hopefully everyone that throws on pads, holds a clipboard, dons a headseat, or tries to cover up a bad draft by making a quick brilliant trade real quick loves to prove people wrong as well. I thought the Skins would make a big trade for Favre, but Taylor is even better.
The Skins need to be scrappy but there is a team that was even scrappier this weekend. How the hell did they put up 15 runs on Sunday? The offense came alive all of a sudden playing the Braves and it was nice. Their fans stole the tomahawk chop from FSU but couldn't get their team to get an easy sweep, much less a series win against the lowly Nats. The Nats are so hurt it is almost a joke. If I were the Lerners or Bowden I would fire the trainer who is in charge of trying to keep these guys healthy. I don't know if there even is a guy who has that job. But I would fire the guy whose job description comes closest to that. Every single position's starter has been put on the DL at some point during the season, most of whom for a long time, so if there is a guy to keep the Nats healthy he sucks. Paul Lo D Duca , of catching and steroids fame is our 1B. D. Young is going on the DL for diabetes. Wilford Brimley has that and he is still doing okay, so are we the unluckiest team ever or does Mr. Brimley have better trainers than the Nattos? However, the guys that should be playing triple A are playing scrappy baseball, not even needing to dig it out, but putting up fifteen. 15! Willie Harris reached base 5 times on Sunday. If these guys can make some type of weirdo run towards .500 it will make watching the first half of the season almost worth it. It would be nice if the all-star break and the Taylor aquisition bring a big chip to every DC athlete's shoulders. I think we might need it.
Tuesday, July 22, 2008
Thursday, July 10, 2008
There's Something about Favre
So Brett Favre sent a letter to the Packers requesting an unconditional release today if the team doesn't want him. When the GM of your team doesn't return your calls because he is on vacation despite the fact that you are probably the greatest player ever for a storied franchise, it becomes pretty apparent they don't want you. So the Pack finds themselves in quite a pickle. You see, both the Bears and the Vikings need a QB badly, and if Favre plays like he played last year, they could wrestle the NFC Central crown away from Green Bay. The Vikings might even challenge for the entire NFC title, which the Pack must feel is within reach. Favre won't want to languish in Miami; Parcells will get that team up and running but it is going to take a few years; Favre doesn't have that. Maybe the Ravens, but they are chaotic as well. Jets? Same story as the Dolphins. When Favre applies to the league for reinstatement, the Pack has 24 hours to decide if they will put him on their active roster before he hits waivers. Who would make that kind of impulse buy?
Oh yeah, young Danny boy who makes more impulse buys than a tabloid reader. Heck, Bruce Smith in his twilight despite the fact that he teed up on every play like it was a pass, even if it was 3rd and one, Deion Sanders in his twilight despite the fact that he is Deion Sanders, and even Jeff George who never saw a twilight because because he never really saw the light; all signed by Danny boy. Flippin' Jeff George, who only got his starting job because Danny forced it on the coaches, resulting in Skins fans getting to watch Brad Johnson win a Super Bowl against Rich Gannon, another ex-Skin. If you think for one moment that Danny boy hasn't been on the phone with Green Bay today, you haven't been following the Skins since '99. Snyder is savvy in the way that the nerdy guy you cheated off of in algebra class in high school was. Not savvy enough to not get beat up in the schoolyard, but savvy enough to let you cheat off him in algebra, lest he see you in the schoolyard. Jersey sales would probably go through the wall for 80 to 200 bucks a pop, and we would just be renting Favre for a year.
Here is why it won't happen. It might actually make sense. I love Jason Campbell and I think we are going to see some great games with him at the helm. However, he is coming off a knee injury, and he is supposed to be a mobile QB. Guess who likes to take off from time to time and hasn't missed a game in a long long time. Campbell excels at throwing it up but struggles at the short throws, which makes no sense in a West Coast offense where the 5 to 7 yard throws are quitessential. That is why hiring Zorn makes no sense but, guess who went to two Super Bowls in the West Coast offense with Mike Holmgren's west coast O. Guess who our new head/qb coach was under in Seattle before he came here and installed the same offense with the Skins. Guess what team is actually pretty old, and could use an old guy at the helm to push for one last Lombardi run. Most of the O-line is hovering around 30, our defense isn't much younger, Portis is in his twenties but Adrian Peterson proved that no matter how great you are, rookies get banged up at RB, and a lot of the Skins backups are products of having no draft picks or wasting them. If you answered anything other than Favre or Redskins to any of the "guess" questions you are fired. Seeing a four in the burgandy and gold might not be too bad. The team line would be "the starting job is open going into camp" and I hope that can be said honestly. This might actually be the right superstar sigining. Let's see if Snyder is smart enough to grab the bull by the horns. It'll make the headlines that he so constantly craves; at the same time, maybe it can give us a run.
Oh yeah, young Danny boy who makes more impulse buys than a tabloid reader. Heck, Bruce Smith in his twilight despite the fact that he teed up on every play like it was a pass, even if it was 3rd and one, Deion Sanders in his twilight despite the fact that he is Deion Sanders, and even Jeff George who never saw a twilight because because he never really saw the light; all signed by Danny boy. Flippin' Jeff George, who only got his starting job because Danny forced it on the coaches, resulting in Skins fans getting to watch Brad Johnson win a Super Bowl against Rich Gannon, another ex-Skin. If you think for one moment that Danny boy hasn't been on the phone with Green Bay today, you haven't been following the Skins since '99. Snyder is savvy in the way that the nerdy guy you cheated off of in algebra class in high school was. Not savvy enough to not get beat up in the schoolyard, but savvy enough to let you cheat off him in algebra, lest he see you in the schoolyard. Jersey sales would probably go through the wall for 80 to 200 bucks a pop, and we would just be renting Favre for a year.
Here is why it won't happen. It might actually make sense. I love Jason Campbell and I think we are going to see some great games with him at the helm. However, he is coming off a knee injury, and he is supposed to be a mobile QB. Guess who likes to take off from time to time and hasn't missed a game in a long long time. Campbell excels at throwing it up but struggles at the short throws, which makes no sense in a West Coast offense where the 5 to 7 yard throws are quitessential. That is why hiring Zorn makes no sense but, guess who went to two Super Bowls in the West Coast offense with Mike Holmgren's west coast O. Guess who our new head/qb coach was under in Seattle before he came here and installed the same offense with the Skins. Guess what team is actually pretty old, and could use an old guy at the helm to push for one last Lombardi run. Most of the O-line is hovering around 30, our defense isn't much younger, Portis is in his twenties but Adrian Peterson proved that no matter how great you are, rookies get banged up at RB, and a lot of the Skins backups are products of having no draft picks or wasting them. If you answered anything other than Favre or Redskins to any of the "guess" questions you are fired. Seeing a four in the burgandy and gold might not be too bad. The team line would be "the starting job is open going into camp" and I hope that can be said honestly. This might actually be the right superstar sigining. Let's see if Snyder is smart enough to grab the bull by the horns. It'll make the headlines that he so constantly craves; at the same time, maybe it can give us a run.
Stand up and tune in
What are they doing in Kansas City? This was the toughest place in the world for an opposing team to come in and play football. Apparently, you can't stand up there anymore. This has to be some kind of cruel joke. Larry Johnson pops by the pulling right guard, stiff arms the corner, and out-sprints the safety down the sideline sixty yards for the TD and Chiefs fans can't stand up and cheer for it? Or maybe even see it if you have the occasional watermelon-head that every sports fan seems to sit behind a little more often than they would like in front of you? I really don't care about the average KC fan. The only time I watch them is if they are playing the Raiders and that is if the Skins aren't on and the lawn doesn't need raked. I'm worried about the average fan. If they can do this in Arrowhead, which is supposed to be the toughest stadium in the league, they can do this anywhere.
The way Snyder manages this team, the Skins are the most likely to be second in line to pick up the "no standing" rule. If that happens, you might as well stay at home and watch it on TV. I don't think that a football game is an ideal place to bring a kid under ten, and that is a shame.I remember being lucky enough at 7 or 8 to have my dad come across some tickets to go see the Skins at the impossible to see RFK a couple of times. It was awesome; I was a fan before but being able to see the burgandy and gold in person that young is probably what gets me through the Snyder era. I was even lucky enough to see us beat the Vikings in the NFC championship game to go face and eventually beat the Broncos in Super Bowl XXII. On the way out we watched a car burn in flames simply because it had Minnesota plates and a Vikings bumpersticker. There was no better way to demonstrate the absolute worst in sportsmanship. Not letting people stand up and cheer their team is not going to stop horseasses like the ones that burned that car. Stopping the overconsumption of alchohol will. I won't go so far as to say that beer should stop being sold at the games, but should we really open up the parking lots at 9 AM so the drunks can get started? How about the reasonable fans saying something when a guy gets a little out of line. How about the ushers at Fedex not waiting for the last possible moment to stop a problem when it could have been avoided? How about introducing family sections before not letting fans stand up? Even before family sections I got by being hoisted up on my dad's shoulders when the crowd got up for a big third and one. Family sections work at different ballparks and hockey arenas around the country and seem like a simpler solution to fan misbehavior. Let the true fans, the average joe blue collar, still be able to stand up when Moss hauls in a long bomb for the TD. I may be overreacting, but from sky-high ticket prices, to obstructed view seats, to the field-side nightmare seats, to even trying to shut down the Metro, Snyder has done everything to screw over the average Skins fan. I just don't put doing something as crazy as the folks out in KC are doing now past Danny boy either.
Perhaps because the aforementioned Snyder bought up all the sports radio stations around the area and bombards us with Skins coverage, suprise, no one wants to watch the Nationals. You can't get any good Caps or Nats coverage on the radio, but apparently the Nats coverage on TV doesn't quite cut it either. MASN stinks, but I didn't know it was this bad. Nationals Park averages 30,000 fans a game on average, about 9,000 tune in to MASN. That is mind-boggling, I don't know how that is possible. Not being able to see it in HD doesn't help. It isn't that MASN doesn't have HD capability, it is that they use all of it on the Orioles. Oh yeah, the Orioles also own MASN. Or if you are sitting in front of a bartender kind enough to change the channel over to the Nats for you, you better hope they have the same cable provider as you. If you have Comcast, do you know what channels MASN2 is on Cox or Direct TV? How about vice versa? After these numbers came out in the Post this week Stan Kasten, President of the Nats, said he could care less about MASN's numbers. He gets a check from them regardless of numbers, and then he spends it on players. (Or maybe doesn't at all as evidenced by the last few years.) Maybe Selig should have taken his last chance to stand up for DC baseball and given them the right to decide who was going to broadcast their games, not some guy in Baltimore.
The Nats do need a marquee player to get people excited to watch baseball. Zimmerman can't do it all, especially when he is banged up and riding pine. There is nothing we can do about it this year. So in the meantime, lets pull up the young guys. We can't do any worse than worst in the league and that's where we are right now. Let the young guys do it for us, or heck, maybe they might even succeed and we don't have to finish dead last. Last night's 5-0 win was great. Who were the heroes? Lannan, who wasn't even supposed to be up here this year but is by far and away our best starting pitcher and pitched 6 innings of shutout ball. Jesus Flowers, also not supposed to see the bigs this year, who came up to pinch hit and blasted a 3 run homer to clinch the game. I know that Nieves has played a huge part in Lannan's developement, but Flores will be a long-term Nat along with Lannan. Why is he pinch-hitting when he is hovering around .270 and has the knack for clutch hitting. Bring the young guys who are going to be Nats for a while up and lets see what they can do. Maybe they fall flat on their faces. The franchise is last in the league because of injuries, we have mud up to our ears. Even if we sink further at least it will be less money for the Lerners to buy the TV rights to their own team and thus more to get a decent free agent for a couple of years. Or maybe we just let that SOB Angelos sleep in the bed he made for a little longer. Either way, can't wait to see the game tonight!
The way Snyder manages this team, the Skins are the most likely to be second in line to pick up the "no standing" rule. If that happens, you might as well stay at home and watch it on TV. I don't think that a football game is an ideal place to bring a kid under ten, and that is a shame.I remember being lucky enough at 7 or 8 to have my dad come across some tickets to go see the Skins at the impossible to see RFK a couple of times. It was awesome; I was a fan before but being able to see the burgandy and gold in person that young is probably what gets me through the Snyder era. I was even lucky enough to see us beat the Vikings in the NFC championship game to go face and eventually beat the Broncos in Super Bowl XXII. On the way out we watched a car burn in flames simply because it had Minnesota plates and a Vikings bumpersticker. There was no better way to demonstrate the absolute worst in sportsmanship. Not letting people stand up and cheer their team is not going to stop horseasses like the ones that burned that car. Stopping the overconsumption of alchohol will. I won't go so far as to say that beer should stop being sold at the games, but should we really open up the parking lots at 9 AM so the drunks can get started? How about the reasonable fans saying something when a guy gets a little out of line. How about the ushers at Fedex not waiting for the last possible moment to stop a problem when it could have been avoided? How about introducing family sections before not letting fans stand up? Even before family sections I got by being hoisted up on my dad's shoulders when the crowd got up for a big third and one. Family sections work at different ballparks and hockey arenas around the country and seem like a simpler solution to fan misbehavior. Let the true fans, the average joe blue collar, still be able to stand up when Moss hauls in a long bomb for the TD. I may be overreacting, but from sky-high ticket prices, to obstructed view seats, to the field-side nightmare seats, to even trying to shut down the Metro, Snyder has done everything to screw over the average Skins fan. I just don't put doing something as crazy as the folks out in KC are doing now past Danny boy either.
Perhaps because the aforementioned Snyder bought up all the sports radio stations around the area and bombards us with Skins coverage, suprise, no one wants to watch the Nationals. You can't get any good Caps or Nats coverage on the radio, but apparently the Nats coverage on TV doesn't quite cut it either. MASN stinks, but I didn't know it was this bad. Nationals Park averages 30,000 fans a game on average, about 9,000 tune in to MASN. That is mind-boggling, I don't know how that is possible. Not being able to see it in HD doesn't help. It isn't that MASN doesn't have HD capability, it is that they use all of it on the Orioles. Oh yeah, the Orioles also own MASN. Or if you are sitting in front of a bartender kind enough to change the channel over to the Nats for you, you better hope they have the same cable provider as you. If you have Comcast, do you know what channels MASN2 is on Cox or Direct TV? How about vice versa? After these numbers came out in the Post this week Stan Kasten, President of the Nats, said he could care less about MASN's numbers. He gets a check from them regardless of numbers, and then he spends it on players. (Or maybe doesn't at all as evidenced by the last few years.) Maybe Selig should have taken his last chance to stand up for DC baseball and given them the right to decide who was going to broadcast their games, not some guy in Baltimore.
The Nats do need a marquee player to get people excited to watch baseball. Zimmerman can't do it all, especially when he is banged up and riding pine. There is nothing we can do about it this year. So in the meantime, lets pull up the young guys. We can't do any worse than worst in the league and that's where we are right now. Let the young guys do it for us, or heck, maybe they might even succeed and we don't have to finish dead last. Last night's 5-0 win was great. Who were the heroes? Lannan, who wasn't even supposed to be up here this year but is by far and away our best starting pitcher and pitched 6 innings of shutout ball. Jesus Flowers, also not supposed to see the bigs this year, who came up to pinch hit and blasted a 3 run homer to clinch the game. I know that Nieves has played a huge part in Lannan's developement, but Flores will be a long-term Nat along with Lannan. Why is he pinch-hitting when he is hovering around .270 and has the knack for clutch hitting. Bring the young guys who are going to be Nats for a while up and lets see what they can do. Maybe they fall flat on their faces. The franchise is last in the league because of injuries, we have mud up to our ears. Even if we sink further at least it will be less money for the Lerners to buy the TV rights to their own team and thus more to get a decent free agent for a couple of years. Or maybe we just let that SOB Angelos sleep in the bed he made for a little longer. Either way, can't wait to see the game tonight!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
