We'll Miss You, Joe

On that day six years ago when Joe Gibbs announced his return to football, I couldn't have been more excited. And then I heard that Joe Bugel was coming back. There. Couldn't be more excited now. And then I saw Joe Bugel sit down with George Michael and Sonny Jurgensen and talk about his excitement and how he can't wait to get on the field and how he wanted to put on the pads right there and how he and Joe were going to reconquer the NFL. I had to pour myself a stiff drink and remind myself that training camp was still six months away.
Joe Bugel retired today. He leaves as a D.C. legend -- easily in my top three Redskins of all-time (along with his buddy Joe and Art Monk) -- who was every bit as integral to the championship teams of yesteryear and the mild successes of the second go-round as was Joe Gibbs.
When he stayed on after Gibbs left, it was exciting to have a link to the past still on the sidelines. If Jim Zorn really wanted to know what the team's colors were, he could have cut Bugel to see the burgundy and gold running through this veins. In a time when almost nothing resembled the past at Redskins Park, Bugel did.
Some said he might have done his best job coaching this year when the 'Skins had to start guys like D'Anthony Baptiste and Edwin Williams. But that's what Bugel did. He was a teacher. Chris Samuels was struggling in the years before Gibbs returned. When he worked with Bugel, he was back to Pro Bowl caliber. If not for injuries to those lines in 2005 and 2007, Gibbs 2.0 would be considered much more of a success than it is now.
But when Gibbs did leave, it sort of felt like Bugel was the widower who had taken a new wife. Oh, what he must have thought about Jim Zorn. But he never strayed and never badmouthed anyone and never complained. He was the trusted lieutieniant. The loyal soldier who did his best amidst chaos. And now he's following Gibbs into retirement, the final connection to those champion teams from 20 years ago.
We'll miss you, Joe.

Is Mike Shanahan a savior or just Dan Snyder's next ex-coach?

One month ago, the Washington Redskins big three consisted of Dan Snyder, Vinny Cerrato and Jim Zorn. Today it's Snyder, Bruce Allen and Mike Shanahan. Advantage: Today.
Yet this is the third major upgrade for the team in the past decade. First it was Marty Schottenheimer. He lasted one year.
Next was Joe Gibbs. It wasn't thought that Gibbs was going to return the Redskins to the top of the NFL, it was known that he would. This blog was created based on that very fact. Four years later, the team had one playoff win to show for it.
Now Mike Shanahan is the newest white knight to save the Redskins from what has been almost two decades of mediocrity. He's the right hire. But so were Marty and Joe.
In the decade after John Elway retired, Mike Shanahan and the Broncos won just one playoff game. During that same span, the Redskins won two. In his last three seasons in Denver, Shanahan was 24-24.
Don't get me wrong, I'm pleased that he's here. But, as always, it's necessary to curb our enthusiasm a bit. Shanahan is hardly a savior. He's just a big piece in a bigger puzzle that is still a long way away from being completed.

Goodbye, Jim Zorn ... I'd say I'd Miss You, But That Would Be a Lie

What should have been done in September finally ended at the start of January. Finally, the Washington Redskins fired Jim Zorn.
The hiring never should have happened in the first place, as suggested in this sky-is-falling post from the evening of Zorn's hire. There were too many red flags -- he had never coordinated an offense at any level, he had no head coaching experience, he worked as a quarterbacks coach until he was in his fifties -- that's the resmue of a career assistant, and a mid-level one at that.
But it worked for a few, halcyon weeks in his first season when the 'Skins went 6-2 and everyone had them pegged as the best team in the NFC. But there were big problems being covered up by last second wins. The slide started on a Monday night against Pittsburgh and continued later in the month with a debacle in Baltimore in which Clinton Portis was benched and then spent the week ripping on Zorn. The whole thing was a mess. Going into the season, anyone thinking playoffs for the Redskins was deranged. I predicted 4-12.
Zorn should have been fired after the week 3 loss to the Lions but Snyder seemed to want to stick it to critics who said he was keeping his coach on too short a leash. Had Zorn been canned, I firmly believe the Redskins could have put together a decent season. Maybe not a playoff appearance, but one of those build-for-next-year runs in which young guys play hard and the team experiences cohesion en route to a 7-9 or 8-8 record. Zorn had lost them in Detroit. The rest of the season was lost after it.
All the nonsense that followed -- the demotion from playcaller, the Sherms, the Cerrato disses -- it was all just the lead-up to the inevitable firing today.
So, Jim Zorn, to you we say (and for your sake, imagine that I was good with videos and could have somehow spliced game clips and pictures of Zorn into this video. Or, better yet, picture Dan Snyder as Patty Smyth, shooing away his lost love.)

Read the rest of my thoughts on Shutdown Corner. It's bascially what I would have written here, but with a lot less ripping on the Haynesworths and Halls and Randle Els and Landrys.

And I'll be back here tomorrow with more analysis and to ask the question that's on everyone's mind: Does the contrast between the whiteness of Shanahan's teeth and the orangey color of his skin make him sort of creepy to look at? Anyone?

Happy New Year from The Player Hater's Ball

My New Year's resolution for 2010 is to keep in touch with the new friends I meet daily over at Yahoo! Sports:

-- Chris chase an individual with no knowledge of professional tennis. Actually said person is mostly likely a homo.

-- another stellar article by Chris Chase. Oh and by stellar I mean piece of shit.

-- Someone should write an article about how much Chris Chase (the author) loves 8====D in and around his mouth (Now THAT'S funny.)

-- hey chris chase why dont you go f' yourself?

--  chris chase you wouldnt last a day in prison

-- Wow I never thought I'd find myself agreeing with Chris Chase and finding his arguments to be well thought out but here we are.  (The best kind of compliments are the back-handed ones.)

-- Tell that son of a bitch Chris Chase who mentioned the catalyst for the comeback for Duke against Maryland in his top ten list was a bogus fifth foul on Steve Blake that he mentioned NOTHING about the game UConn Duke in 04 about the refs raping Duke in allowing UConn to make THEIR comeback. Dont be so biased you f-----s!  I hope you choke on your turkey's today.


-- Chris Chase you sound like Kanye West and you're not even drunk!!!! You're the Kanye West of NFL sports writing Jackass!!!!

-- Chris Chase is either a blatant racist an animal rights activist or someone who had extreme writer's block the night before his article was due.

-- F-----g kill yourself Chris Chase. You make being a sports writer seem illegitimate and meaningless.

-- Wow i just lost a lot of respect for Chris Chase. (Yes, but that once means you HAD respect. Score. -- And let me note that I'm not digging deep through the archives to pull these. They all appeared on the first page of a search for "Chris Chase" in the comments section.)


-- Chris Chase (The author of this sorry excuse for journalism) to me is what’s wrong with this country. Loves to place the blame but aren't even a model citizen themselves. I don't know this guy Chris Chase and maybe he is Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King or Mahatma Gandhi but judging from his article he is no were near that.

-- Go back to K PAX and blog about something you can relate to like planetary systems and galaxies or what star your planet is closest to you know stuff like that. Better yet blog about time travel so you might be able to resurrect an idea to get you back home. Chris try chasing your tail and leave Football alone. You broke the rules. You had a Take but unfortunately it sucked!!! Signed Betcha i can throw a football over those mountains!!

-- the message here if you F up one time you are not allowed to come back and be a respected human being. Chris Chase I would punch you in the face if I met you in person for being such an insensitive dick.


-- Chris Chase should get the national stupid writer award for this article

Shut up, DeAngelo Hall

I'm laid up in bed today and wasn't going to write about the Redskins (there will be plenty of time for that next week when Jim Zorn gets what should have been coming to him after the Detroit loss) but then I saw this quote from DeAngelo Hall in Thomas Boswell's column:

"If you go by the last two weeks, we look like a college football team," cornerback DeAngelo Hall said. "If you're going by this to decide who goes, who stays, there hasn't been a great case for anybody on this 53-man roster."

While I don't despise DeAngelo nearly as much as I do Albert Haynesworth and Laron Landry and I normally love guys who talk with honesty, listening to DeAngelo babble all season about his problems and the team's problems has been infuriating. Stop analyzing your suckiness and start doing something to stop it. The whole self-reflection schtick only works if you make improvements. If you blow for 15 straight weeks, it doesn't have the same candor, you know?

Remembering George Michael

I don't think it was until I was eight or nine years old that I even realized there was another sportscaster in D.C. besides George Michael. There were other reasons to watch channel 7 or channel 9, sure, but I don't know anyone who did. When it was 6:45 in D.C. the only channel to watch was channel 4 with George.
It was particularly true on those Redskins Mondays when George and Sonny Jurgensen would have a sit down with the head coach in the 5 p.m. or 6 p.m. hour (Gibbs always did it earlier, Bugel took the later shift upon the return) to discuss what went right or wrong the day before. George was always a Redskins apologist, but he didn't hesitate to call out a player or ask what the hell was going on to the always-amused coach at his side.
NBC 4 on Mondays was the only place to go for next-day Redskins coverage and pre-game was all about Michael's Redskins Report with Sonny, John Riggins, Michael Wilbon and, sometimes, Tony Kornheiser (long before the days of PTI). When NBC offered a buy-out to Michael in 2007 he took it. I don't think I've watched the local sports report since.
Here's what I wrote about Michael on that evening:

Once, while on a family trip, I remember sitting on a hotel bed late at night and flipping through the channels, desperate for something to watch. Eventually I stumbled upon The Sports Machine, George Michael's legendary sports highlight show. Growing up outside of Washington D.C., Michael was a larger-than-life figure in the sports world and his Sports Machine was one of those mythical programs that a nine-year old rarely got to see, since we were usually in bed by the time it was broadcast at 11:30 on Sunday nights.
So in that hotel room far from D.C. that night, I wondered, "why is our George Michael breaking out his Sports Machine here?" It never occurred to me that Michael's program was nationally syndicated and, therefore, shown all over the country. And it was later still that I realized Michael's show was SportsCenter before there was Sportscenter. Compressed highlights set to music and shown at a breakneck pace, schmaltzy profiles and a focus on the lighter side of sports; Michael's show was revolutionary in a time when cable was still in its infancy.
Those outside the D.C. area likely know Michael only through that program, but those around town know him as the go-to guy for any local sports news. If something was going on in D.C. sports, the only place to get the scoop was on Michael's 6:45 sportscast on Channel 4 (NBC).
My mom's strict no-TV-during-dinner was routinely ignored on Mondays when Michael and 'Skins legend Sonny Jurgersen would interview the Redskins coach following the previous day's game. Tuesday meant "Tuesday Replays". And Thursday gave us "Thursday Bloopers".
When I went to college the only things I missed about home were reading a hard copy of The Washington Post every morning and missing out on those Monday interviews. I remember sitting on the floor of a ragged house in Winston-Salem, listening to George and Sonny interview Marty Schottenheimer about the benching of Jeff George, as my mom held the phone up to her television in Maryland so I could hear.
Michael's banter with Sonny was always fun, as were the ribbings he took from John Riggins during the taping of the weekly show The Redskins Report, for which Michael served as host. It was also on that program that two Washington Post sportswriters made their television debuts, bickering back and forth with one another and Riggo, Michael and Sonny. ESPN execs took notice and those writers, Michael Wilbon and Tony Kornheiser, are celebrating their sixth year on Pardon the Interruption.
At times, Michael could be abrasive. He could be bull-headed. And, oftentimes, he was flat-out wrong. Part of it was schtick, part of it was being a homer for all Washington sports teams. Nobody would have any trouble coming up with criticism of George Michael, but that's mainly because they got to know him so well through television.
In one hour, though, it will all be over as George Michael will be performing his final sportscast on NBC4. He declined a contract extension in November after GE cutbacks for NBC would have forced Michael to fire most of his sports staff.
Sure, he'll still conduct his must-see interviews from Redskins Park on Mondays after games and he'll still moderate Redskins Report and its' spring-time replacement Full Court Press, but he won't be there at the desk when Joe Gibbs retires or when the Wizards make the Eastern Conference Finals or when Maryland or Georgetown go back to the Final Four. He won't be joking around with his old pal Jim Vance or showing us his "Tuesday Replays" or boring us with highlights of rodeo and NASCAR.
Tonight is the end of an era in Washington D.C. and even if Michael makes a return to the airwaves on another network, it will never be the same. 

RIP, George.

Giants 45, Redskins 12 -- Is Campbell's Time Almost Done?

I'm a Jason Campbell guy. Always have been. But even I was amused this week by the suddenly revisionist history that suggested Campbell was some sort of quarterbacking savant victimized by frequent coaching turnover and a miserable offensive line. I mean, I like the guy. I like given the right circumstances he can be a fine quarterback. But changing to the west coast offense doesn't have any affect on a QB's ability to throw a deep pass. And a makeshift offensive line doesn't render one unable to audible at the line of scrimmage.
I mention this tonight because Campbell may be in the final throes of his Redskins career and, if that's true, I'm not going to be too torn up about it. I think he should be the quarterback next year while the team nurtures a young talent or sets its sights on trade bait/free agency for 2010 or 2011, but it's not going to be a travesty if he's not.
Tonight wasn't Jason Campbell's fault, but he didn't do anything to help it out. And that's the thing with him; he's almost never the difference maker. He's adequate enough to do the right things for the right team, but he's not a guy who's going to go out and win them for you. He's like a poor man's Eli Manning.
This didn't stop Malcolm Gladwell from hilariously suggesting that Campbell could be as good as Eli's brother:

Everyone always says what an incredible advantage it has been for Peyton Manning to have had the same offensive coordinator and the same offensive system his entire career. Football offenses are so complex now that they take years to master properly, and having one system in place from the beginning has allowed Manning to capitalize on every inch of his talent. On the other hand, someone like Jason Campbell has had a different offensive coordinator in virtually every season of his pro and college career (and I'm guessing he'll get another this offseason). I'm not convinced that it's possible to say, with certainty, that Campbell has less ability than Manning. I'm only sure we can say that Campbell has not been in a situation that has allowed him to exploit his talent the way Manning has. We just don't know how good he is capable of being -- and we may never know.

Oh, I'm quite convinced that it's possible to say, with certainty, that Campbell has less ability than Manning. That's no knock on Campbell. There are maybe five guys in history who have as much ability as Peyton.
But this is provocative for the sake of being provocative. Stick to pop psychology, Malcolm. If the point is that the NFL is the sport in which players are most dependent on teammates and coaches, that's not exactly groundbreaking theory. Tom Brady isn't Tom Brady if he's not on the Patriots. Jerry Rice would have been just another great receiver without Joe Montana and Steve Young. But you put Andre Johnson on the field with Peyton Manning and all of a sudden maybe he's the best of all-time.
That doesn't happen in the other sports. Kobe might not have won titles without Shaq or Pau Gasol, but his individual greatness didn't change when they weren't there. And great players slum it on lousy teams in baseball all the time.
About tonight's game? Eh, I don't really care. My mom said it's the first time ever she didn't watch the second half of a game. I didn't either. I played foosball for most of the later half of the game. It's just not worth watching.
This may have been a good thing though. Now Bruce Allen won't think that this team, as currently constructed, is anywhere near being an elite team. Frankly, I wouldn't mind if he keeps Orakpo, Cooley, London and Devin Thomas and guts the rest of the roster. (What about Haynesworth? I don't really care to root for him. He's great and can change the game inside, but he's a punk, takes too many plays off and is probably resented by the younger guys on the team. I want to like the team I root for. If I had a guy like Haynesworth or Jay Cutler, I'll root for them and cheer them, but I won't like it as much)
So, that's that. A 33-point loss to a heated division rival. A 4-10 overall record, a lame duck coach who should have been canned in September looking more clueless than Wade Phillips, a new GM and an owner who is more hated in this city than Aaron Burr. (We still hate Aaron Burr, right?) Hell of a start to Christmas week.

Al-Farouq!

Some of his decisions can be maddening (you're not a point guard with range, so stop playing like it), but when Al-Farouq Aminu does stuff like this, it's worth it: