Gregg Williams and Al Saunders were given the ol’ heave-ho today.
Now in the Redskins household ex-Seahawks coach Jim Zorn is the new offensive coordinator and veteran defensive coach Greg Blache is the new defensive coordinator.
Remember that continuity we spoke of the other day? Dan Snyder disagrees wholeheartedly.
What is the Redskins front office mindset these days?
Is Jim Fassell really set to become the new head coach of the Washington Redskins? Latest word out of Washington has Fassell as the front-runner, but has yet to be offered the job as successor to the second-coming of the Gibbs era.
And the Washingtonians ask — Really? What happened to the players and coaches all lobbying for continuity and stability? What happened to keeping it within the family, with Gregg Williams?
If Washington owner Daniel Snyder has taught us anything through his 9 years of team ownership, it’s that he is a man who likes to make plenty of noise in the offseason. So if any sign would indicate he has settled down and abandoned his old ways, it is us who are mistaken. Not Danny Boy.
Let’s all step back and reassess the situation in a different mindset: What Would Danny Do?
After the Redskins team withstood tragedy this season with the murder of their best defensive player, safety Sean Taylor, signs indicated Joe Gibbs eyeing re-retirement, ready to hang up his coaching cap and head back to his easy livin’ as full-time NASCAR owner. When this became a reality, it seemed a foregone conclusion Snyder would hand over the reigns to his highly paid defensive coordinator, Gregg Williams. Not so much.
WWDD?
Danny decided to interview Williams — four times — to give him a fair shake at the head coaching job. Apparently Snyder was less-than enamored with the thought of Williams leading his team. After neglecting to offer Williams the job, Snyder began openly flirting with other potential big name coaches (albeit some of them just to go through the motions) — Bill Cowher, Pete Carroll, Ron Meeks, Jim Mora, Jim Caldwell.
As of today, none of the coaches have been signed. That may be Williams’ best hope in the entire process.
But if Fassell is really the front-runner, I remain skeptical of the Redskins’ approach to holding together a very fragile, reeling team after such an exhaustive year. The Redskins players fought through the final stretch of the season and made the playoffs despite all odds against them. It would be a pity to see the unity forged around the team’s recent pain and suffering be lost by way of a complete and total coaching “clean house.”
Inserting an entirely new coaching staff would place an immediate disconnect between the current players and management. New coaches would have a hard time relating to what the team went through last season, how they were able to join together and keep showing up to play every Sunday. The Redskins played tough and, most importantly, together this past season; the least Snyder can do is provide them with some kind of continuity.
Consider it a small reward for the team providing Snyder with one extra game to rake in more dollar$$ for his bottom line.
*This article is also posted on www.mindritesports.com.
The New England Patriots were supposed to get this far; the New York Giants were not.
The Giants were expected to fall apart this season. They had more question marks surrounding them than The Riddler. We know this because ex-Giants running-back Tiki Barber told us so.
Despite getting caught with their hand in the cookie jar, absorbing a punishment of dollars and picks by the NFL for cheating, the Patriots never missed a beat all season. We have the video tapes to prove it.
On February 3, 2008, the Patriots and Giants will battle for the Super Bowl XLII (that’s 42 for you non-Roman-reading types) title and I am here now to candidly express who I am rooting wholeheartedly against — those cheatin’ Pats.
Consider SBXVII a universal anti-Patriots day. I root against them knowing these realities:
I assume the role of “hater” quite gladly in this case; it is out of character for me personally, but I make the exemption here.
Among my reasons to openly hate on those cheatin’ Pats:
The league opens itself to a serious vulnerability when one of their Super Bowl-contending teams is a “convicted” cheater. And to add fuel to the fire, the cheating team’s coach and quarterback received the league’s best two player/coach awards — NFL MVP and Offensive Player of the Year (Tom Brady) and NFL Coach of the Year (Bill Belichick).
Just last year, Shawne Merriman (pictured right) was suspended for using performance enhancing drugs and was forced to miss four games; he went on to record 16 total sacks and was voted into the Pro Bowl.
The league does not appear to place many obstacles in the path of cheaters, no?
So on we move, looking forward to SBXLII, hoping the Giants can pull off the job the league could not.
Rooting against the Patriots in Super Bowl XLII means placing tremendous amounts of faith in Eli Manning’s arm. So far this playoff run, Manning has played the best among all quarterbacks still standing. Will he continue the run, or will he assume brother Peyton’s old role of falling short when the big game comes along? I doubt even Eli knows for sure.
Was ex-Giants running back Tiki Barber right in outing his Giants “pillow talk” early in the season, questioning Eli’s leadership and Coughlin’s effectiveness?
I sure hope not. I have very little invested in the upcoming Super Bowl outside wanting for the world to be fair and balanced again — as if it ever were…
If those cheatin’ Pats lose, wars, global warming, poverty, evil and starvation will cease to exist. Flowers will bloom more luminously than ever, and birds will chirp Beethoven’s best music pieces.
With that said, how could you possibly root for the Patriots?
Get hyped — the NFL conference championship games are on today!
Let’s check in around the final four teams within one win of playing in the SUPER BOWL –
Bonus Links
Not only is the man an entertainer, the Couch Slouch, Norman Chad, seems to have his mind in the right place.
Using his syndicated column — one I regularly find on WashingtonPost.com — the Slouch proceeded to explain his repeated denial to the University of Maryland, his alma mater, of any funds from his pocket to theirs. He, like many other scholarly minds, is fed up with D-I universities repeatedly cutting other scholar programs (in this case he mentions the media journal, American Journalism Review, run by the UMD Foundation) and giving their sports programs multi-million dollar boosts.
On Sunday, scampering around to find a place to watch the Philadelphia Eagles take on the Green Bay Packers, I came upon a sports pub in downtown Crystal City. As one would expect, the pub was packed from all ends of the room with your typical jersey-wearing, beer toting sports bar fans. But something was different about the room, and it went beyond my extra skepticism because I was unable to find a place to sit at the time.
Shoulder-to-shoulder, among the jersey-wearers and beer-toting folk watching the large LCD TV, sat a man decked out in his own jersey (Patriots) and on the table in place of buffalo wings sat his laptop. A computer nerd among sports junkies in a bar? I was completely baffled.
Never, through the years of witnessing the rapid rise of technology, did I ever expect to ever see laptops at bars. But there they were in plain sight right alongside the beers, sports and wings.
Welcome to the 21st century, when bars embrace computer nerds carrying their iMacs and mobile PCs and mingle among the masses in the domain traditionally dominated only by jocks, cheerleaders and socialites.
Pretty soon, WiFi networks will be offered with drink specials.
What is the cause for this new-found acceptance of social behavior? Fantasy Sports.
What better a way to keep track of how many points “Team Liquid Assets” is in the lead over “Team Mendoza Line” than to have a laptop with broadband internet access available after Hines Ward catches a touchdown pass in the corner of the end zone?
Fantasy sports is changing the way we view our favorite games. And not just because nerds and jocks can be friends now, although that is baffling all in itself.
On a higher level, fantasy sports has brought the loyalty of fans in into question.
If your favorite team is pitted against your favorite fantasy sports performer, who do you root for? Do you hope your player has a record-breaking day, or do you sit him to avoid conflict of interest?
True, absolute loyal fans would sit the player. Or stack your team by looking at the schedule and who you could have least likely to face your favorite team. But in games where anything from money to pride is involved, perfect fans most are not. Seattle fans would still love to have Frank Gore as their starting running back. Miami fans would trade to get Tom Brady (especially after his Week 1 show). Redskins fans have Terrell Owens and Tony Romo on their fantasy squads. Rivalry becomes non-existent when fantasy sports comes into the picture.
From a traditional fan standpoint, this chips away at the wall of preconceived notions about general fandom. But from my experiences, fans are hypocritical when they want to be and fantasy sports has helped bring this into light.
As an example, my own tale of fandom involves me first admitting I am not your typical die-hard team fan. A resident of the D.C. Metro Area (Alexandria, VA to be exact), I was surrounded by Redskins fans as I grew up. During a rebel stage in my younger years, a certain fleet-footed, long-tossing, exciting quarterback caught my eye — Randall Cunningham.
Side note: Michael Vick (on the field) was the Cunningham of the modern era; not the other way around.
From then on, I embraced the non-local E-A-G-L-E-S but kept rooting for the Skins for all but two days of the 16-game season. For me, it was about the game more than the team. It was the game which brought me into enjoying the teams in the first place.
Which came first, the chicken or the egg? Love of the team or love of the sport? Does it matter?
Back then, I was told I could only like one team, and one team only. Think the same goes now? Would a keeper-league fantasy participant become a part-time fan of the Chargers if LaDainian Tomlinson was their starting running back? Of course.
Traditional rooting is out the window if you have a fantasy team and stakes are on the table. To deny this and still be competitive in your fantasy league is blasphemous. The first step is admitting there is a problem.
The line that divided the truly loyal fans with others is beginning to blur, and pretty soon a high-profile case will place the issue into the high scrutiny of the public court of opinion.
Pretty soon the Loyal Sports Fans of America will be calling for the head of the “J-E-T-S” fireman for clapping when Tom Brady throws a TD pass to Randy Moss because it put his fantasy team into the fantasy playoffs.
Politicians will bring into light news that their opponent was taking part in a high-stakes Fantasy Football league and rooting for players in competing cities. They will say, “Can this disloyal person look out for your best interests?”
In the meantime the rest of the fantasy sports world will continue on with their hypocritical rooting — though sometimes only in secret, among their closest of friends and fellow hypocrite fans — and offering to buy a beer for the nerd at the bar so they can check their fantasy score.
It’s all a game though, isn’t it? Try wearing a Cowboys jersey in FedEx Stadium and let me know if you agree. But that same Cowboys fan could mosey on into the right bar full of fantasy sports fans and offer his computer to checking scores of fantasy games and they may even be embraced.
Fantasy football brings the reality of faux loyalty to sports teams. But it also brings us “can’t we all get along” fandom.
As a fan of the sport before game, the conflict is clear to me. I’ve never claimed to be a “die-hard” and allegedly “bleed” *insert team color of choice here* for anybody other than my closest family and friends. But to those fans who do claim these over-the-top loyalties, you better make sure that if you play fantasy football your loyalties are in check. Nobody — you, especially — ever wants to be viewed as a hypocrite.
So that’s what a famous life crashing to a screeching halt sounds like?
The rollercoaster ride that is the Michael Vick experience is over. At least for now.
The next step does not involve athletic ability, physical prowess, or the ability to entertain. Only humility and remorse will get Vick through his next, most serious and important opponent — the justice system.
Bonds hit career number 754 Friday night, making it only a matter of time before he finally puts one out on the road, gets booed by everyone, including Bud Selig (quietly, under his breath anyway), and hates the world that much more. At least one teammate is calling for the Dodgers, the Giants’ lead rival, to show B-squared some R-E-S-P-E-C-T.
According to his agent, Kevin Garnett is not interested in being traded to the Celtics. His exact words: “The Boston trade isn’t happening.” I guess KG isn’t interested in a new city, new jersey but the comfort of the same losing record. Maybe if Larry Bird came out of retirement he’d reconsider… maybe.
