SPOILER ALERT! (In this article, I predict the Skins will win)

As the presiding voice of reason and optimism at The Inquirer, I have struggled to find ways to help those who, like ebaggg, have lost their way, lost their faith, or just plain lost their minds this season. Perhaps it was me who looked foolish for suggesting that Gibbs should be extended. The fact that Snyder is contemplating doing just that is not necessarily redemption for me either--Danny offering Gibbs an extension is like Charlie Sheen offering a hooker another $1000 to stay the weekend.

Back in August we gave you the reality of the situation--that this team was overlooked and ignored by the experts--and that we should be happy about that, because Joe Gibbs thrives when people think little of his team. The Hype-less era is fully underway, and the Redskins are growing up the right way (as opposed to thinking everyone owes them respect because of Super Bowls won 15-20 years ago.) It seems that this team is deriving a sense of self that has more to do with what is happening this year (some pretty tough, heart-breaking stuff) than what has happened in the past. And while you just can't play every game for the next 25 years for Sean Taylor, don't you get the sense some of what is happening as a result of these events is sustainable?

When you hear that Jason Campbell cried at his locker after a gut-wrenching defeat earlier in the year, inconsolable because he felt he let his team down, don't you get the impression he cares? When I see the way Clinton Portis and Santana Moss have played through injury all season, I am pretty sure they care. When you see an elite player at his position like Chris Cooley get paid the way he did, and still go out and break his back to get it done for a marginal offense, you get the sense he cares. Finally, the way our defense has held up against the run in recent weeks is very indicative of a unit that cares and plays with heart--if you don't there is no way you hold the league's #1 running attack in check the way they did in Minnesota. Shouldn't Gibbs and Williams share in some of the credit for inspiring this team a little bit?


Home Playoff Game?
We have a bona fide home playoff game...against the Cowgirls no less! At the start of this season, nobody would have ever guessed this would be happening....hell, 3 weeks ago, few people would be predicting this. And the best news is that this team earned its way here. It earned the losses that could have been wins, and it earned the wins that could have been losses, just the way a young team with zero identity does. Regardless of the player personnel decisions the Cowgirls will make this weekend, a win builds confidence heading into another playoff game.

Making the playoffs this year is not a last grasp at a closing window for this group. It is the first step in becoming a possible perennial contender. Landry, Golston, Montgomery, McIntosh (hopefully), Rogers (hopefully), Blades...these guys could/should be around on defense for a while. Campbell, Portis, Betts, Cooley, Moss, Rabach, Samuels...these guys should be together for a while as well (we need to spend some draft picks up front on Offense for sure). NOW we can start naming "core Redskins"...because now there is a "core" of something to maintain. There is no "salary cap hell" around the corner for the Redskins...if we haven't been there yet, I am convinced we aren't going any time soon. I say all of this because we have something now in this town we have not had since the first term of Joe Gibbs--an up-and-coming team that has its best football in front of it. Who would have thought making the playoffs at this point would be considered OVER-achieving!?

We at The Inquirer requested one thing from this team back in August..."Show me, homey." We think they showed us that they were good enough but not yet ready to beat the Giants in week 3, the Packers in week 6, the Cowgirls in week 11, the Bucs in week 12, and the Bills in week 13. We think they showed that they were bad enough but not ready to lose to the Dolphins in week 1, the Eagles in week 2, the Cards in week 7, and the Jets in week 9.

Sure will be great when they show people what they learned from all of those games in a meaningful home game in the last week of the season.

Redskins 27, Cowgirls 13

See you in Seattle.

P.S. We can only expect the Redskins to play as hard as we tailgate...rain or shine, that parking lot better be crazy this week.

2007 All Ahern-Team: Eternal Goose

It's the most wonderful time of the year...and we are in a giving mood here at The Inquirer, so bring on the the 1st Annual All-Ahern team. The coveted honor and distinction that accompanies being named to the 2007 All-Ahern Team has inspired even the most refined individuals to lewd and lascivious behavior--sorry Al Gore...you came close this year, and the nude, crude holiday video you sent to me almost got you the nod for Best Naked Performance in 2007, but you got edged out by Detroit Lions defensive line coach Joe Cullen, who drove through a Wendy's drive-thru naked this past August. Coach Cullen, best not set that Frosty on the seat between your legs...or you'll go from a Quarter Pound Double to a Junior Bacon Single in under 2 seconds.

NFL Coach of the Year: Well, since we can't give another award to Joe Cullen, we will go with the coach who I think has had the greatest season from start to finish: Jacksonville Jaguars coach Jack Del Rio. Making the call to dump former franchise QB Byron Leftwich and go with David Garrard was bold. I'm talking "Michael Scott photo-shopping his face onto his girlfriend's family photo and making it his Christmas Card" bold. It was one of those situations where he had little room to be right--and a lot of room to be fired. This team has had probably the most physical defense in the league the last 2-3 seasons, but the offense has failed to match that intensity. Going with Garrard has proven to be ingenius--he is the 2nd-highest rated QB in the entire league. Garrard's numbers won't blow you away, but he has led this team to the brink of the playoffs and Del Rio deserves a lot of credit for putting him in that position. Welcome to the Ahern-team, Jack.

Best College Football Conference: SEC. Not a whole lot of explanation needed. From top-to-bottom this conference brings some serious heat. I mean, Kentucky??!! Arkansas??!! If you are a top 25 school over the last decade or so, you circle your date against Kentucky or Arkansas and call it Homecoming. Not lately...the teams in this conference have laid more wood this season than when Peter North and Ron Jeremy filmed that orgy scene...while building a deck!

Best Performance, leading Male: Adrian Peterson. This guy has been must-see TV since week 1, and his record-setting day against the Chargers was oh-so-manly. Applications for part-time waitress jobs on charter boats that cater to high-profile athletes on the lakes are at an all-time high since he joined the ranks of the purple and gold.

Best Team Performance: The 2007 Baltimore Ravens against the Miami Dolphins in Week 15. If only 1 or 2 players had wanted to lose that game to the Dolphins, they still may have won. But they got together and decided, as a team, that they didn't want to win. And then they executed their plan to perfection. Coach Brian Billick, always a team guy, got into the mix and earned himself an Ahern-Team award as well:

Vagisil Call of the Year: Coach Brian Billick deciding to kick the field goal with 12 seconds left from the 5-inch line against the only winless team in the league. If you have a team on the ropes...a team that has invented ways to lose this season...a team that 100% believed they were going to lose that very game...a team that no way was going to keep them out of the end zone...how do you kick the field goal? At worst you could throw a ball through the back of the end zone after 3 or 4 seconds of looking for an open receiver. Don't give me that "But Troy Smith is a rookie" B.S. Troy Smith faced a harder defense in practice throughout the week. He played against better teams in college...hell, he played in bigger games in college--not to mention the 4 nice passes he completed under pressure to get them down the field to begin with. The center could have farted and the ball would have crossed the goal line. Brian Billick, this tube of Vagisil is for you.



Comeback Player of the Decade: Over the course of his career, Fragile Freddy has gotten a bad rap for being injured and injury-prone. Sure, he has had his share of injuries, but Fred Taylor keeps getting off the mat and rushing upfield for the Jags. His 4.7 rushing average per carry is 5th all-time, he is 18th all-time in rushing yards (approx. 10,500) and of the 47 players in the history of the NFL that have rushed for at least 7,000 yards, he is the only one to never make a Pro Bowl, including this year. To achieve all this, he has had to come back from a lot (the snubs, the disrespect, the actual injuries). Worse, he isn't even the most famous Fred Taylor--that distinction goes to Basketball Hall of Fame coach Fred Taylor, who, in addition to coaching Jerry Lucas, John Havlicek, and Bobby Knight, coached Ohio State to the finals 3 straight years, winning it all in 1960.

Best Performance by a Trio: The Ahern-Team would not be complete without this trio of Jessica's...Jessica Alba, Jessica Biel, Jessica Simpson. These three had a great year. Hottest Jessica goes to Biel, Trashiest Jessica goes to Simpson, "Proof she did it" Jessica goes to the pregnant Alba. These celebrity hotties are having kids younger and younger, and with Britney's 16-year old sister now pregnant, Vegas has the over/under of when Alba's daughter becomes impregnated at 9.5 yrs old. A special order of merit is bestowed upon Jessica Simpson for destroying Tony Romo's ability to play football. Ponder for a moment, if you will, what those two must have done within at least 48 hours of last week's game, and tell me you honestly could have concentrated on one single play. Finally, thanks to the magic of Hollywood, we can rest assured that even if Jessica Biel portrayed a crippled, wheelchair-bound, elderly, double-amputee, burn survivor, we could count on some kind of dream-sequence where she would be running down the beach in slow-motion in a teeny tiny bikini with no less than 1 minute of camera time each dedicated to the front and back. Brilliant!



Easiest Job in the World: Coach/GM of the New York Knicks. Let me get this straight...bring in every head-case, injury-prone, high-salary malcontent you can find...become involved and entrenched in an environment that condones--NAY, encourages--lewd, crude, harassing behavior towards females...lie your face off to an owner who wouldn't know class if it sat on his face and took a giant dump...yeah, I think anyone could do that. Don't give me that, "but it's New York...the capital of media scrutiny". These guys are walking around with their rear-ends showing to the world and they don't seem to care--and they still have their jobs!

Ahern-Team MVP: Gilbert Arenas. The sentimental favorite was Sean Taylor, but we decided to honor Gil for his sacrifice this year. By shutting himself down to have knee surgery, he has single-handedly aided in his team's development more than anyone in the history of the Wizards/Bullets franchise. Learning how to win without your best player is best done in the regular-season...not the playoffs like we had to do last year (I say 'we' because yes, I play for the Wiz). Anyone who thinks we won't need him when he is healthy later this season is dumber than Isaiah Thomas and Jimmy Dolan combined!

How DeShawn Stevenson Invented the 'I Can't Feel my Face'

So I'm pretty confident I found where DeShawn stole the 'I can't feel my face' move. (See video below). It would be great if in a game he pulled out a Terrell Owens-esque move and did this with real fire after he dunked on someone. Ok, not really. But I'd be curious to see DeShawn's reaction now that we tracked down where he copied it from.

And why are these not more popular? The shirt becomes even funnier when you're stumbling around the Verizon Center WASTED.

I Wish There Was Laws Against Assh*les Like These!

MAJOR UPDATES AND DRAMA WITH THIS POST...read it all below. My ebay post is sadly is bringing the worst out in people. Check out Update2.


I am so pissed off I cannot even explain. I was unable to get a Sean Taylor commemorative towel during the Buffalo game, and I noticed they were selling them on Redskins.com for $3.99, where all the profits of course go to Sean Taylor's Memorial fund. As a quick 'why not?'...I checked Ebay and found something EXTREMELY disturbing. Scores of Ebay postings of people selling their 21 commemorative towels for over $10..some Buy it Now for $30 with special tags 'RIP' and real emotional stuff. ARE YOU F*CKING KIDDING ME?! This is a disgrace that society has sunk this low to profit off such an emotional time. We all know FedEx field is expensive. The fact that you can afford to be there, I seriously doubt an extra $15 makes a difference in your life where you need to step to this level.

For those out-of-town fans that attended the game who have no loyalties to the Redskins, you have NO excuse either. I hate Jeremy Shockey probably more than any player in the league, but if I was at Giants stadium for a similar ceremony (God forbid), I would have for sure given it away to someone who would want it more. At the least, I could post a craigslist ad saying 'Free commemorative towel' and snail mail it to a fan's house for $1. It’s called ‘doing something nice.’ Something we really cannot grasp unless it involves a guaranteed favor back.

To TRY and help combat these dicks, I paid to post an Ebay listing telling people to stop buying these towels from these scumbags...you can see that here.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=190184669931

Perhaps we all should email the ebay sellers telling them off...any thoughts on this people? This needs to stop.

UPDATE: Ok, so Steinberg already blogged this story. Dammit Ken, you've been offline quite awhile...you should have caught this. Anyway, the bids for the towels were over $100 the day of his funeral. SHAME.

UPDATE2: So I have received 3 replies to my ebay post. 2 thanking me, and well, the other...this:
<from: jonmeacham@comcast.net>
"YOU are the scumbag. A noble cause? Snyder gave his daughter $500K. Sean Taylor was my favorite player, but dont hate on people trying to make a buck for themselves. Oh yeah, redskins.com is out of them you douchebag. Get a life - pot_king"

Now, how I am suppose to respond to this? NEVER stooping to his level...here was my rather calm response:

"How is Redskins.com out of them if I bought one today? The hostility in your reply proves your personality and the greed of the ebay sellers. I was a Sean Taylor fan more than anybody and the fact that you encourage it proves your ignorance. Notice how I don't take the trashy response route like you. Yes. Dan Snyder STARTED with $500K...AND all profits from S. Dot's jerseys, which are MASSIVE if you haven't noticed. The fact you took time out of your life to reply to my good will post is more saddening than anything. No Sean Taylor fan or humane person would ever respond like this. Please, stop talking. You are only embarrassing yourself more."

Update3: Positive ebay reply:
Dear ebaggg,

Hello

I dont know who you are but,I want to say THANK YOU!I too am disgusted by what I see on ebay.I went to the game and I was moved to tears during the opening tribute.But, when I went to look for a jersey on ebay (our area sold out)I saw those towels and my heart just dropped!My towel was taken off my shoulder after the game and the guard saw me searching and handed me another.It means something to me.Too bad these jerks dont get it.Again Thanks!

4ever Skins Fan

OSU vs. LSU? That's Mighty White of You

We at the Inquirer like to stick with what we know best. Most of the time it consists of waxing poetic about our favorite local teams, trying to crack jokes at the expense of today's athletes, and trying to make sense out of those occurrences in life that will never make sense (Sean Taylor). College football is way down the list of our personal areas of expertise, so when I was trying to make sense out of the BCS announcements the other night, I just figured it was me who didn't know enough to understand the whole debacle of a questionable Ohio State team playing a two-loss LSU team for the national championship. But as I looked into the mirror, I noticed something...a white guy! Of course! I'm white!

Perhaps my whiteness could be tapped to help explain the BCS atrocity. After all, old, white guys have been doing dumb things for centuries. Could this just be the latest in a long string of absolutely unacceptable creations of rich white dudes?
Maybe in this day and age, it would be naive to think every bowl committee chairperson is an old white dude. But I bet most of them are. I bet most of them are old and white. And RICH. There is simply too much money for them to keep making if there is a switch to a more modern, more fair, smarter, more popular, more logical, more definitive, BETTER system. I'm not suggesting they are racist. I am suggesting they are dumb. And old. And white. And RICH. And that is something I can relate to.

Man would I love to be an old, rich, white dude. Middle class whiteness is nothing to sneeze at, but upper crust rich whiteness is like taking a time machine back to feudalism and lording over serfs. Coincidentally, this must have been when they came up with the current BCS system. Because it has no business in this era.

Listen, the SEC is the best conference in college football. Top to bottom, they are the best group of teams in the land. They beat each other up all season and the best team out of that conference has at least a very good argument to play in the national championship game this season. But Ohio State? The Big Ten sucked this year. You're telling me Hawaii couldn't beat those guys on a neutral field? Colt Brennan is statistically the greatest QB in the history of college football. And his undefeated team sits at #10? That is a joke. The WAC is a weak conference? I wonder if Oklahoma would agree after last year's best college football game of the season saw them lose to Boise State. We just saw a season-long commercial of why there should be a playoff system to determine the national champion. Too bad a bunch of rich white dudes were too busy counting their money to see it.

Shouldn't there be a change in this thing just so we can get some different schools playing for the big one, or at least getting the chance? It is always the same old re-treads. LSU and Ohio State are like the Bush's and Clinton's. Is there no end to how many times we can put these people in position for the top spot?

Going back to the OU/Boise State game, that was arguably one of the top 3 games of all time. The truth is, how many great games and upsets have we missed because the little guys who started out so low in the rankings never have a chance to finish in the top 6? The playoffs are needed. My other gripe is that there is a full month between when the season ends and when the bowl games start. It's retarded. OK, I know students have finals and what not, but come on, this really is a business. Hawaii somehow needs to be given a chance. Don't ask me how many teams should be in the playoffs, I don't know. At least 4, but probably 6 where the top 2 teams gets BYEs the first week. But that leads to the next problem, Hawaii is only ranked #10 now so they'd still be out of it, right?! Yep, I told you this system is retarded.

And lets be honest. If Notre Dame only had 2 or even 3 losses this year, they'd be playing for the National Title. It's like a high school most popular girl contest. As George Costanza so eloquently said, (and I'm applying the BCS to it)..."This thing is like an onion: the more layers you peel, the more it stinks!"

Sibley Hospital to Open New Wing for Redskins Players

** NEWSWIRE - Sibley Hospital has announced they will be constructing a new 70 person, 24-hour, year-round, state-of-the-art Emergency Unit wing for Redskins players. ***

OK, not really but we're close to that. So the Skins are the worst conditioned team in the NFL. It started with Jon Jansen week 1 and its never stopped:

PRE-GAME Injuries this year:
WR: Moss, ARE, Thrash, Lloyd (lot of hamstring injuries)
OL: Jansen (ankle), R. Thomas (torn triceps), Kendall (plus injuries to Wade and Heyer)
Secondary: ST (knee), Carlos (knee), Springs and Smoot (vaginas)
Deaths: S. Dot, Justin Skaggs (brain tumor), Kevin Mitchell (heart attack)

BY POST-GAME:
Campbell (dislocated knee cap), Cooley, Fred Smoot (cramps), Randy Thomas (elbow) and Clinton Portis (stomach ailment).

All I have to say is that this is not 'bad luck'. Sure, you do have the freak accidents like Carlos Rogers and S. Dot, but as a matter of fact these players are not conditioned. That's the only way to explain the chronic hamstrings and cramps. It also explains why we continually blow leads in the second halves of games.

Not only that, quick, try to think of a HEALTHY Redskin that is under the age of 30.....come on, you can do it, no, not Suisham or Frost, another one. OK, Chris Samuels and Cooley, although he is now banged up which is concerning. Seriously, why is it when one player goes down, our team is a mess? You can look at the Pats, who faced their run of CRUSHING injuries in the secondary...and that was the year they went to and won the Super Bowl. Troy Brown was playing corner in the Super Bowl!! So that to me raises two red flags, 1) we have no youth on our squad, and 2) bad coaching. The two are actually VERY related because the coaches traded away so many draft picks for horrible free agents. The good news is we are absolutely SCREWED with the salary cap the next 2 years even with it jumping up 10+ million. Seriously, I think we should just let Los Angeles have the Skins and we can start fresh. The new team...how about the "Washington Snipers"...hmm, no. The "Gimps"..."Downsies"? The only way I could support a team this bad is if they had the suffix 'Bullets'.

PS - On a side note. Why do great, scrambling quarterbacks NEVER wear knee pads? Vince Young...nope. Jason Campbell...nope. From what I read, the helmet that hit JC's knee was almost straight on...hmm...right where some padding should have been. I played hockey with MASSIVE knee pads and my mobility was fine. What is the difference..just wear them!! Steve Young did, Brett Favre does...it matters!! Jesus, I'm worked up again. Im Out. Wilbon, if you're reading this, why don't you write an article about how African Americans with thug backgrounds don't wear knee pads. Sean Taylor didn't, Carlos Rogers didn't and look what happened to them. It had to be from their criminal past that caused that. OK, Im clearly stretching my point now but Wilbon crossed the line last week and wrote a stereotypical article against blacks from himself. To quote an eloquently spoken blog I read:

The trouble with Wilbon is he uses the sports column to make comments and inferences about circumstances outside of the game that he doesn't fully comprehend.

As it turns out Taylor's demise had nothing to do with any 'street grievances' or 'payback' from guys he met while at the U.

It was rather Taylor's generosity to his sister and his family in letting them use his house and invite friends into his compound that seemingly caused a couple of these idiots to hatch a plan to rob him.

Wilbon is guilty of doing what he claims the 'white' media does all the time, namely stereotype the athlete of color.

Simply Unforgettable

People sure do see a lot of things when they look at this picture. Some see a hairdo. Some see a skin color. Some see a tattoo. Some see a football player. Look again though. It's a picture of a proud new father. It's a picture of a beloved son. It's the picture of the love of someone's life. It's the picture of a hero (see below.)
I have had this picture on my screensaver at work for a long time now. The occasional comment from a co-worker would invariably spark the debate of Sean Taylor's "off-the-field" problems. Sure he skipped an important business meeting (rookie symposium), got pulled over for allegedly driving under the influence, and he has displayed at times a less than pleasant disposition on the field (spitting on Pittman)...but these are the same kinds of headlines we gobble up everyday on E! News, Access Hollywood, TMZ, etc. Sean Taylor was just a big, mean, black football player, so it wasn't as cute to people (nor should it have been) as when Lindsay Lohan or Britney Spears did these same kinds of things both in public and at their workplaces . His journey to the edge of jail-time and back on the word of known criminals and tried by a self-advertising, DJ-wannabe prosecutor did serious damage to his reputation. One thing he figured out was how to stay out of the media--altogether. He ran from the media to protect his privacy. And in the absence of his voice, people were more than happy to assume he was a bad guy and that there must be foul play at all turns with a guy like this. It was an easy story to tell. It was an easy story to believe for some people with a single glance at this picture.


Sean Taylor had to grow up real fast it seemed. Faster than most of us had to probably. He has for some time represented an individual worthy of admiration by the young fans coming to the ballpark to see him, both as a player and as a person. He worked harder at his chosen profession and understood what his role was in fulfilling his potential, as evidenced by his study habits and practice effort. He was a good man. If you think that his radio silence to the media and disappearing act outside of football prevent me from being able to call him a good man, I think the same things prevent anyone from saying he was a bad man. Except my argument has evidence of a guy who was only 24 and had already figured out a lot. And I can show you a guy who had impacted so many lives positively on and off the field--which we know to be true given the stories told these days.

When I see this picture, I always think of why I go to the games on Sunday. Television brings you the games from around the country in nice, neat packages into your living room. But something about watching a guy like Sean Taylor live made it worth having a seat at the game every week. He was our best player. On our entire roster, Sean Taylor was the BEST REDSKIN. Not only that but he was going to be our best player for a long time. Seeing this picture throughout the year and certainly throughout the offseason always made me feel good about the prospects of our upcoming year, or upcoming game. Any defense that had Sean Taylor on it had a chance to win. Period.

I did not know the man personally. He had an impact on me though to be sure. He was my favorite player; he was ebagg's favorite player. He was ours to defend against the fans of every other team year-round. He was ours to defend against even other Redskin fans who were concerned we had a "bad apple" in the bucket. He never did anything to deserve what happened to him in his home that night, when he was clearly defending his family against intruders, standing between gun-wielding criminals and his fiance and baby. When is Michael Wilbon going to write the article calling him a hero instead of the one he wrote basically blaming Sean Taylor? If he hadn't been there with them, unspeakable harm could have been visited upon his baby and fiance. If people want to constantly make Sean Taylor out to be the sum product of his few public missteps as they have been doing for so long now, perhaps they should consider his most recent action that was made public. In the moment that I believe defines the kind of man he was, he stood between his family and two bullets.

RIP

Sean Taylor's Gunner....

So based on a news article posted on a Canadian website, I was able to track down one of the 4 arrested dickheads that broke into S. Dot's house. (took 15 minutes of searching through all the 'Eric Rivera' profiles, but I found it). I created a phony myspace account and asked to be a friend. Supposedly the pictures on his profile are him rolling around in his bed with $100 bills and lots of intelligent stuff like that.

Its rumored Ken and Megan do this with Dylan when then change him but until we have some proof, I'll just go ahead and say it is a fact. I'll post more if I get in.

So here is Mr. Florida...aka, Eric Rivera's My Space page (the one pictured on the far left above and he is the one who has confessed to shooting Sean). To give you a brief blurb from his my space: "choppa city "Goon" pussy's "Nigga im Mr. Florida, fuck what u talkin bout and what u heard, nigga come see me" IM IN THE MURDA CAPITAL, FIND ME PUSSY HAHA". I would love to see how Mr. Cannon or Mr. Burke would deal with one of this guy's homework essays.

http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendID=44808475

To try to end on a good note, here is video of arguably (in reality a fact) one of Sean Taylor's best hits of all time (in the pros). It came in the Pro Bowl.