The guy's just a douche...

I played 5 seasons of College Football. Two years of club ball at George Mason, and three seasons in Division III at Hampden-Sydney. When I was first being recruited to HSC, they told me about their quarterback. He was a senior starter who was going have all the passing records by the time he was done. Seemed perfect right? Not so much. Admittedly we didn't have the best talent, but you'd think that a record setting QB would lift us up; didn't happen that way. If you were looking for all the bad qualities in a quarterback, this guy had them. He REALLY didn't like to get hit, he didn't like to work out, and he'd claim injuries bad enough to keep him from practicing, while never managing to get into the training room to get them worked on (which called his injuries into question). Add all of that to the fact that he really wasn't too friendly with most of the guys on the team and the whole situation wasn't good for morale.

Fast forward to the next year. We bring in a Quarterback who hadn't played in three years, but at one point had been a successful high school QB. He was also kinda goofy and deaf in one ear. But the guy played his ass off, was fearless, talked to everybody and played with injuries (separated shoulder in his first game). Despite the fact the guy wasn't the biggest fan of working out, we still loved him and played hard alongside our quarterback.

That story isn't exactly analagous to the Skins fight in the Georgia Dome with Falcons, but it’s pretty darn close. Earlier in the week on his radio show, Lavar Arrington was incredulous about how slow DeAngelo Hall's Redskins teammates were to come to his aid after he was surrounded by Falcons on their sideline (remember, that's after Hall ran over there, to extract late hitting LaRon Landry from the situation - though it looked like Hall was more interested in jawing than peacemaking)

From Dan Steinberg's DC Sports Bog

"You want to know what type of team you're cheering for, pull that clip up. Pull that up.... You had no heart. I don't care, you hearing me say it? Good. I don't need to be afraid, I don't need to be nervous. I see y'all don't get down like that. Y'all don't get down like no true riders....
"They're swarming DeAngelo, and nobody's helping him. I would have been up in that pile, oh, I'm telling you, it would have been WWF up in there.....I could have counted on one hand how many dudes was standing there, watching it. Watching it. That's why we can't win. You want to know why we can't win? It's clear and simple. That's why we can't win....
"I don't even know that I would rampage the way that I'm rampaging right now if it was the offense, because I know they're soft. I know you've got a bunch of soft dudes on the offensive side. This is the wrong side of the ball to see the behavior that we saw on Sunday. I'm sorry. Bodies should have been flying....
"There's gonna be a head count when I get finished, or you're gonna be picking me up off of the ground, whichever one comes first. I am all in. I would have ran into that crowd 100 miles an hour, smoking. Call me stupid, call me dumb, call me boneheaded, call me undisciplined, call me what you want to call me. That's a coach grabbing on my teammate, that's the head coach pushing on my teammate, saying I'm gonna kick your [behind]. I am running in that pileup head on, 100 miles an hour, let's go, CHOO CHOO! I don't care if I've got to walk in the locker room after that. I don't care. That's heart. We're playing with heart. I saw no heart. I saw no heart. I saw no dedication, no accountability for my fellow man out there on that field, and it came from the side of the ball that I would have never thought it would have came from."

Ok...in most situations I agree with LaVar. You have to stand up for your teammates, especially if the other team is intimidation mode. You have to show they aren't going to push you around.

But, this is a special case. Notice a few things from the fight; it seemed like the whole Falcon team was ready to kill DeAngelo Hall. Maybe that's because he was about to get in a fight with their head coach, maybe not. Maybe it’s the fact that the folks left over from Hall's time in Atlanta think he's selfish, overrated and was a bad teammate. Over on the other side of the ball, maybe the Skins didn’t rush to his aid because they’re all soft and have no heart. Maybe the Skins Defense didn’t defend him because they’re tired of DeAngelo getting paid much more than most everyone else, while not making textbook NFL tackles (Carolina game - Jake Delhomme, Atlanta game - Michael Turner, Giants game - Mario Manningham) due to a lack of effort or guts. I know, I know, DeAngelo gets paid to intercept passes, not tackle. Well, he's not Deion (thank goodness, I couldn't go through that again) and I've got 10 and 11 year olds on my B-League team that can make interceptions on tipped balls. Ain't that big of a deal and don’t get me started on how this guy points the finger every week, while never changing the way he plays.

I could be wrong on all of this; it’s possible. But put it this way; if it had been London Fletcher, or Cornelius Griffin or Rocky MacIntosh or LaRon Landry (and remember Landry was on the sideline before he calmly walked back on the field with the man he hit, Matt Ryan) or any other RESPECTED member of the team, would the Skins have sat idly by and let their teammate get roughed up?

Oh no, we suck again!

Video of the day

I might try and sneak this into the rotation at Geaneas' wedding this weekend...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=exOxUAntx8I

So now to the Redskins...

Boy was that bad on Sunday. Just f-ing pathetic. A gift wrapped 14 points to take 17 to 2 (TWO! - Casey Kasem tribute) lead and they still can't hang on. An ultra-pathetic offensive line (now with the injuries) and a defense that hasn't stopped anybody in a key situation for years now, brought another loss to D.C. And while I'm hoping for them to keep losing so folks wise up and come to their senses about Snyder, part of me was rooting for them on Sunday. So that meant I was extremely pissed about DeAngelo Hall's "attempt" (and I use the term loosely) at a tackle at the end of the game.

You all know the play I'm talking about...3 and 8 with 2 minutes left. Skins stop the Panthers, Campbell gets a chance to lead them down for a tying field goal; Panthers get a first down, game is over. Carolina runs a naked bootleg with no receiver in the pattern. THIS, is a give up call. John Fox and company were saying, we'll let our slow assed quarterback fake a handoff, roll out, and if half the Skins defense has had their feet amputated, MAYBE, we'll get the first down.

So what happens, our newly Brinks truck paid corner (the same one the Raiders - THE RAIDERS FOR GOD SAKES - cut halfway through the season last year) executed the triple crown of defensive ineptitude. First off, Hall was the contain man on the play. He's supposed to let no one get outside of him, and he certainly isn't supposed to try to make a tackle on a run to the other side of the line. Then, after Jake Delhomme fakes, and starts to bootleg back to the right (slowly plodding by the way) Hall recovers just in time to try and arm tackle him, instead of making a solid form tackle (shoulder in the ribs, wrap up, the whole nine yards) or at least diving at his knees to at least take out his legs. In the final insult, Hall gets dragged 5 yards (yes, I just watched the video) before Jeremy Jarmon got over there to actually get Delhomme on the ground, a yard past the marker. Three strikes and you're out buddy...at least that's what should be said this week; but it's not. No, folks will continue to point to another tipped ball interception and proclaim Hall a playmaker, this is spite of the fact that an 11 year old could make that play (in fact one of my 11 year olds made a better play on an interception this year and took it back 60 yards for a touchdown). I was told a fan actually said the following somewhere; “Hall isn’t paid to tackle, or cover, He’s here to make plays”. I’m sure that moron’s I.Q. compares closely to Forrest Gump, but anyway, I think a tackle to get the ball back with under two minutes counts as “a play”.

But while I bash DeAngelo, I know he's a symptom, and not the disease. That's Snyderitis. A player who's already "been paid" and doesn't need to follow the scheme or play his hardest has become all too common for the Redskins over the last few years...or should I say since 1999.