D.C. Sports Bog - By The Washington Post's Dan Steinberg - November 1, 2009

Jason Taylor still sounds sour about Greg Blache

Before things turned. (By John McDonnell - TWP) Good news: Jason Taylor was on Sirius NFL Radio's "The Sirius Blitz" with Adam Schein on Friday morning, and he didn't have one bad word to say about Daniel Snyder. Praised him effusively, in fact. No, Taylor's criticisms were all about...

Albert Haynesworth defends Dan Snyder

Against the Chiefs. (By Nick Wass - AP) Albert Haynesworth hasn't opened up much lately with the local media, which is a shame, because he remains a tremendous quote, smart, funny and honest. Thursday night, he appeared on Sirius NFL Radio's "Late Hits" with Bryan McGovern and Ross Tucker,...

Behavior Change: Newspaper ad slams Snyder

This ad appeared on page E4 of Friday's Express. Duffy's is that bar across the street from the 9:30 Club. I really don't have too much more to say about this, except for the obligatory Jeez. Oh, and is it really "Happy Holidays" season already? Oh, one more thing:...

Vinny Cerrato defends Dan Snyder's character

I make my living from burrowing into the slimy little corners of ridiculous local sports soap operas, and even I'm sick of this one. Literally every day there's something new to write about that has absolutely nothing to do with the men in tight clothes who throw around the weirdly...

Debbie Yow discusses Friedgen and Williams

Because I've gotten a few e-mails on the topic, I thought I'd go ahead and provide some quotes from Debbie Yow's appearance on 106.7 The Fan's Mike Wise Show today. If you're pressed for time, here's an executive summary. Or, you can listen here, depending on your level of bravery....

Concerning the love for Jack Kent Cooke ...

Before I get to the headline, the John Riggins transcript from his Wednesday appearance on Showtime's "Inside the NFL" has been updated with Riggins's full comments. Perhaps the most interesting additional comment came at the end, when host James Brown asked Riggins if he was worried about tarnishing his legacy...

Wiz TV ratings up 93 percent

Curious what a healthy Gilbert Arenas does for local interest in the Wizards? The early indications are it helps. A lot. The crowd at Wednesday night's Heat game was definitely on the late-arriving, small and quiet side, which had me once again cursing about D.C. sports. But the early-season TV...

KidsPost slams the Redskins

It'll be tough to top that day in October when four separate sections of The Washington Post issued critical reports on the Redskins, from Financial to Style to Metro to Sports. (That was also the day I waited five hours to get my daughter's H1N1 vaccine, which is why it's...

So a key Wizard got injured, weird

"Sometimes it's just frustrating," Brendan Haywood said last week, when Caron Butler hurt his knee. "It feels like we're cursed." Well, that was last week. Then came Wednesday night's loss to the Heat, when Mike MIller went down with a sprained AC joint in his left shoulder--"Felt like it...

Riggins says Snyder is 'a bad guy'

There's been no harsher critic of the Redskins this fall than John Riggins, from his YouTube laceration of the Skins' front office to his hour-long skewering of the franchise on a WTOP town-hall program with Frank Herzog. And yet just when you think he's brought all the ammunition he can...

Behavior Change: Bail out the Redskins?

"I think the relentless negative coverage in The Washington Post is a real difference from previous years," Redskins COO David Donovan said, in a quote that I plan to have tattooed on my sternum before the end of November. "But in terms of the way our actual fans are...

Behavior Change: Skins fans plan Dallas walkout

"I think the relentless negative coverage in The Washington Post is a real difference from previous years," Redskins COO David Donovan said, in a quote that seems to grow in majesty with each passing day. "But in terms of the way our actual fans are behaving, we don't see...

Halloween in D.C.: Lincoln and Snyder

I've already shown a few D.C. sports fans in their Halloween get-ups, but that's not going to stop me from showing a few more. Above, please see a pair of Wizards fans inspired by DeShawn Stevenson's neck tattoo of Abraham Lincoln. You can see that they went different ways...

Leonsis admits he's no hockey expert

Whether the author intended this or not, it's impossible to read Ted Leonsis's latest blog post and not immediately think about another local sports franchise, its owner and its fan base. How about I quote one passage and then you try to guess the franchise, okay? Lately I have been...

Fan-card protest makes WJLA

Of the many dozens of "Fan Protest" ideas that have been floated among Redskins fans this fall, the "Mail in Your Fan Card" thing seems to have gotten the most traction. See, more than 26,000 page views on Extreme Skins. (View the Fan Card here or here.) The instructions...

I thought the Cavs don't care about D.C.?

Mighty strange way of showing indifference. (Yes, I'm projecting here. A television network is not the same as a basketball team.) (Yes, I might as well just send a personalized letter to LeBron reading "please care about us please care about us please care about us.")...

LeBron James Banner at Gallery Place

For the past couple of days, I was thinking how maybe Cleveland fans and Washingtonians should get together. You know, how Browns fans, tired of a decade of losing, are planning a protest to grab the owner's attention. That whole thing. (Leaders of the Browns fan revolt actually scored...

Skins open themselves up for fan feedback

Within the past few hours, many of you received a fan survey from the Redskins, titled 2009 Washington Redskins Ticket Holder Satisfaction Survey. (UPDATE: I was previously linking to the version of the survey I used, but apparently that link showed up as a completed survey. I guess you can't...

From Hip Hip Hooray to Deadskin

You want to see how a fan base changes in one year? Look at the above images. Oh, wait, before you do that, read this. "I think the relentless negative coverage in The Washington Post is a real difference from previous years," Redskins COO David Donovan said, in a...

DeAngelo Hall's W-L record isn't so great

(2006 photo by Streeter Lecka - Getty) This is a big week for DeAngelo Hall. He's going to be far more involved in the Redskins' punt-return game. He's debuting a line of t-shirts. He's blogged about how the Redskins are like a wounded animal. And he has promised to...

Flip Saunders pays homage to Bullets past

Chatting at 11:30. See here. There are plenty of reasons to like Flip Saunders, among them that he seems to have helped restore the Wizards to a state of competitiveness. Here's another one: take a look at what he did to the Wizards' practice gym. Now, this isn't a...

Shannon Sharpe wears a bag head for the Skins

Sure is tough to go more than a day or so without a Redskins story involving one of the team's supposed potential hires. Monday, it was Mike Holmgren, lashing out at the Redskins' treatment of Jim Zorn. Sunday, it was Bill Cowher, sitting there and grinning while his "NFL...

Behavior Change: Group protest

I can't even count the number of e-mails I've gotten with proposals for how to really send a message to the Redskins' front-office, from group walk-outs to group boycotts to group backs-to-the-field to group marches. (Ok, I probably could count the e-mails, since I'm pretty good at counting, but...

New look Wiz get ready for Cleveland rivalry

(2008 photo by Preston Keres - TWP) Remember when LeBron James said there was no rivalry between the Wizards and the Cavaliers? DeShawn Stevenson was asked about that comment Monday afternoon, on the eve of the rivalry's first 2009-2010 incarnation. "He's the Golden Child, he's gonna say that," Stevenson...

IMG exec calls Ovechkin a "global icon"

IMG Worldwide has a few people you might have heard of in their client portfolio--Tiger Woods, Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal, Maria Sharapova, Giselle Bundchen, Heidi Klum and Peyton and Eli Manning, for example. Until this week, though, the sports media and entertainment company wasn't in the hockey business, although they...

Rolling Stone disses the Caps

Last April, it became very trendy to argue that the Caps had clearly ascended to the role of D.C.'s Second Sports Franchise. Sure, everyone said this was perhaps contingent on the Wizards continuing to struggle and the Nats continuing to do whatever is one step below struggling, but the...

Players know Zorn doesn't have total control

I've made a pledge that this week won't be all about transcribed Redskins interviews, and in fact right now I'm on my way to Wizards practice to do some actual work about a team with an actual winning record. But I ran out of time last week before I could...

Arenas masks, Snyder costumes, and more

It's possible D.C. sports will never have a more fruitful Halloween sports weekend. I was hanging out with a two-and-a-half year old ladybug in Western New York, but I thought I'd pass along a few images. Anyone else, send 'em in. The Wizards played their home opener on the...

D.C. Sports Bog: November 1, 2009 - November 7, 2009