RVANews

Redskins vs. Falcons: The Blunder Bowl

Chris Bopst — Mon, 16 Dec 2013 14:14:30 +0000

Every man's life ends the same way. It is only the details of how he lived and how he died that distinguish one man from another. Ernest Hemingway

The big news leading up to the game was the announcement that Kirk Cousins would be replacing Robert Griffin as the Redskins’ starting quarterback. Shanahan’s reason for the change was that he didn’t want Griffin to take any more hits in a season that’s already over. With three games left, it’s hard to disagree with his decision. The only thing surprising about it is that it came during a week that everyone (including myself) was sure that Shanahan would be fired. It’s still a possibility, but Mike Shanahan spent the week telling everybody that he wants to be the head coach of the Washington Redskins next year, so who knows?

I’m not privy to what goes on behind closed doors in Snyderland, but I do hope Shanahan stays. He got us Alfred Morris, Jordan Reed, David Amerson, and Kirk Cousins--and despite this dismal season, the team is the 2nd-ranked rushing offense in the league. The whole system doesn’t need to be flushed. With new defensive and special teams coordinators, a couple of free agents and draft picks, and, most importantly, a healthy RG3, the Skins could/should be good. It will be interesting to see how Cousins does in these last games and what the Redskins decide do with him. He’s under contract, but with such parity at the position around the league, someone is going to make the Skin’s an offer they can’t refuse no matter how he plays. When that happens (and it will), the Redskins will have three options: keep Cousins as insurance for Griffin, trade him for the picks they gave up to get their benched star, or (and this is the least likely scenario) trade Mr. 3 and keep the promising backup. No matter what happens, Shanahan’s decision to draft Cousins has proven to be a wise choice. For that alone, I believe he should be given another year.

All that will have to wait though. The current season isn’t over yet.

Steven Jackson’s 3-yard touchdown gave the Falcons a 6-0 lead early in the 1st quarter.

For a meaningless game, yesterday’s match-up of 3-and-10s was pretty entertaining. It was an ugly contest (nine total turnovers) between evenly matched bad teams, but it was full of action, and it went down to the wire. And that’s all I want when I watch football: a battle between equals.

It didn’t start off that way, though. It looked like the Falcons were going to blow the Skins out, scoring effortlessly on their first two offensive possessions. When Steven Jackson scored on the Falcons’ opening 14-play, 83-yard drive, I wasn’t surprised. How can you be when you allow the opposing team to convert on three straight 3rd downs? And besides, the Redskins like to spot the other team a couple of first-quarter touchdowns so it makes it easier for the team to beat them. It’s what they do and they do it well. And to prove it, they let the Falcons score again. Matt Ryan hooked up with future Hall of Famer Tony Gonzalez for a 13-yard touchdown after Cousins’s first series of the season as the Redskins' starting quarterback ended when he fumbled after being sacked by Osi Umenyiora. Down 14-0 with almost four minutes left in the 1st quarter, the game was looking like your typical, run-of-the-mill Redskins’ blowout.

And then, despite their need to beat themselves, they rallied back.

Down 14-0, Kirk Cousins drops back to pass on 3rd-and-3 on the Washington 27-yard line. They would score three plays later when he connected with tight end Fred Davis for a 23-yard touchdown.

Cousins threw for 248 yards and two touchdowns, and the Skins went into halftime with a 20-17 lead over the Falcons. Despite four turnovers (one each by Cousins and Alfred Morris, two by 13-year veteran Santana Moss), the Skins were still in the game. Pierre Garcon’s 58-yard touchdown catch and run was the team’s longest offensive play of the year. Yesterday’s game was the first time this season the Redskins had two 50-plus-yard completions in a game; against Atlanta, they had two in the first half. The first, a 62-yard catch by Aldrick Robinson, was followed by an unforced fumble by Morris. On the next play, Ryan Kerrigan forced Matt Ryan to fumble and Brian Orakpo recovered the ball for the Skins. On 1st-and-10 at the Atlanta 27, Cousins connected with Moss only to have him turn the ball right back over to the Falcons.

Those three plays sum up the Redskins and Falcon’s seasons as the comedy of errors they have become.

The Falcons started five rookies on defense, including three in the secondary. Watching Cousins rack up the numbers against them, you couldn’t help but wonder if things would have turned out differently for the Skins this year if Cousins had started the season under center. In the 1st half, he played with a poise and confidence that Griffin hasn’t shown all year, and the Skins were dictating policy. It did come against a 3-10 team, but he did look good. Even the defense was playing well.

Brian Orkapo sacks Matt Ryan for a 9-yard loss on 3rd-and-4 forcing the Falcons to punt.

On the ensuing kick, Santana Moss fumbles the ball and Atlanta recovers on Washington’s 14-yard line. The drive stalled on Washington’s 2-yard line, and the Falcons had to settle for a 20-yard field goal by Matt Bryant.

After the Skins’ next drive ends with another Santana Moss fumble, Cousins connects with Pierre Garcon on their following possession for a 58-yard touchdown to make the score 14-17 in the 2nd quarter. The wide receiver finished the day with seven receptions for 129 yards and a touchdown.

Rookie safety Jose Gumbs’ interception of Matt Ryan’s pass to Harry Douglas set up Kai Forbath’s 37-yard field goal that put the Skins up 20-17 over the Falcons at halftime.

But as with all good things for the Redskins this year, the good times don’t last.

With the Redskins driving early in the 4th quarter, Alfred Morris fumbles the ball for the second time, and the Falcons recover the ball on the their own 14-yard line.

In the second half, the offense disappeared. Their first four drives of the third quarter went like this: three-and-out, interception, three-and-out, three-and-out. They gave up the lead and never got it back. The interception is what killed them. On 1st-and-10 on their own 1-yard line, Cousins was picked off by William Moore, and Steven Jackson got his second touchdown of the day on the next play. That was the play on which the Skins lost the game. With seven turnovers on the day, it speaks to Atlanta’s ineptitude that the game was even close as neither team really deserved to win. It was a game of who would fuck up least, and that’s what the Falcons did. They fucked up least.

Matt Ryan connects with Rodney White for a 12-yard gain late in the 3rd quarter.

The Skins did make it interesting though. Down by seven with 3:25 left in the game, Cousins led the team on an impressive 13-play, 80-yard drive that ended in a Santana Moss touchdown with 18 seconds left on the clock. All they needed was a successful extra point, and the game would have gone into overtime. Shanahan said fuck it. Why go into overtime when we could just get this thing over with now? I liked the call. Win or lose, it didn’t matter. And so, they went for the 2-point conversation, failed in the attempt, and lost the game.

No big deal. Let the Falcons turd-polish the victory, the Redskins are just practicing for next year.

Santana Moss’s touchdown catch put the Skins within a point of the Falcons with 13 seconds left in the game. Shanahan decided to go for the victory with a two-point conversion attempt, but Cousins failed to connect with Garcon, and the Skins lost the game.

Atlanta Falcons: 27, Washington Redskins: 26

Every man has his own destiny: the only imperative is to follow it, to accept it, no matter where it leads him. Henry Miller

That two-point conversation call is why I hope Shanahan comes back next year. Like his benching of Griffin, it showed that he’s thinking of the future of the franchise. Cousins finished the game 29-of-45 for 381 yards, three touchdowns, and two picks. Two more games like that and people are going to be beating down the Redskins’ door to sign him. Playing at home against the Cowboys (who suffered a soul-crushing loss to the Packers on Sunday), the Redskins have a good shot at beating their division rivals if Cousins plays well and the rest of the team can manage not beat themselves. Those are big ifs, but if the Skins do beat Dallas this weekend (it is possible), not only will head coach Jason Garrett be out a job, but Jerry Jones might very well be in the market for a new quarterback.

HTTR.

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Redskins vs. Chiefs: Now that was funny

Chris Bopst — Mon, 09 Dec 2013 11:59:09 +0000

Tragedy is when I cut my finger. Comedy is when you fall into an open sewer and die. Mel Brooks

The Redskins-Chiefs game? Now that was funny.

At this point in the season, I’ve gone through all the stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and, finally, acceptance. I have come to terms with it. The Redskins are awful.

On the bright side, they don’t half-ass sucking. They’ve elevated sucking into a high art form. After the game, Robert Griffin said that he was frustrated. Frustrated? Dude, give up. The rest of the team has. Besides, you’re a young, handsome multi-millionaire who plays a game for a living. Sure, this season was a miserable failure, but there will be more. Just get through the next three games, and it will all be over.

And take it from me; since I gave up on the Redskins season, I’ve never been happier. I suggest you do the same. Just rehab the knee, spend some quality time with your new wife and get your head straight for next season. They’ll be a new coach and a whole new system to learn, but you’ll be fine.

Let’s start the healing process by looking at some of the “highlights” from yesterday’s game.

Alex Smith hands off to Jamal Charles for an 8-yard gain on 1st-and-10 on the Chiefs first play from scrimmage.

The best part of the game was the fact that it was snowing. That’s why I like football. Other than a lighting storm, games don’t get called due to weather like they do in other sports. It’s that aspect of the game that separates the men from the boys, and it’s a big reason why football is the most successful professional sport in America.

As Kai Forbath kicked the opening kick off, my phone buzzed with a text message.

“How bad do you think we are going to suck today?”

“We are going to suck AWESOME,” I typed back.

And that they did; The Redskins sucked AWESOME.

Jamal Charles’ 2-yard touchdown run was set up by Dexter McCluster’s 60-yard punt return that put the Chiefs on the Redskins’ 13-yard line.

Here’s how the Chiefs first six drives of the game went: Field goal, touchdown, touchdown, touchdown, touchdown, touchdown. Here’s how the Redskins' first seven drives of the game went: punt, interception, punt, punt, punt, touchdown, field goal. It was hysterical. The Redskins have given up 105 first-quarter points this year, and yesterday, they were handing out points like candy. And it was a total team effort; they worked together as team, every man on offense, defense, and special teams worked as one to make it as easy as possible for the Chiefs to kick their ass.

Derrick Johnson intercepts Griffin’s pass intended for Pierre Garcon and returns the ball to the Redskins 25 yard line.

Three plays later, Alex Smith connects with Dwayne Bowe for a 21-yard touchdown to make the score 16-0 Chiefs late in the 1st quarter.

When Dwayne Bowe scored to put the Chiefs up by 16 with a little over a minute left in the 1st quarter, I started giggling.

“What happened?”, my wife said startled by my laughter. She seemed worried.

“The Chiefs scored again!”

“The Chiefs scored?”

“Yes! It’s unbelievable! Nobody sucks better than the Redskins!”

I was in a good mood. So good in fact that I broke out into song.

“Hail to The Deadskins! Hail Misery! Braves on the warpath! Die For Ol’ DC!”

Alex Smith’s 5-yard touchdown pass to Jamal Charles put Kansas City up 23-0 over Washington early in the 2nd quarter.

I was really enjoying myself.

“Why are you happy the Redskins are losing Daddy?”, my daughter asked.

“Oh, it doesn’t matter, baby girl. I’m just having fun being here with you and mommy.”

And that was no shit. The three of us don’t get to hang out enough together. They were decorating our Christmas tree as I watched the game and offered ornament-placement advice from the couch.

“Why are the Redskins so bad?”, she asked as she hung an ornament on the tree.

“I don’t know, but it sure is funny. You and mommy are doing a great job on the tree”

“It is the most beautiful Christmas tree ever, ” she said stepping back to consider her and her mother’s work.

I looked over and agreed. That was no shit either. The tree does look awesome.

After Dexter McCluster’s punt return for a touchdown made the score 31-0 Chiefs, the Redskins started their next drive with a 2-yard run by Alfred Morris. They would score six plays later when Griffin connected on a 7-yard pass to tight end Logan Paulsen for Washington’s only touchdown of the game.

The Chiefs answered the score on the following kick off when Quintin Demps returned Kai Forbath’s kick 95 yards for a touchdown.

“Go! Go! Go!”, I started screaming seeing Quintin Demps take the kick off return to the house after the Redskins finally managed to score, “Go man, Go!”

I have to admit that after Skins scored on a 7-play, 80-yard drive to make the score 31-7, there was a tinge of hope they might turn the game around. I knew it was silly, but I couldn’t help it. Thankfully, the Skins’ special teams didn’t let that thought linger. After giving up a punt return for a TD prior to the Skins’ scoring drive, they let Quintin Demps run a kick off back to end any thoughts of a Redskin comeback.

“Nina! Nina! Look at this.”, I called out to her as they were replaying the run, “look at that guy go.”

She ran over and looked at the screen. “Wow.”

She was impressed.

The Skins did manage to get a field goal before half, but that runback was the end of the game. Fans couldn’t get out of Fedex fast enough. It was a ghost town in the stands in the 2nd half. And who can blame them? As I lied on the couch after a long week of work, eating cookies under my warm comfy blanket, I pitied them.

At that point, I started watching NFL Red Zone to see actual competition.

Tyson Jackson sacks Robert Griffin midway though the 3rd quarter. Mr. 3 finished the day 12-of-26 for 164 yards, a touchdown, and a pick. He ran for 29 yards on four carries and was sacked four times before Kirk Cousins relieved him in the 4th quarter.

Kansas City Chiefs: 45, Washington Redskins: 10

Wow do you see this Skins game. Unbelievable. Is Shannahan next to go? There has been a lot leak out of that organization. I told you so.— Donovan McNabb (@donovanjmcnabb) December 8, 2013

With the season in shambles, it is only a matter of time before Mike Shanahan is fired. Prior to yesterday’s game, I thought (and hoped) he’d be around for another year, but after the way they played and all the rumors swirling around about his situation with the organization, I’d be surprised if he wasn’t shit canned by the time this report hits the web.

“This team is an embarrassment right now, to the organization and to the league,” Comcast SportsNet’s Chick Hernandez said after the game.

Ouch.

HTTR

Redskins vs. Giants: The 2014-15 offseason has officially begun

Chris Bopst — Mon, 02 Dec 2013 16:12:26 +0000

I don't have high expectations anymore. Maybe they've just been beaten out of me.Elisabeth Shue

Of many of beat downs I have witnessed at Fedex over the years, last Monday night's was by far the worst. To call what happened between the 49ers and Redskins a “game” is to suggest that actual competition took place. That did not happen. It wasn’t a game; it was annihilation.

Colin Kaepernick completed 6-of-9 passes to five different receivers on play action last Monday night against Washington. He finished the game 15-24 for 235 yards and three touchdowns in the 49ers’ 27-6 drubbing of the Skins.

I did have a cushy free ride to and from the slaughter in a chauffeur-driven bus, but it was still a great big giant bummer. That’s why I hate going to the games. Only if the Skins win do I have a good time, and even then I would rather be at home no matter how much my ass is pampered. And at home when they lose, I can get over it quickly, but when I go to the games and they lose, it sucks so much I can barely stand it.

And boy, did it suck.

Last Monday’s game was Anquan Boldin's first game with multiple touchdown catches since Week 14 of 2012. Here he catches a 32-yard pass from Kaepernick over Josh Wilson in the 3rd quarter. Boldin ended the day with five receptions for 94 yards and two touchdowns.

The Skins were crippled from the onset. All day, the four of us that went up to the game tried to muster some hope, but we knew we were just kidding ourselves. Still, we did our part. We sacrificed 10 hours of our day, we wore our colors proudly, and we screamed, yelled, and cursed when we were supposed to. It didn’t matter. The Redskins were simply outmatched. Making matters worse, as we sat there watching the carnage unfold, we had to endure the play-by-play by various Niners’ fans sitting around us. One in particular--a rail-thin, short, drunken dude with a toothy grin--just kept talking and talking and talking.

“Yo, yo, yo, the Redskins ain’t shit man. It’s like taking candy from a baby out there.”

I couldn’t argue with him.

“And RG3? Why do they play that dude when he’s hurt? Look at him. He’s hurt.”

Again, I couldn’t argue. He did look hurt. And if he wasn’t hurt going into the game, it looked like he would be after it. He was taking a lot of punishment.

“But who cares about him? Kaepernick is da man, motherfuckers!” he said with a high-pitched whine as he high-fived the cluster of Niner’s fans sitting around him,

“Shit. This game ain’t even fun to watch.”

Tight end Vernon Davis celebrates his 1-yard touchdown catch from Kaepernick that gave the Niners a 24-6 lead late in the 3rd quarter.

It wasn’t. And after Vernon Davis’s touchdown made the score 24-6 late in the 3rd quarter, I decided to stop watching it and went to the bar to get a drink. I ordered two shots of Maker’s Mark.

“That’ll be 26 dollars, honey”

“Really? 26 bucks for two shots of whisky?” I don’t know why I was surprised, but looking at the two minuscule shots she had laid out on the counter, I couldn’t help myself.

“Yeah baby, its 26 dollars,” the kindly, overweight, black woman with bad
teeth replied. She seemed embarrassed. “Ever since they raised the prices this year, I don’t get tipped as much. Everybody is mad about it.”

As I paid her, the apology continued.

“I only make $2.75 an hour. I don’t know why they have to charge so much cause I sure ain’t getting none of it,” she said handing back my change. I gave her a $4 tip.

“Make sure Daniel Snyder doesn’t get any of that”

“You don’t have to worry about that, baby,” she giggled slipping the four one dollar bills quickly into her bright pink bra, “God bless you, honey, God bless you.”

San Francisco 49ers 27, Washington Redskins 6

Because I want to see. I've got to know what's going to happen while I'm still enough in control to be able to do something about it. Daniel Keyes Flowers for Algernon

Despite being shellacked by the Niners just six days before, I liked the Redskins' chances against the Giants. Like the Skins, the Giants are a bad team having a miserable season. After a 0-6 start, the Giants had managed to put some wins together, but after last week’s loss to the Cowboys, their playoff goose was pretty much cooked. Amazingly though, even as bad as both teams have played this year, both still had a glimmer of hope of making the post season if they won Sunday night’s game. Lose it and the season is over.

Alfred Morris’s 1-yard touchdown gave the Skins a 7-0 lead over the Giants in the 1st quarter.

Going into the game with the number one rushing offense in the league, I figured the Redskins had the upper hand. And on their first drive of the game, they did. They drove down the field and scored their first TD of the year on an opening offensive drive. It was a 15-play, 73-yard thing of beauty too. Griffin connected on all five of his passes, and he and Alfred Morris ran the ball well in the no huddle offense. At the end of the first quarter, the Redskins were up 7-0 and the Giants had amassed a total of five yards on six plays.

Awesome.

Brian Orakpo sacks Eli Manning on the Giants first offensive play of the game for a nine yard loss.

And then they did it again. Culminating with Logan Paulsen’s 18-yard touchdown catch, the 8-play, 59-yard drive put the Skins up 14-0 early in the second quarter. Sav Rocca and the special teams pinned the Giants on their own 1-yard line, the defense forced a 3-and out, and the offense put six on the board. They were dominating the Giants like the Niners had dominated them. They were playing like the team they were supposed to be and not the 3-8 team that they were.

Robert Griffin runs for 15 yards on the Redskins scoring drive in the 2nd quarter.

That’s when it all went to shit.

The fucked up thing about it is that I wasn’t surprised. I expected it. Up by 14 is prime time for a Redskins failure, and sure enough, that’s what they did. After Paulsen’s touchdown, the Giants scored twice in the second quarter to tie the score at 14 going into half time. I knew it when tight end Brandon Myers scored on 22-yard pass from Manning to tie the score with 35 seconds before the half: the Redskins were going to lose this game.

Andre Brown’s 23-yard touchdown run made the score 7-14 Redskins with 8:46 left in the 2nd quarter

I don’t know what happens to them. Moments of dominance are followed by long descents into incompetence. They can’t sustain drives when they need to, they can’t stop anybody when they need to, and the special teams can always be counted on to make a critical mistake. It’s a recipe for failure. Worse still, the Giants tried to lose the game. Brandon Meriweather intercepted Manning and returned the ball to the Giants 12-yard line. The Skins had three shots to get six and had to settle for three. That was a pivotal series. If they get the touchdown, it changes the course of the game. Forcing the Skins to settle for three gave the Giants room to breathe.

The Giants scored the last 10 points of the game. As is their nature, the Skins fucked up on special teams when Sav Rocca fumbled the snap from center and whiffed an 18-yard punt that gave the Giants the ball on the Redskins 46 yard line. Four plays later, Andre Brown scored to put the Giants ahead 21-17 after Josh Brown’s extra point.

Justin Tuck sacked Griffin four of the five times the Giants got the Redskins quarterback in the 2nd half.

The Redskins had plenty of time to get back into the game but they couldn’t stop Justin Tuck. The defensive end almost single-handedly beat the Skins. He sacked Griffin four times and each of them came at critical moments. It was a career high for the two-time Super Bowl champion, and the Skins had no answer for him. When Griffin did have time to throw the ball, Paulsen and Pierre Garcon dropped easy passes. A lot will be made about the poor officiating at the end of the game (Washington thought it had a first down when it was actually third-and-1), but that doesn’t change how poorly the offensive played in the second half. When Will Hill wrestled the ball away from Pierre Garcon on 4th-and-1 with 1:21 remaining in the game, the Redskins off-season had officially begun

New York Giants 24, Washington Redskins 17

For time and the world do not stand still. Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past or the present are certain to miss the future. John F. Kennedy

At 3-9, everything about the Skins will be securitized, questioned, and second-guessed. Personally, I think the team is fine. Are there problems? Yes, lots of them, but that doesn’t mean that you have to do anything as rash as firing Mike Shanahan as I’ve heard some people say. Firing him now would be stupid. I wouldn’t fire Kyle either. All of the people calling for his head were the same people calling him a genius last year, and just because you have a disappointing season with a very young and very promising team doesn’t mean the Skins should freak out and get rid of him. You give coaches three years and next year will be the then fully healed Mr. 3’s third in the Shanahan system. That will be the make or break year. If next season doesn’t show results, then you think about firing the Shanahans--but not now, not after what they’ve been able to assemble. If they get some good linemen and have a little luck, the Shanahan offensive could be deadly.

And keep Kirk Cousins on the bench. Robert Griffin is the Redskins quarterback. End of story.

Defensive coordinator Jim Haslett should be fired immediately, though. I bet he already has his bags backed. Thankfully, whomever Allen and Shanahan get to run the defense after Haslett is canned won’t be starting from scratch. There are pieces there to build on. With the right coach and a few key additions in free agency (something they couldn’t do going into the year), the defense should improve. The nice part about that is when you are ranked 31st in the league in overall defense, there is no place to go other than up.

Until then, the Redskins have four more games to play against the Chiefs, Falcons, Cowboys, and Giants until their 2013 season is over. It will interesting to see how these games play out because how they play in these next 16 quarters will tell you who will be in burgundy and gold next year and who will not. Think of them as the pre, pre-season for 2014-15 season, the year the Redskins go to the Super Bowl.

Remember, you heard it here first.

HTTR

Redskins vs. Eagles: Too little too late

Chris Bopst — Mon, 18 Nov 2013 14:44:35 +0000

How very much I've tried my best to give you a good life. But in spite of all of my trying a handful of our people, with their lies, have made our lives impossible. There's no way to detach ourselves from what's happened today. Reverend Jim Jones; November 18, 1978

I can admit it. I drank the Redskins kool-aid. At the beginning of 2013 NFL season, I was confident that not only were the Redskins going to be contenders, they would dominate. I was sure of it.

11 weeks later, all those hopes, all of those beautiful dreams, have been snuffed out.

Robert Griffin is sacked for an 8-yard loss in the 2nd quarter.

"God damn it, man, can't we make a fucking first down? What the fuck? This is total fucking bullshit. Fucking Redskins."

Sean drank the kool-aid too. All summer long, he and I talked about how great the coming season would be. Now, as the two of us stood at the end of the bar at Banditos watching the Skins get brutalized by the Eagles for the second time this season, we made jokes about how much they suck.

"Well, the offensive line is doing a great job letting Griffin get crushed," I offered after number 10 got driven into the dirt yet again, "They are totally awesome at it."

"Maybe they want him to hurt his other knee so that he can have a matching set. His other knee looks sad without a brace on it." Sean countered. He did have a point. His other knee did look sad.

Griffin gets tackled by DeMeco Ryans after a 4-yard run. He would spend most of the Redskins' scoreless first half on his back.

"Put In Rex Grossman!" someone yelled. It was punctuated by chants of "RG!" that quickly faded.

"That's not such a bad idea. They should take Griffin out and save him for next year, " Sean said turning to meet my eye for emphasis, "our season is officially fucked."

It was hard watching the game unfold. On every play, Griffin received some sort of physical punishment.

"Jesus. How does still keep getting up?" I winced seeing him endure yet another mauling. A chorus of concerned profanities followed each hit he took.

Alfred Morris runs for a 9-yard gain on 1st-and-10. The drive ended seven plays later when Robert Griffin's fumble was recovered by Fletcher Cox.

This, and every Redskins ineptitude, delighted the smattering of Eagles fans at the bar. As the first half wore on, their cheers grew louder, and the worried expletives of Washington fans were reduced to disgusted mumbles. In a season defined by nihilistic performances, this was one of the Skins' bleakest. Griffin overthrew wide open receivers, and wide open receivers dropped balls that hit them in the hands. The defense let Philadelphia score their first touchdown on their fourth offensive play and their second touchdown within the next six. 10 plays, 14 points. That's a ratio for success. Adding another three before the end of the half, the Eagles were up 17-0 over a Redskins team that they dominated in every facet of the game.

The Eagles 8-play, 90-yard drive culminated with Alex Henry's 24-yard field goal to make the score 17-0 after two quarters.

I decided to go home. My misery no longer desired company.

I stopped by Patterson Express to bring home some cookies for my daughter. The guy behind the counter was wearing a Redskins jersey and had the game on the radio. He saw my hat, and we just shook our heads.

"I'm thinking of turning it off," he said handing me my change, "It's just too depressing."

LeSean McCoy's 1-yard touchdown run put the Eagles up 23-0 with 9:41 left in the 3rd quarter.

I came home to an empty house. I told myself that I wasn't going to turn on the game, but I knew I was lying. I tuned in just in time to see LeSean McCoy run for a 1-yard touchdown.

I immediately felt stupid.

Despite this, I continued to watch harboring some hope that the Skins would mount a comeback. I started daydreaming about how awesome it would be. My phone would start blowing up with "HTTRs" as Robert Griffin talked about the importance of team in his press conference. Yes, it was going to be good. All they had to do was score four, 4th quarter touchdowns.

Darrell Young scores the Redskins first points of the game on a 62-yard pass from Robert Griffin early in the 4th quarter.

And then things started to click. Griffin hit Darrell Young for a 62-yard touchdown and rookie Nick Williams for the 2-point conversion to make the score 8-24. I realized at that point that Shanahan was playing for the tie. Two more of each of those and the game is tied. They would wait to win the game in overtime. Brilliant. On their next drive, Griffin hit Alvin Robinson for a 41-yard touchdown and got the 2-point conversion himself on a designed run up the gut. One more of each of those and the game is tied. It was then that I started to pace the room.

Aldrick Robinson's 41-yard touchdown catch and following 2-point conversion by Griffin put the Skins within eight points of the Eagles with almost six minutes left in the game.

With 5:58 left in the 4th, the Eagles went three and out, and the Redskins got the ball back with plenty of time (3:26) to get the eight points they needed to save their season. Starting at their own 4-yard line, they moved the ball down the field and connected on crucial 3rd-down plays to sustain the drive. "Ah yes, please," I thought when Griffin connected with Santana Moss for 28-yard gain on 3rd-and-25. There was hope.

And then there was none.

On 3rd-and-1 on the Eagles 19, Brandon Boykin intercepted Griffin in the end zone to end the game. The dream was over. Oh well, I thought, it was fun while it lasted.

Philadelphia Eagles 24, Washington Redskins 16.

Robert Griffin is knocked to the ground as his pass is intercepted in the end zone by Brandon Boykin to end the Skins' hope of a comeback.

While it still remains a mathematical possibility that the Redskins could make the playoffs, don't believe the hype. At 3-7, the Skins' season is over. At this point, for the long-term health of the team, Shanahan should consider either putting Griffin on ice for the rest of the season or at least structure the offense to limit the amount of hits he takes. There is no need to expose him to further injury now that the season is officially over.

Looking into my crystal ball, defensive coordinator Jim Haslett and special teams coach Keith Burns are as good as gone, and defensive backs coach Raheem Morris could be fired as well. A lot of fuss will be made that Kyle Shanahan should also be shown the door, but that's doubtful as long as his father is head coach. Next year, the Redskins will be able to shop on the free agent market once again, and they'll have to. They have a lot of needs to address (a linebacker to replace London Fletcher, special teams, and the offensive line are their most pressing concerns) if they want to once again contend for division titles.

On the bright side, a lot of the main ingredients are already in stock. All they need now is to add the right spices, and hopefully, with a productive off-season, they will solidify into the team they want to be.

HTTR.

Redskins vs. Vikings: The big let down

Chris Bopst — Mon, 11 Nov 2013 13:05:29 +0000

The disappointment of losing is huge. Jack Youngblood

The only words that come to me are profanities.

But that’s nothing new for a Redskins fan. We are always spewing vulgarities. Thursday’s crushing loss to the previously 1-7 Vikings was especially hard to take. Usually I’m fairly optimistic, but Thursday night, that shit sucked. Games like that make you feel stupid for liking football in the first place. If I had filed my Redskins recap after the game, it would have been a searing rant of bitter disappointment filled with expletives. It still is, but a couple of days removed, I can put the actions of athletes in it’s proper perspective.

The Redskins are just not a very good team.

On paper they won the game. They had more offensive yards (433-307), ran more plays (77-52), and had the ball longer (36:01-23:59) than the Vikings. Robert Griffin III went 24-37 for 281 yards, three touchdowns, and zero turnovers on top of the 44 yards he had on the ground. Alfred Morris ran the ball 26 times for 139 yards. Pierre Garcon had his second 100-plus-yard game getting 119 yards and a touchdown on seven catches. They were 9-16 on 3rd down. They didn’t turnover the ball over. Despite these impressive stats, the Redskins managed to lose the game.

Of all the losses this year, this one was by far the worst. The Vikings were saddled with injuries and had yet to win a game on American soil. Adrian Peterson is the only reason anybody fears playing Minnesota, but as great as he is, no single man can carry a team. If it was, the Vikings would have won more than a single game this year. And this is exactly why I worried the Redskins would lose against them. It was a game they had to have against a very weak opponent. Sure, they were coming off a short week, but it was a short week after a thrilling overtime victory against a Chargers team that they were picked to lose. The gutsy win was supposed to be the turning point of their season. That’s what all the talking heads said too. The Redskins were going to win against the Vikings.

And that’s when all Redskins fans knew that we were fucked.

On 2nd-and-1 on the Minnesota 27, Robert Griffin III hands off to Alfred Morris for 13-yard gain in the first quarter.

I booked a show the night of the game at Balliceaux. I spent the night juggling doing sound for the band and watching the game next door at the Lombardy Market. I hate doing that. Like masturbation, watching football is something I like to do alone.

I should have stopped watching the game when Logan Paulsen dropped the pass in the end zone on the Skins’ opening drive. I just knew that was a bad omen. They drove all the all way down the field to Minnesota 1-yard line. What happens? 1st down, Alfred Morris is held for no gain. 2nd down, an incomplete pass to Darrel Young. 3rd down, Paulsen drops a ball that hits him in the hands. “Fuck!,” I screamed at three girls as they walked into the market, “fuck me in the ass.”

They all looked at me. “Sorry,” I said pointing to the TV, “football.”

I hung around long enough to see Kai Forbath’s field goal before I hurried back to Balliceaux to make sure everything was kosher at the show. Seeing that it was, I scurried back in time to see Adrian Peterson make the score 6-3 on an 18-yard touchdown run up the gut.

“God damn it” I moaned. “Tell me about it,” John said as he rolled his eyes ringing up a customer like he wasn’t there, “We suck.”

During the commercial break, I tried to convince him that it was still early in the game and talked about all the good things they did on their opening field goal drive. It wasn’t without merit either. They ran the ball well.

“If we keep running the ball like that, we’ll be fine. It will open up the passing game too,” I offered as I took a slug of my Smart water.

“I know, but I don’t like the way this game is starting.”

Pierre Garcon’s 17-yard catch on 1st-and-10 put the Redskins on the 50-yard line. Eight plays later, Logan Paulsen scored on a 1-yard pass from Griffin to give the Skins a 24-14 lead over the Vikings going into the half.

My optimism was proved on the Skins’ next drive. Once again, they drove down the field. Griffin hit Leonard Hankerson and Jordon Reed for big gains. This time, they got the touchdown when Griffin connected with Pierre Garcon for the score on 1st-and-10 at the Minnesota eight yard line. At the end of the 1st quarter, the Skins were up 10-7.

“Hail to the Redskins,” I said, high-fiving John walking out the door.

“I just hope they don’t fuck this up” was his response.

I came back a couple of minutes later to see Minnesota get their 2nd touchdown of the game on 2-yard pass from Ponder to Cordarrelle Patterson.

“What happened?”

“They fucked up.”

“Shit.”

With things going smoothly at the show, I decided that I should watch the rest of the quarter without leaving again. Every time I did, the Vikings scored. A part of me believed that the Skins were down because I wasn’t watching the game. My superstition was given credence when the Skins’ scored 14 points on their next two drives. The first came on a 13-play, 80-yard drive that culminated with an 11-yard scoring strike to Reed. The second came on a quarter ending 11-play, 77-yard drive with a 1-yard pass to Paulsen. As Ponder took a knee to bring the half to a close with the Skins up 24-14, I left Lombardy Market with a guarded optimism.

“Hail to the Redskins.”

"I just hope they don’t fuck this up,” John said as he went back to stock beer.

Adrian Peterson’s 9-yard run during the Vikings’ first scoring drive of the game. He finished the day with 70 yards on 20 carries and two touchdowns. In the victory, the 7th pick in the 2007 draft from the University of Oklahoma passed Walter Payton to become the NFL’s fifth all-time rusher with a total of 9,635 rushing yards.

The second half began with the Skins getting another three points from Forbath. They had another long possession end before its time in the red zone, but the score put them up by 13 points. The offense controlled the clock, and the defense got the Vikings off the field. All they had to do was to keep Minnesota from scoring 13 points and they would win the game.

And that they did. The Vikings didn’t score 13 points--they scored 20, and all of them were unanswered.

Tight end John Carlson’s touchdown made the score 21-27 Redskins midway through the 3rd quarter. Starting in the absence of Kyle Rudolph, he caught seven passes for 98 yards. The touchdown was his first since 2010.

I grew increasingly despondent watching this happen. I was still hopeful when Ponder hit a wide open John Carlson for 28-yard cake walk into the end zone, but when Adrian Peterson got his 2nd touchdown of the game to tie the score at 28 after a Cullen Loeffler extra point, I was frothing profanities.

“How the fuck do they always fuck themselves. There’s no fucking reason why this fucking game should be tied. I can’t fucking believe this fucking shit.”

“I don’t know why you are surprised,” John said handing change to a tall black dude smiling, “the Skins fucking suck.”

Christian Ponder is stopped on the Redskins 1-yard line by DeAngelo Hall. The quarterback injured his wrist on the play and did not return to the game.

“The Skins are losing?” the guy asks as he turns his head to the TV, “they were up when I left the house.”

“No, the score is tied, but they are playing like shit,” John answers.

“Fuck.”

“Tell me about it”

And that’s how the game went. John and I exchanged profanities to one another and customers as the Vikings went up by six on two Cullen Loeffler field goals in the 4th quarter. The Skins offense went totally limp in the second half. Nothing worked. It seemed like every time Griffin went back to pass he was hit or sacked. I was getting genuinely pissed. After the second field goal, I left abruptly.

“I can’t watch this shit”

John didn’t answer.

Kelvin Williams sacks Robert Griffin for a 10-yard loss in the 4th quarter.

But I couldn’t stay away. I got my head together and came back for the last drive of the game. The offense moved the ball down the field all the way to the Vikings 8-yard line. After a Roy Helu run to the four, the Vikings inexplicably called a time out. It was a baffling decision. The Skins didn’t have any time outs left and Minnesota head coach Leslie Frazier stops the clock with 32 seconds in the game. Vikings receiver Greg Jennings was pissed. They kept showing him walking the Minnesota sideline like he wanted to kill somebody.

“Thank you Leslie.” I said to John with a fist pump.

“I know. What the fuck?”

But the call proved to be in the Vikings favor. It gave them time to catch their breath, and they kept the Skins out of the end zone to win the game. It was the mirror image of last week’s goal line stand against the Chargers except this time, the Skins were ones being stopped. When Santana Moss caught a pass out of bounds on 4th down, the game was over.

The Vikings had prevailed.

Minnesota 34, Washington 27

On fourth-and-goal with 32 seconds left, Griffin’s throw to the corner of the end zone was caught by Santana Moss with only one foot in bounds.

I was visibly disgusted when I went back to work. I hurried through my duties and my co-workers did their best to avoid me. It was good they did. I was in a vile mood, and I left as soon as possible.

Now 3-6, the Redskins have the exact same record that they did at this time last year. The NFC remains a battle of who can suck least, but barring another 7-game winning streak, the Skins will once again reign supreme in the bottom of the division they won last year. The Eagles and Cowboys are tied for 1st place with 5-5 records so all is not lost.

The Redskins play the Eagles next week in Philadelphia. A victory against them is of utmost importance if they have any chance of taking the division. It will be a tall order. The Eagles are coming off a victory in Lombeau and are currently the team that sucks least in the division. The Skins have their backs against the wall, but they have proven that they can win when given no other choice.

And at this point in the season, there is no other option.

HTTR

Redskins vs. Chargers: Forever Young

Chris Bopst — Mon, 04 Nov 2013 12:58:46 +0000

I count him braver who overcomes his desires than him who conquers his enemies; for the hardest victory is over self. Aristotle

Up 24-14 with less than seven minutes left in the game, I was sure the Redskins were going to lose yesterday. All the signs were there. It was the fifth game in a row that they gave up a defensive or special teams touchdown. They had two field goals blocked. Despite this, they had the a two possession lead with time dwindling, but as any Redskin fan will tell you, these are the types of games that the Skins typically lose.

And sure enough, they almost did.

Alfred Morris runs for a 1-yard gain on the Redskins first offensive series of the game. He finished day with 121 yards on 25 carries and a touchdown.

The game started promisingly enough. Starting their first drive of the day on their own 1-yard line, the Skins methodically drove the ball down the field with a selection of run and pass plays that had the Chargers on their heels. Things were looking good. When Robert Griffin connected with Leonard Paulson for a first down on 3rd-and-6 that put the Skins on the Chargers 14-yard line, it looked like a touchdown was in the team’s very near future. And then--as has been the case when the Redskins have been on the cusp of six this year--the drive stalled, and it was up to Kai Forbath to put points on the board. As they lined up for the kick, I went to the kitchen to get more coffee. I came back just in time to see Lawrence Guy block the 25-yard attempt.

Fuck me. It’s going to be that type of game, isn’t it? My phone started blowing up with profanities.

The Chargers got the ball, but had to punt it way. Punter Mike Scifres once again pinned the Redskins deep in their own territory. After a false start penalty on full back Darrel Young, the Chargers scored the first points of the game.

Chargers defensive end Sean Lissemore intercepts a tipped pass in the end zone to put the Chargers up 6-0 early in the second quarter.

Griffin went back to pass and Chargers lineman Lawrence Guy got his hand up causing the ball to flutter around fellow defensive end Sean Lissemore’s head before he could get his hands on it. When he did, the Chargers had their first lead of the game. I looked over at the phone as it chimed the arrival of more obscenities. I reached over and turned it off.

Chargers quarterback Phillip Rivers connects with tight end Antonio Gates for an 8-yard gain on San Diego’s scoring drive before the end of the 1st half.

The Redskins tied the game on an Alfred Morris 5-yard run later in the quarter, but with 5:25 left in the half, the defense gave up an 11-play, 85-yard touchdown drive. The hurry-up tempo allowed the Chargers to nickel-and-dime themselves down the field with ease. When Eddie Royal scored on a well-executed wide receiver screen to take the lead 13-7, you could almost feel the crowd deflate. But it could have been worse. If wide receiver Vincent Brown runs the right route on San Diego’s previous drive, chances are they would have scored on that drive too. Thankfully, E.J. Biggers can catch balls thrown directly at him or Alfred Morris never gets in the end zone in the 2nd quarter. They were lucky to be only down by seven going into halftime.

Unlike other games this year, the Redskins took advantage of their good fortune.

Pierre Garcon’s one-handed, 38-yard catch on 3rd-and-12 put the Skins on the Chargers’ 28. Darrel Young scored five plays later to tie the score at 14.

Quarterback Robert Griffin lands on his head after a 10-yard run to get the first down in the 3rd quarter.

Washington opened the second half with an impressive 9-play, 74-yard touchdown drive. It was done with a steady diet of Alfred Morris punctuated with passes to Pierre Garcon and Santana Moss. The defense held San Diego on their next possession, and the Redskins scored again, chewing up nearly eight minutes on an 11-play, 79-yard drive that put them ahead 21-14.

Griffin’s 10-yard run-and-leap on 3rd-and-9 for a first down late in the third quarter set up the go-ahead score. It was a spectacular play and one the Skins’ needed in a must-win game, but if he continues to take those types of hits, it won’t be too long before Kirk Cousins is lining up behind center for the Skins. Plays like that are why the team drafted Griffin so no one can act surprised when the man does what he was brought in to do. Still, every time Kyle Shanahan called an option play (three times), it seemed like Griffin was getting needlessly abused.

David Amerson intercepts Phillip Rivers with 10:25 left in the game.

The defense was keeping Rivers and the Chargers’ offense off the field, and Griffin was eating up clock with long scoring drives.

Just when I thought it couldn’t get any better, it did when rookie David Amerson stepped in front of a Phillip Rivers pass intended for Keenan Allen to get his second interception of the year. Each week, the second round draft pick continues to improve and make important plays. This lead to Kai Forbath’s 47-yard field goal that put the Skins up 24-10 with 6:59 left in regulation.

It was then that I started worrying that they would fuck it up. As the game went on, I had good reason to worry.

David Amerson stops David Woodhead short of the end zone late in the 4th quarter.

I wonder why the Redskins make everything so hard on themselves and so easy for the other team. And that’s exactly what they did. They let the Chargers get seven in under three minutes. And then, after the Redskins offense couldn’t hold onto the ball to seal the victory, San Diego got the ball with 2:10 left in the game and two timeouts. On 4th-and-2, Keenan Allen was left wide open, and he made the catch to keep the drive alive. On the next couple plays, Rivers moved the Chargers not only into field goal range, but into TD range with time and timeouts to spare. At this point, I’m pacing the room, a mixture of hope and dread. And when Rivers connected with David Woodhead for what appeared to be a touchdown, I fell back in my seat with a thud, disgusted.

Fuck me.

Then, like an angel answering my profane prayer, the replay booth overturned the touchdown. There still was hope, but with three shots at the end zone from the Redskins 1-yard line, I wondered if they should just let the Chargers’ score to have any chance of winning the game. There was no way they were going to keep San Diego from getting the touchdown so they should let ‘em score, get the ball back, and hope for a miracle. I was certain the Redskins couldn’t stop the Chargers from getting the touchdown.

But that’s what they did. 1st down, nothing. Second down, incomplete pass. Third down, incomplete pass. I couldn’t believe it. The Skins held them. The Chargers couldn’t get the six and had to settle for a field goal by former Redskins kicker Nick Novak to send the game into overtime with the score tied at 24. They would never touch the ball again. After the Redskins won the coin toss, the offense drove 63 yards and Darrel Young scored his third TD of the day to win the game.

Darrel Young’s 4-yard touchdown capped a 10-play drive that sealed the 30-24 victory for Washington over San Diego in overtime.

At 3-5, the Redskins keep themselves in playoff contention in the NFC East. Punt and kick off coverage has improved, but the Skins’ special teams had two field goals blocked. Those are the types of blunders that lose games. Dating to last season, the once perfect Forbath has now made just five of his last 10 field goal attempts. If they want to continue winning, they have to first stop beating themselves.

The team was excellent on third down yesterday. They converted 12-of-17 third downs, including all seven on their final three touchdown drives. Pierre Garcon had a monster game, and he was a big reason why the Skins won, making tough catches in clutch situations. Jordon Reed had a good first half, but kind of disappeared in the second. He finished the day with three catches for 37 yards and a run for 18. Griffin didn’t throw a touchdown, but he went 23-of-32 for 291 yards and threw the ball well after an early fluke interception. The combination of Alfred Morris, Roy Helu Jr, and, now, Darrel Young in the run game is critical to the team’s continued success.

The defense bent plenty (giving up 410 yards in total offense), but held firm when it mattered most. Dave Amerson’s interception and tackle on the goal line were the difference in the game. With DeAngelo Hall having an all-pro year and Brandon Merriweather back from suspension, the defensive backfield is playing their best ball of the year and is still improving.

The Redskins are on a short week, playing this Thursday in Minnesota against the Vikings who are coming off a tough loss to the 5-4 Cowboys. If they can keep Adrian Peterson under 150 yards and can manage to get that much or more of their own on the ground, they should come out of Minnesota with a victory. But with the Redskins, you never know.

HTTR

Redskins vs. Broncos: The Mile High letdown

Chris Bopst — Mon, 28 Oct 2013 11:03:31 +0000

I had a stick of CareFree gum, but it didn't work. I felt pretty good while I was blowing that bubble, but as soon as the gum lost its flavor, I was back to pondering my mortality.Mitch Hedberg

On 1st-and-10, Alfred Morris runs up the middle to the Denver 15 for a 4-yard gain early in the 3rd quarter. He finished the day with 93 yards on 17 carries and a touchdown.

Talk about a game of two halves. In the first, the Skins went toe to toe with arguably the best team in the NFL and had a 21-7 early in the 3rd quarter.

"It was like a blur," DeAngelo Hall told ESPN reporter Eddie Pells after the game. "Someone asked me, 'What went wrong, what happened?' To be brutally honest, I don't remember. I looked up t one point, 21-7, felt good, everybody smiling.”

Yes, things were looking good. Hall had just taken Payton Manning’s pass intended for Demaryius Thomas to the house to give the Skins a 20-7 lead. With the pick-six, Washington had a two possession lead and the momentum. At that point nobody would have guessed that Kai Forbath’s extra point would be last point the Redskins would score for the day.

“And then I turned around and it was 38-21”

Payton Manning overcame four turnovers, and Denver overcame a two-touchdown deficit Sunday to score the last 38 points of the game.

Down by 14, Payton Manning and Broncos then rattled off 38 unanswered points to win the game 45-21. The defense kept the highest scoring offense in check for as long as they could, but the offensive and special teams kept giving Manning a short field to work with in the second half. The future first-ballot hall of famer took advantage of it: Manning finished the day 30-of-44 for 354 yards, four touchdowns and three interceptions. While nobody really thought the Skins would come out of Denver with a victory, Washington made a game of it longer than anyone could have imagined.

Wes Welker scores on a six-yard touchdown pass from Manning on the Broncos first drive of the game. The Redskins defense held the Broncos to their lowest first-half point total (seven) of the year.

Their piecemeal secondary kept the Broncos receivers off balance for most of the day in defensive coordinator Jim Hasslet’s physical press-based scheme. Just the fact that they held the Broncos to seven points as long as they did is impressive. Safety Jordan Pugh--signed Tuesday after starters Brandon Meriweather (suspension) and Reed Doughty (concussion) were sidelined for the game--had an interception and he, rookie Bacarri Rambo, Jose Gumbs, and converted cornerback E.J. Biggers harassed Broncos wideouts all day.

Manning figured out how to beat the coverage in the second half with screen passes run underneath the man coverage on the outside and on crossing patterns run into an exposed middle. Still, the defense forced four turnovers and continue to improve as a unit. The 45 points the Broncos hung on them wasn’t all their fault. The offense and special teams bare the burden of that blame.

Brian Orakpo recovers a Payton Manning fumble in the 3rd quarter. Manning was called for holding for the first and only time in his career when he tried to keep Orakpo from recovering the Ryan Kerrigan-forced fumble.

I have no idea why Kyle Shanahan decided to stop running Afred Morris when they had Denver down 21-7. Doesn’t he know that you don’t fix what ain’t broke? With a 14-point lead and the run game clicking, Kyle called 10 pass plays and four running plays on their next four drives. During Washington’s first three drives of the tied fourth quarter Alfred Morris touched the ball once. It makes no sense. He kept trying to hit one deep instead of milking the clock with a combination of Morris and Helu. Failing to hit the big one, the Skins gave the ball right back to Manning and he got six for the Broncos every time they did.

Robert Griffin throws his second interception and leaves the game with a knee injury when he is sacked late in the 4th quarter.

Another reason to run the ball (beyond the fact that it was working) would have been to spare your quarterback unnecessary punishment. Griffin was brutalized all day. He took a lot of hits that could have been avoided if Shanahan had stuck with the run. The Broncos got to Griffin up the middle on almost every pass attempt, and he left the game in the 4th quarter with his twice surgically-repaired left knee injured after getting hit by Malik Jackson (apparently he’s OK). For the day, he went 15-30 for a paltry 132 yards, a touchdown, and two picks. Rookie tight end Jake Reed and wide receiver Pierre Garcon had impressive plays, but the Skins receiving corp failed to separate from man coverage for most of the day. Coupled with the porous pass protection, the receivers consistent failure to get open makes Shanahan’s abandonment of the run in the second half all the more puzzling.

Wide receiver Pierre Garcon’s spectacular one-handed grab in the second quarter. On the next play, Griffin fumbled, and the team was forced to punt.

The Skins’ special teams once again contributed a play that made it easier for the other team to beat them. Tied at 21, Sav Rocca kicked a 15-yard punt. On the next play, Manning gave Denver the 28-21 lead with a screen pass to Knowshon Moreno for a 35-yard touchdown. That was the play of the game. After that, Denver proceeded to score and never looked back.

At 2-5, the Redskins are still in playoff contention behind the 3-5 Philadelphia Eagles and 4-4 Dallas Cowboys in the NFC East. A win this week against the 4-3 San Diego Chargers at FedEx is possible--depending on which Redskins team shows up. If the one that played the first half of this game shows up, there is a good chance they could beat the Chargers. But if the one that played in the second half takes the field, it is an absolute certainty that they will lose. And that’s how they’ve played this season. They’d end up winning more games if they didn’t first beat themselves.

HTTR

Redskins vs. Bears Recap: HELUUUUUU!

Chris Bopst — Mon, 21 Oct 2013 13:18:58 +0000

The will to win, the desire to succeed, the urge to reach your full potential...these are the keys that will unlock the door to personal excellence. Confucius

Now that was the Redskins team everybody has been waiting to see. For the first time this year, Robert Griffin looked like RG3, the offense scored touchdowns, and the defense made important plays that helped to win the game. Was it perfect? No, not by a long shot. The special teams gave up a touchdown, and the defense let the Bears offensive rack up 359 yards of offense and 35 points. If the team you are playing hangs 41 on you, you usually lose the game.

Luckily, the offense got their groove back and scored touchdowns (five) instead of field goals. That was key. If they had been forced to settle for field goals as they were in last week’s loss to the Cowboys, the Skins are 1-5 and talking about what could have been. But with their new-found ability to get into the end zone, they go into a tough match-up against the Broncos at Mile High this week at 2-4 with RG3 and company coming off their best performance of the season.

— ∮∮∮ —

The offense

As a comic, you try something and if it works you go with it and grind it to death. Alexei Sayle

Robert Griffin runs for a 1st down on 2nd-and-6 early in the 1st quarter.

Robert Griffin, Alfred Morris, and Roy Helu Jr. ran for a combined 209 yards against the Bears. Of the three, Griffin’s 86 yards were the most important. His designed runs made the read-option tick as it hasn’t ticked all year--and it's a thing of beauty when it is run by a fleet-footed Griffin. The read-option only works if the defense has to take the quarterback’s legs into account, and yesterday, the Bears always had to worry. Within a split second, they had to decide weather Mr. 3 was handing the ball off, passing, or taking it for himself. It must be maddening. On top of the ground yards, Griffin completed 18-of-29 passes for 298 yards with two touchdowns and one interception. Each week, he seems more comfortable running the offense and as Griffin goes, so does the rest of the offense.

Roy Helu Jr. scores on a 3-yard run to put the Skins up 30-24 late in the 3rd quarter. The running back finished the day with 11 carries for 41 yards and three touchdowns.

The combination of Roy Helu Jr. and Alfred Morris worked well for the Redskins yesterday. The plan was simple enough: Morris’ set ‘em up for Helu to knock ‘em down. And that he did, having his best day of his young career capitalizing on Morris’s always-falling-forward power running (19 carries for a team-high 95 yards) with three downtown runs once the team got inside the red zone. Having Helu as an active participant in the offense adds a new layer to the onion defenses have to peel when they play the Redskins, and one that has the potential to make them cry.

Roy Helu Jr celebrates his game-winning touchdown with teammate Kory Lichtensteiger.

Another tear maker after yesterday’s game is 3rd round draft pick Jordon Reed. Kyle Shanahan’s offensive game plan was contingent on a successful performance by Reed, and he delivered. The tight end was targeted nine times and he caught the ball nine times for 134 yards (the highest total for a Redskins rookie tight end) and a touchdown. Time and time again he got the best of the Bears’ safeties off the line. If he continues to play this well and can manage to stay healthy, starting tight end Fred Davis (on the inactive list for yesterday’s game) will be seeing the field less and less. 6th round draft pick Alvin Robinson was another important rookie in yesterday’s win. One of his two catches (75 yards) for the day was a 45-yard bomb from Griffin early in the 4th quarter. He dropped a similar pass in the Redskins' Week 3 loss to the Lions, but he didn't bobble this one.

The most important drive of the season was the 12-play, 80-yarder the Skins put together to win the game with 3:57 remaining. The Bears had the lead 41-38, and they had to score. With the fate of the season on the line, they did what good teams do: they won the game. They matriculated the ball down the field (converting on three third downs) and got the touchdown on Helu’s 3-yard scoring run to take the lead 44-41 with less than a minute in the game.

The defense

Redskins outside linebacker Brian Orakpo (98) runs for a touchdown after snatching Jay Cutler’s pass intended for wide receiver Alshon Jeffery in the 2nd quarter.

As I said earlier, when the other team scores 41 points, you usually lose the game. The defense continues to be porous, missing tackles and giving up large chunks of yards. Despite this, they did some good things. Brain Orakpo had his best game of the season recording four tackles, a sack, and the first pick-six of his career. D’Angelo Hall shut down Brandon Marshall keeping him to 75 yards on six catches. For the day, they gave up 359 of total offense to the Bears, but still managed to make enough plays to keep Chicago from winning the game.

With Jay Cutler knocked out of the game, backup quarterback Josh McCown went 14-20 for 204 yards and a touchdown finishing the game with a 119.6 quarterback rating. Running back Matt Forte torched the Skins for 91 yards on 16 carries and three.

After starting quarterback Jay Cutler left the game early with a groin injury in the second quarter, former Detroit Lions, Oakland Raiders, Miami Dolphins, Carolina Panthers, and San Francisco 49ers quarterback Josh McCown came in and almost rallied the team to victory. He never played as well as he did yesterday at any of his previous stops in the NFL, and chances are, he probably never will again. Everyone looks better when they play the Redskins, but McCown played especially well. I worry that going into Denver this week, Peyton Manning might become the first player to throw for a 1,000 yards in a game. I mean, if they can make McCown look this good, imagine what Manning could do to them.

It won't be pretty.

The special teams

Devin Hester tied Deion Sanders's NFL record for return touchdowns (19) on an 81-yard punt return for a score in the 2nd quarter.

For the second week in a row, the special teams gave up a touchdown. Of all the Skins’ troubles, this is the one that could be the most troublesome. It doesn’t matter how well your your offense or defense are playing if your special teams are giving up field position and points. If a penalty didn’t nullify the Chicago Bears’ successful onside kick, the Redskins might have lost their second game in a row because of their special teams. This shouldn't be the glaring issue that it has become.

— ∮∮∮ —

Winning isn't everything, it's the only thing. Vince Lombardi

At 2-4, the Redskins got a much-needed victory. With this week’s game at Denver, nobody expects the Redskins to win despite the Broncos coming off their first loss of the season to the Colts. All I I know is that the Redskins better keep scoring points because they are going to need all they can get going against Manning at Mile High. Is it possible that the Skins could pull off the upset? Sure, but it’s not likely unless they make the Broncos play their worst game of the season and they play their best.

I for one hope that happens.

HTTR

Redskins vs. Cowboys: Heaven 17

Chris Bopst — Mon, 14 Oct 2013 13:59:30 +0000

Every man is more than just himself; he also represents the unique, the very special and always significant and remarkable point at which the world's phenomena intersect, only once in this way, and never again. Hermann Hesse

You know who the quarterback was who led Tucker High School to a 10-1 record and a Regional 6-AAAA championship in 2005? Dwayne Harris. The same Dwayne Harris who beat the Redskins last night.

In a league that puts a premium on showcasing it’s stars, it was a little-known, 6th round draft pick that was the difference in the game. Even with his stellar performance, the victory was a total team win for Dallas. The Cowboys played the majority of the game without starting running back DeMarco Murray and defensive end DeMarcus Ware and won a game they lost on paper.

They lost the time of procession by almost 10 minutes (25:28-34-32) and gave up 433 yards of total offense, but they forced the Redskins to settle for field goals instead of touchdowns in a game in which they never trailed. Football is a total team sport, and when you can win despite not playing your best game that's the type of victory that separates good teams from the not-so-good ones. With the win, the Cowboys put last week’s heartbreaking loss to Denver behind them and move into a first place tie with the 3-3 Eagles (who beat the hapless Tampa Bay Buccanneers 31-20) for first place in the NFC East.

First quarter

On their first drive of the game, Tony Romo led the Cowboys down the field on a 10-play, 80-yard drive that culminated with DeMarco Murray’s 4-yard touchdown score up the middle to make the score 6-0 early in the 1st quarter.

— ∮∮∮ —

In what would turn out to be the story of the Redskins’ game, Robert Griffin took the offensive to the doorstop of six only to settle for three. On 3rd-and-9 on the Cowboys nine yard line, linebacker Sean Lee tackled Robert Griffin two yards short of the end zone. Kai Forbath’s 20-yard field goal made the score 3-7 with 1:38 left in the quarter.

Second quarter

After intercepting Tony Romo on their next offensive series, the Redskins failed to take advantage of his mistake and had to punt the ball five plays later. On their next offensive series, Dallas lost running back DeMarco Murray for the rest of the game with a sprained knee after a 6-yard run. Soon after, all-pro defensive end DeMarcus Ware followed Murray into the dressing room with a right quad injury. Right when it looked like things couldn’t get any worse for the Cowboys, things turned to their favor.

People will say Dwayne Harris’s 86-yard punt return for a touchdown was the play of the game, but they will be wrong. The play of the game came before it when Sav Rocca’s 44-punt was called back because of an illegal motion penalty on Jerome Murphy. Dallas could have opted to keep the ball on their 16, but they elected to make the Skins’ punt the ball again. If they don’t make that call, this play never happens.

The Redskins got the ball back with 2:26 left in the half and all three of their timeouts. Despite moving the ball down the field, they settled for a 32-yard Forbath field goal when the drive stalled on the Dallas 17 with time running out. This was a pivotal series in the game. If they get a touchdown on this drive, they go into the half down 10-14 and it’s anybody’s game. Instead, the Skins squander the opportunity with questionable clock management that allows precious time to needlessly tick off the clock. They do get three out of it, but going into the half 6-14 instead of 10-14 keps the momentum in Dallas’s favor.

Third quarter

The Skins took the opening drive of the 2nd half to the Cowboys 9-yard line and yet again have to settle for a field goal. On the kickoff, Dwayne Harris took the ball all the way to the Washington 15 before he is tackled by E.J. Biggers. Two plays later, Tony Romo connected with Terrance Williams for his only touchdown of the game (He finished the day 18-30 for 170 yards with a TD and a pick) to make the score 21-9 after Dan Bailey’s successful extra point.

— ∮∮∮ —

The Redskins answered the score with their first (and only) touchdown of the game two drives later on Alfred Morris’s 45-yard run on 1st-and-10. The touchdown put the Skins within striking range, down 16-21, with less than four minutes left in the 3rd quarter.

Fourth quarter

Down by five, Robert Griffin (who had 77 yards rushing on nine carries for the game) had the team moving, but the Skins’ drive fizzled on the Dallas 31. Forbath missed the 49-yard attempt. If he makes the field goal, the score is 19-21 and all the team needs is three points to take the lead for the first time. Instead, the Cowboys get the ball with good field position on their own 39, and the Redskins let another scoring opportunity go to waste.

The Cowboys didn't make the same mistake.

— ∮∮∮ —

Tony Romo lead his team on a 9-play, 49-yard drive that ended with Dan Bailey’s 30-yard field goal that makes the score 24-16 with 10:46 left in the game.

On the next Redskins offensive series, The Cowboys put the game out of reach.

— ∮∮∮ —

With the ball on the Skins’ 11-yard line, defensive end Kyle Wilber forces Robert Griffin to fumble and Dallas recovers the ball on the 3-yard line. Joseph Randle’s touchdown two plays later put the Skins in the hole 30-16 with less than nine minutes left in the game.

— ∮∮∮ —

Down by two scores, the Skins drove to the Dallas 26 on a 19-yard run by fullback Darrel Young. It was his first run of the season, and it put the Skins in scoring position with plenty of time left in the game to mount a comeback. On 2nd-and-7, Orlando Scandrick sealed the win for the Cowboys when he intercepted Griffin in the end zone.

— ∮∮∮ —

Well, any good comeback needs some true believers.John Boehner

With the loss, the Redskins drop to 1-4 for year and more importantly, 0-2 in the NFC East. If the Redskins are to make the playoffs this year, the only way they are going to do it is if they win their division. For any 1-4 team down 0-2 in their division to think they have a legitimate shot at making the playoffs is usually a laughable pipe dream, but with the once mighty NFC East still up for grabs (except if your team’s name is the Giants), a playoff birth still remains within the realm of possibility for the Skins.

Griffin and the defense continue to improve, but time is running out on their season if they don’t start racking up some wins soon. Next week’s home game against the Chicago Bears (who are well-rested after making mince meat of the 0-6 New York Giants last Thursday) is a must-win game.

1-5 after next week and you can start thinking about next season.

HTTR

NFL Week 5 Recap: Eviscerations, surprises, and the moments you don’t want to define you

Chris Bopst — Tue, 08 Oct 2013 13:31:07 +0000

Philadelphia Eagles 36, New York Giants 21

Football doesn't build character. It eliminates the weak ones. Darrell Royal

After Sunday's drubbing at home by division rivals the Philadelphia Eagles, the New York Giants are now 0-5 on the year. Through five games, the defense has given up at least 31 points to their opponents. That hasn’t been done in the NFL since the 1954 Chicago Cardinals.¹ The last time the Giants went 0-5 was in 1987. That Giants team had an excuse for their impotence: they were on strike for three of those games. The quivering constipation of this year’s Giants has caught everyone by surprise. No one picked them to be bad much less one of the worst teams in the league. Tom Coughlin looks like he hasn’t taken a shit in weeks.

Despite the team’s winless record, all is not lost. A record of 2-3 currently puts you on the top of the NFC East. If they could mange to clear the blockage with a win Thursday at Chicago, they’d be right back in the thick of things in the division. That happening though seems doubtful. The meek may inherit the earth, but they don’t win football games. The Giants' season is over.

St. Louis Rams 34, Jacksonville Jaguars 20

Matt Giordano returns an interception for 82-yard early in the first quarter of the Rams-Jaguars game. Rams quarterback Sam Bradford finished the day 19-of-34 for 222 yards, three touchdowns, and no interceptions.

As bad as the Giants are, they aren’t the worst team in the NFL. They are in the toilet bowl with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Pittsburgh Steelers, and the single worst team in the NFL: the Jacksonville Jaguars. The Giants, Bucs, and Steelers have all had fleeting moments of hope this year, but not the Jags. Their season has been a total failure. The 20 points they scored in Sunday’s loss to the Rams was the most they’ve scored in a game all year. Prior to that, they scored a total of 21 points in their first four games so I guess things are looking up, but that’s just turd polish. No amount of gleaning can change the mound of feces the Jaguars’ season has become.

The Steelers and Bucs had bye-week reprieves from their recent gridiron failures, but both appear to be doomed to finish their seasons in the cellars of their respective divisions.

New Orleans Saints 26, Chicago Bears 18

With head coach Sean Payton back at the helm after serving a year-long suspension for “Bountygate,” The Saints are 5-0 after Sunday’s 26-10 win at Chicago.

Finding good players is easy. Getting them to play as a team is another story. Casey Stengel

It’s amazing what a coach can do to for a team. Without head coach Sean Payton, the Saints started last season 1-4 and missed the playoffs. With Payton back calling the shots, the team is undefeated and are looking like Super Bowl contenders. The defense, under the direction of new defensive coordinator Rob Ryan, is back to their opportunistic ways (the team is +6 in the crucial turnover ratio). On the other side of the ball, quarterback Drew Brees is lighting up opposing defensives, completing 140 of his 201 attempts for 12 touchdowns and four interceptions. Through the first five games, he has a 107.4 quarterback rating (second only to Peyton Manning). The rushing game averages 72.5 yards a game. If these trends hold (and the team doesn’t have to travel to Seattle for a playoff game), don’t be surprised if the Saints end up representing the NFC in the Super Bowl.

Cincinnati Bengals 13, New England Patriots 6

Adam Jones intercepts Tom Brady’s pass at the Cincinnati 3-yard line to seal the Bengals’ victory over the Patriots with 16 seconds left in the 4th quarter.

In their rain-soaked victory over the Patriots, the Bengals kept New England out of the end zone for the first time since their 16-9 loss to the Jets on September 20, 2009, breaking Tom Brady’s 52-game streak of throwing at least one touchdown pass. Beating the Patriots in itself is cause for celebration, but to beat them the way the Bengals did--without playing their best offensive game (Andy Dalton went 10-of-27 for 212 yards, no touchdowns and a pick)--legitimizes the team as an actual contender. Defensive coordinator Mike Zimmer had the Bengals defense harassing Tom Brady all day. They sacked him on his first pass attempt of the game (and three more times after that), and the 3-time Super Bowl-winning quarterback finished the day 18-of-38 for 197 yards with an interception for a Tony Banksesque passer rating of 52.2.

While the Bengals' offensive is still a work in progress, the defense is keeping them in games. In their Week 3 road victory at Lambeau against the Packers, the defense managed to hold on despite allowing the Packers to score 30 unanswered points (the last time a team won a game after giving up 30 straight points was Sept. 12, 1999, when Dallas rallied to beat Washington 41-35 in overtime after the Redskins scored 32 unanswered points). As they say, defense wins championships, and Mike Zimmer has his squad playing like champions. If the offensive can average 21 points a game, this team is going to be dangerous.

The Green Bay Packers 22, Detroit Lions 9

The Packers sacked Lions quarterback Mark Stafford five times and kept Detroit out of the end zone until late in the 4th quarter.

The Packers beat division rivals the Detriot Lions for the 23rd straight time at Lambeau on the strength of their defensive effort. The Lions were without their principle playmaker, wide receiver Calvin Johnson, so the Packers centered in on running back Reggie Bush, holding him to 44 yards on 13 carries and four catches for 25 yards. They held Detroit to 286 yards for the day. The Packers’ offense only managed one touchdown, but kicker Mason Crosby’s five field goals was the difference in this battle of defensive wills. The Packers are one game behind Detroit and Chicago in the standings, and linebacker Clay Matthews is out for a month with a broken thumb. If they can muster this type of suffocating defensive effort with regularity, they’ll once again be hosting playoff games at Lambeau when the season ends.

San Fransisco 49ers 34, Houston Texans 3

Tight end Vernon Davis scores on a 64-yard catch and run from Colin Kaepernick in the 4th quarter of the 49ers’ 34-3 thrashing of the Houston Texans.

After five games, the 49ers, Packers, Seahawks, and Saints are the best teams in the NFC. The Niners made chump change of the Houston Texans and even though Seattle lost their first game of the season falling to Colts 34-28 in a tight battle, they have a clear advantage over everyone if playoff games are played in Seattle (if that happens, the Seahawks are going to the Super Bowl). The Falcons are always on the cusp, but at 1-4 after their heartbreaking 28-30 loss to the Jets, the Saints have them under a barrel even if they do manage to rattle off some wins. The Bears, Vikings, and whoever wins the NFC East (the Redskins) will all be dispatched in the first round of the playoffs.

Kansas City Chiefs 26, Tennessee Titans 17

Jamal Charles’s 1-yard touchdown run put the Chiefs up 19-17 over the Titans with 6:23 left in the 4th quarter.

My favorite undefeated team is the Kansas City Chiefs. After years of posting losing records, first-year coach Andy Reid has the long-suffering franchise off to their best start since 2003 when the Dick Vermeil-coached team won their first nine games. The defense forced three turnovers and turned them into 13 points in Sunday’s game at Tennessee. On offense, the combination of Jamal Charles on the ground (108 yards on 22 carries and a touchdown) and Alex Smith’s careful game management (20-39 for 245 yards, no TD’s and a pick), the Chiefs are no longer one of the league’s least capable thanks to Reid. With this week’s game at home against the surprising, 2-3 Raiders (who dispatched division rivals the San Diego Chargers 27-17 on Sunday night), a victory will keep Kansas City neck and neck with the undefeated Denver Broncos.

Baltimore Ravens 26, Miami Dolphins 23

Torrey Smith caught six passes for 121 yards in Baltimore’s 26-23 win over Miami.

Other pleasant surprises in the AFC this year are the Browns, Bills, and the Dolphins. Miami lost 23-26 at home to the retooled, 3-2 Ravens on Sunday, but quarterback Ryan Tannehill is giving hope to the Dolphin faithful. It was the team’s second straight loss and the 18 sacks the offensive line has given up (the most in the NFL) has been the reason. Tannehill was under pressure all day, and Baltimore sacked him six times (three by Terrell Suggs). Despite this, the Dolphins made a game of it. Trailing 23-13 with 10 minutes left in the game, they scored twice in 95 seconds (a field goal followed by a pick 6 by Reshad Jones) to tie the score at 23 before Justin Tucker’s 44-yard field goal with 1:46 left in the game sealed the Baltimore victory. Going into their bye week, they are a respectable 3-2.

Denver Broncos 51, Dallas Cowboys 48

Linebacker Danny Trevathan’s interception of Tony Romo’s pass to Gavin Escobar set up Denver’s game winning, 28-yard field goal by Matt Prater as time expired.

In the animal kingdom, the rule is, eat or be eaten; in the human kingdom, define or be defined. Thomas Szasz

Even a diehard Redskins fan like myself feels sorry for Tony Romo. The man is defined not by his successes, but by his failures. In virtually every pivotal moment of his career, Romo finds a way to make the play that wins the game for the other team. Last year, his season ended with a three interception, turd-laying in Washington with a division title and a playoff birth on the line.

In Sunday’s loss to the blazing-hot Broncos, Romo was having a banner day. His 506 yards of passing broke Don Meredith's franchise record of 460 yards set on November 10, 1963 in San Francisco (the Cowboys lost 24-31), and he became the fifth quarterback in NFL history to pass for at least 500 yards and five touchdowns in a game.² With the score tied 48-48 and 2:39 left in the 4th, the Cowboys had the ball and a chance to win the game. On 2nd-and-16 on their own 14, Romo did what he always does when an important game is on the line: he failed.

The interception by Danny Trevathan³ set up Matt Prater’s game winning field goal as time expired. As the camera showed Romo sitting by himself as Manning ran time out before the kick, you got the feeling that you were looking at a man that's been cursed to forever snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

— ∮∮∮ —

Here are the scores for rest of the games:

Cleveland Browns 37, Buffalo Bills 24
Arizona Cardinals 22, Carolina Panthers 6

— ∮∮∮ —

With a win against the Cowboys this Sunday, the Redskins would improve their record to 2-3 for the year.

I embrace my rival, but only to strangle him. Jean Racine

This week, the Redskins travel to Dallas to take on the Cowboys. Despite being 1-3, the Skins come off their bye week only a half-game behind the 2-3 Cowboys and Eagles in the NFC East. With the division up for grabs, this game is of vital importance for both teams. Despite Sunday’s loss, the Cowboys traded punches with the best team in the league and almost won. The Redskins got their first win of the season against a diminished Oakland squad and are ready to continue their winning ways. Whoever wins this game, wins the division.

I’m picking the Redskins.

HTTR.

— ∮∮∮ —

Footnotes

They lost their 5th game 3-35 to eventual league champions the Cleveland Browns and finished the season 2-10 ↩
The 1,039 yards of combined offense became the fourth-highest scoring game in NFL history and tied for the second-highest in regulation since the NFL-AFL merger in 1970. ↩
Whose young career has been defined by his own big-game blunder when he celebrated a pick six too early during the Broncos first game against the Ravens. ↩

Redskins vs. Raiders: Victorious in Oakland

Chris Bopst — Mon, 30 Sep 2013 12:12:11 +0000

Victory is always possible for the person who refuses to stop fighting. Napoleon Hill

This season, the Redskins losing had almost become as certain as Eric Cantor calling Barrack Obama a socialist. Well, maybe not with that absolute certainty, but still: the team had not won a game.

Through three games, the defense had given up the the most yards (1,464) since 1951 when the New York Yanks gave up 1,494 to opposing offenses (the Red Strader coached team finished the season 1-9-2). The offense wasn’t much better. They couldn’t move the ball, they turned the ball over, and they made stupid mistakes. Not surprisingly, their yin and yang of porous sieve and timid flaccidity has kept renditions of Hail To The Redskins to a minimum this year.

Going into Oakland yesterday, the Skins needed to play against the Raiders and not against themselves.

Jeremy Stewart recovered Rashad Jenning's blocked punt of in the end zone to make the score 6-0 early in the first quarter.

And that was the first thing they did. After trading opening offensive ineptitudes, the Raiders scored the first points of the game recovering a blocked Seth Rocca punt in the end zone. It was an inauspicious start; the Skins have been outscored 67-21 in the first half this season.

Tight End Mychal Rivera catches an 18-yard TD pass from Matt Flynn to put the Raiders up 13-0.

Adding to the dread, after another failed Redskins’ offensive series, back-up Raiders quarterback Matt Flynn (filling in for concussed starter Terrelle Pryor) led the team on a leisurely 10-play, 80-yard touchdown drive before the end of the first quarter. As my favorite Polish-born American football placekicker Sebastian Janikowski made the score 14-0 to the roaring approval of the black hole, my wife and daughter walked into the house.

“Are the Redskins winning daddy?”

“No baby, they are losing”

Neither of us were surprised.

On the next Skins drive, Griffin lead a no huddle offense that showed promise. Things were clicking, and a crisp selection of runs and passes had the Raiders on their heels. On 2nd-and-4 at the Raiders’ 4-yard line, the drive got sidetracked when Griffin was flagged for intentional grounding--pushing them back to the 18. Pierre Garcon almost made up for it with a beautiful catch and run, but they had to settle for a 25-yard John Potter field goal. The drive--easily one of the best of the season--was run too well to only walk away with three points.

At that point, I didn’t know the Redskins defense wouldn't let the Raiders score another point.

20-year old rookie cornerback David Amerson scores the Redskins first touchdown of the game on a 45-yard interception return of a Matt Flynn pass early in the 2nd quarter.

With momentum neutralized by the field goal concession, the defense took the field needing to stop the Raiders. On 3rd-and-5 on Oakland’s 43, David Amerson stepped in front of a Matt Flynn pass intended for Denarius Moore and got the six the offense couldn’t get. His first and the Redskins’ third interception return for a touchdown this year, the interception invigorated the team. It was the most important play in the game. After that, Matt Flynn didn’t play like he was trying to win, he played like he was trying not to lose.

Charles Woodson’s sack of Robert Griffin put an end to the Skins next drive after David Amerson’s TD

On their next drive, the Skins moved the ball as they had before. On 4th-and-3 at the Raiders 39 with three minutes left in the half, Griffin was sacked by Charles Woodson on a safety blitz that not only stopped the drive, but put pushed the Redskins out of field goal range. This was the second straight drive that ended before its time. Going into the half down 10-14, the team had successfully changed the tide of the game even without the points. Raiders went into the half with their starting offensive backfield, running back Darren McFadden and Pro Bowl fullback Marcel Reece, sidelined with injury and their back-up quarterback playing like a backup quarterback. If the Woodson doesn’t make the sack on Griffin, the team would have been going into halftime either tied or behind.

— ∮∮∮ —

The Redskins start the 2nd half on defense behind 14-10.

A constant struggle, a ceaseless battle to bring success from inhospitable surroundings, is the price of all great achievements.Orison Swett Marden

The third quarter started off ugly. After the Raiders 2nd 3-and-out, Robert Griffin connected with tight end Logan Paulsen on a 3rd-and-9 deep in their own territory. Logan is stripped of the ball after the catch and the fumble is recovered by the Raiders on the Redskins 42. Like Griffin’s fumble run in last week’s loss to the Lions, the play was systematic of the team’s annoying habit of making it easier for the other team to beat them. It was on the defense to not let the Raiders take advantage of the turnover.

And that they did. They held the Raiders, and my favorite Polish-born American football placekicker Sebastian Janikowski missed a 52-yard field goal wide left. Unlike previous turnovers this season, the Skins came out unscathed by what could have been a very costly mistake.

And on their next offensive series, they made sure that the Raiders were the ones to suffer the consequences of failed opportunities.

Pierre Garcon 5-yard TD pass from Robert Griffin capped a 8-play, 48-yard drive that gave the Redskins their first second half lead of the season with 2:58 left in the 3rd quarter.

The offense scored their first touchdown of the day late in the 3rd quarter. Alfred Morris had 29 of his 71 rushing yards of the day on the drive. After a crucial 17-yard catch-and-run by Leonard Hankerson on third down put the Skins on the Raiders 12, Morris injured his ribs on the next play and did not return to the game. The drive ended two plays later with Pierre Garcon’s 5-yard touchdown catch from Griffin.

With the score, the defense could do something they haven’t had the luxury of doing all year: Play the second half with a lead.

Ryan Kerrigan’s sack-fumble of Matt Floyd was recovered by Barry Cofield.

Ryan Keirrigan continued his pro-bowl play this year. In the 4th quarter, he caused Matt Floyd to fumble and the ball was recovered by the Redskins at midfield. For a unit that has been ridiculed for their play, the defense kept the team in the game. They sacked Flynn seven times, caused two turnovers, and scored as many touchdowns as the Raiders offense did (one). For the first time all season, they dominated a team.

The offensive did the rest.

Roy Helu Jr.’s hurdles a defender after catching a pass from quarterback Robert Griffin III for a 28-yard gain.

All it took was two Roy Helu Jr. touches to put the game out of reach. The first, a dazzling catch and run, was an instant classic with Helu hurdling a hapless Oakland defender to put the Redskins on the Raiders 14. On the next, he bobbed and weaved the final 14 for the game’s final score. With Morris out of the game, Helu contributed 84 total yards (41 rushing , 43 receiving) and the game's clenching touchdown.

The defense stops Oakland on 4th-and-1 to secure the Redskins first victory of the season with 3:23 left in the 4th.

With the win, the Skins finally got their first “W” of the season. It came against a weak team playing with a back-up quarterback, but in the NFL, it doesn’t matter who you beat: all that matters is that you beat them. At 1-3, their dismal September is behind them. They go into their bye week on a high note before they travel to Dallas to play the Cowboys on October 13th. Despite their sluggish start, the NFL East remains wide open. The Cowboys, Eagles, and the hapless Giants all lost yesterday, and a win at Dallas will put the Skins one game out of first place in the division.

Bring on Dallas. I like our odds.

HTTR

Redskins vs. Lions: RG 0-3

Chris Bopst — Mon, 23 Sep 2013 12:04:09 +0000

This law represents a cornerstone in a structure which is being built but is by no means complete. It is a structure intended to lessen the force of possible future depressions. It will act as a protection to future Administrations against the necessity of going deeply into debt to furnish relief to the needy. The law will flatten out the peaks and valleys of deflation and of inflation. It is, in short, a law that will take care of human needs and at the same time provide for the United States an economic structure of vastly greater soundness. From Franklin Roosevelt's statement on signing the Social Security Act August 14, 1935

Two months after FDR signed the Social Security Act in 1935, the Lions beat the Redskins. Since that 17–7, October 13, 1935 victory over the Boston Redskins at Fenway Park (then-owner George Preston Marshall moved the team to Washington two years later), Detroit lost the next 21 times they had to play the team on their home turf.

Now they are 1-21.

Despite ending what was the second longest streak in the NFL (The Lions 22-game losing streak in Lambeau being the first), it wasn’t all bad for the Redskins yesterday: it wasn’t a total blow out. Unlike previous weeks, the game was always within in reach. This is the team that I fell in love with last year during their 3-6 start. Despite all the missed tackles, dropped balls, penalties, and turnovers, you could see that they were getting better. No doubt losing sucks, but I’ll take that type of loss--a loss by a very young team slowly but surely becoming a better team.

Still, 0-3 is 0-3, and their once-promising season could already be over.

— ∮∮∮ —

DeAngelo Hall's 17-yard interception return made the score 6-0 early in the first quarter. It would be the Redskins' only lead of the game.

After a century of striving, after a year of debate, after a historic vote, health care reform is no longer an unmet promise. It is the law of the land. Barack Obama at signing of The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) March 23, 2010

Things started off promising enough. On the Lions' first play from scrimmage, London Fletcher sacked Matt Stafford for a 7-yard loss. They got the Lions off the field. After the first Redskins drive fizzled on their own 49, DeAngelo Hall took a pass intended for Calvin Johnson to the house. His second pick six of the year, the play put the Skins on the board first, and momentum was on their side. The crowd at FedEx was behind them, they had the lead, and the team, fired up by Hall’s interception, seemed primed to right the wrongs of the year’s previous outings.

— ∮∮∮ —

I went to a bookstore and asked the saleswoman, 'Where's the self-help section?' She said if she told me, it would defeat the purpose.George Carlin

Tight end Joseph Fauria’s 5-yard Pass From Matthew Stafford put the Lions up 13-7 in the second quarter.

After that promising start, Matt Stafford led the Lions on a leisurely 8-play, 48-yard touchdown drive. Joique Bell, filling in for an injured Reggie Bush, broke three tackles on his 12-yard TD run. And that was one of themes of the day: missed tackles. The Redskins seem to have forgotten how to do it. And after another 3-and out for the Skins, they let the Lions do it again.

Defensive end Willie Young knocks Robert Griffin to ground as his pass is intercepted by cornerback Chris Houston putting an end to the Skins' 2nd quarter drive.

Enabled by poor Redskins tackling and costly penalties on successive 3rd downs, the Lions took the ball from their own 8-yard line and marched down the field for another touchdown. The secondary gave up 55 yards on three straight Stafford passes.

That’s an ugly trend. They held the Lions to 63 yards on the ground, but they gave up 378 yards in the air. 201 of the Lions' 441 yards came on just six plays (through three games, the Redskins have given up 10 plays of 30 yards or more and 1,464 of total offense). Receivers were wide open. Nate Burleson and and Calvin Johnson made mince meat of the secondary, and both went over the century mark in receiving for the day (Burleson 116 yards; Johnson 115 yards and a touchdown).

Ryan Kerrigan stops tight end Tony Scheffler on 3rd and 1 for a 1-yard loss to force the Lions into a 3-and-out following the interception.

After Fauria’s touchdown, the Skins put together a good looking drive. Starting form their own 20, Griffin moved the team confidently down the field with a mix of passes and runs. On 1st and 10 on the Lions 19, an ill-advised pass from Griffin to Pierre Garcon was intercepted by Chris Houston. The Redskins defense forced the Lions into a 3-and-out following the turnover. Back on the field, Griffin led the offense on a 7-play, 71 yard drive that culminated with Alfred Morris’s 30-yard touchdown run to tie the score up at 14.

Alfred Morris caps a 71-yard drive with a 30-yard touchdown run.

Following Morris’s touchdown, the defense went soft and allowed the Lions to get a field goal to make the score 17-14 at the half. After two quarters of play, the Skins were down by 3 (their lowest margin of the year), Griffin seemed to have the offense clicking and they looked like they might get their first win of the season.

— ∮∮∮ —

I love the irony. I'm perceived as being really young and yet I have the clinical condition of an old man. Michael J. Fox

Robert Griffin’s 21-yard run ends with a fumble on the Lions’ 29 early in the 4th quarter. His 2nd turnover of the day would prove costly for the Redskins.

The Redskins took the opening drive of the 3rd quarter down the field and tied the score at 17 on a 43-yard field goal by John Potter (who was filling in for the injured Kai Forbath for the 2nd straight week). After that, the quarter was a back and forth affair. In one of the biggest plays of the game, early in the 4th quarter, on 1st and 10, Griffin broke out of the pocket with speed, made people miss, and showed why he is (when healthy) one of the most electrifying players in the NFL. It was his first real exciting moment of the year, the one everybody has been waiting for. It was the one play this year he truly looked like he was back.

And then, as he concluded the run with an ugly and awkward, head-first slide, the ball popped out and was recovered by the Lions. If he had slid feet first and the ball popped out when he hit the ground, the play would have been called dead, but because he went head-first, it was a fumble. That was the second most deflating moment of the game. The most deflating moment would come on their next offensive series

Aldrick Robinson's touchdown catch was overturned by an instant-replay review.

Empowered by their good fortune, the Lions took the ball and put three points on the board to go ahead for good. On their next drive after the fumble, Griffin would again be foiled on the cusp of success. On 1st and 10, he let lose a beautiful 57-yard bomb to a streaking Aldrick Robinson. The play was initially called and a touchdown, but after review, it was ruled that Robinson had failed to maintain possession of the ball as he tumbled to the turf in the end zone. The team didn’t recover from that bummer.

The Lions put the game out of reach with Calvin Johnson’s 11-yard touchdown pass on their ensuing drive, but this is the play when the Redskins lost the game.

Calvin Johnson’s touchdown made the score 27-17 with 3:56 left in the game.

— ∮∮∮ —

There is no better than adversity. Every defeat, every heartbreak, every loss, contains its own seed, its own lesson on how to improve your performance the next time. Malcolm X

The best the Redskins can hope for is a 1-3 September. In order to do that, they’ll have to win next week in Oakland with a defense ranked worst in the league and second worst in points (32.7) allowed (floundering divisional revivals the Giants are the worst giving up an average of 38.3 points a contest). The Raiders aren’t particularly scary, but when you haven’t won a game, nobody is all that scared of the Redskins either. Griffin and the offensive are getting better, and as bad as the defense was on Sunday, they did play well enough to keep the team in yesterday’s game. What’s missing from the defense is their ability to create turnovers. Last year, the Redskins were plus-17 in the turnover differential. It was a big part of their success. This year, they’re minus-2 through the first three games. Without that big play ability, all the missed tackles and blown coverage's really hurt.

Also hurting this year’s team is that they aren’t running the ball. In order to run that offense, you need to be able to run and pass. Blowout losses kept them from running the ball, but if they are to succeed, Alfred Morris needs to touch the ball a minimum of 20 times a game (something he has yet to do this year). As much as the offense needs Griffin to succeed, it needs Morris and the running game to keep defenses from keying in on him. They were able to run the ball yesterday (Griffin, Morris, and Garcon ran for a combined 120 yards) and it showed. If they can continue to run the ball and stop the turnovers, their fortunes should improve.

At 0-3, they should get better, because it can't get much worse.

HTTR

NFL Week 2 recap: Last second heroics, abysmal failures, and the importance of remaining faithful.

Chris Bopst — Wed, 18 Sep 2013 15:22:32 +0000

Cincinnati Bengals 20, Pittsburgh Steelers 10

Ben Roethlisberger hands off to Isaac Redman for a short gain.

The Steelers have scored a total of two touchdowns this season. Or, if you prefer, one for each of the games they’ve played so far. The defense tries, but the offense is putrid (they failed to get a first down on seven of their 12 possessions and turned the ball over twice). The Bengals, on the other hand, looked sharp. They ran up 407 yards of offense and squashed everything Roethlisberger attempted. With the Steelers flailing, the Ravens rebuilding, and the Browns letting their season swirl down the toilet bowl yet again, this could be the year the Bengals take the division.

Baltimore Ravens 14, Cleveland Browns 6

Ravens rookie running back Bernard Pierce scored the first touchdown of the game with 5:13 left in the third quarter.

Whenever AFC North teams play one another, it always brings out the ugly in the both of them. Though they did try to make a game of it, the Browns couldn’t get the ball in the end zone scoring all their points on first-half field goals. Pitiful. In their 11th straight loss to the Ravens, they went for 4-15 on third down, and quarterback Brandon Weeden was sacked five times (he left the game in the 4th quarter with a thumb injury). In two games, they have scored one touchdown. Like every other year in recent memory, the Browns suck.

What a waste of a great uniform.

Atlanta Falcons 31, St. Louis Rams 24

Daryl Richardson runs for a 1-yard gain in the 1st quarter of the Rams loss to the Falcons.

Now this was fun to watch. 814 yards of combined offense produced two field goals and seven touchdowns. It wasn’t all offense either. Osi Umenyiora’s 68-yard interception return for a touchdown put the Rams in a 21-0 hole early in the second quarter. Though the Rams did fight back making it 17-24 early in the 4th quarter on a 3-yard Sam Bradford touchdown pass to Austin Pettis. The pick six proved to be the most important play of the game.

Seattle Seahawks 29, San Francisco 49ers 3

49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick went 13-28 for 127 yards and threw three picks in his worst passing game as a starter in Sunday’s night blow out loss to the Seahawks.

The only chance teams have to beat the Seahawks is to play them outside of Seattle. No other team in the league can claim a home field advantage like they do (according to the Guinness Book of World Records, the noise level at the game (131.9 decibels) set a world record for crowd noise breaking the previous record of 131.7 decibels set at a soccer match in Istanbul, Turkey two years ago). Knowing this, no one should be surprised that this much-hyped Sunday night game turned out to be a lopsided blow out. The Niners are a good team, one of the best in the league, but they couldn’t score more than a field goal against the Seahawks. Frank Gore was held to 16 yards on nine carries. Anquan Boldin, the team’s prized free agent acquisition who torched the Packers for 208 yards in last week’s game, didn’t get his first (and only) catch until the 4th quarter. The whole team played like they couldn’t hear themselves think. That’s because they couldn’t.

Chicago Bears 31, Minnesota Vikings 30

Tight end Martellus Bennett catches the game-winning, 16-yard touchdown pass from Jay Cutler with 10 seconds remaining in the game.

This one came fast and furious. Despite his three turnovers (two picks and a fumble that got scooped up and taken for 61-yard touchdown return by Vikings DE Brian Robison in the second quarter), Jay Cutler completed 28-39 for 290 yards and three touchdowns with the last one coming in the game’s closing seconds. It’s games like this why people like football.

Oakland Raiders 19, Jacksonville Jaguars 9

Terrelle Pryor hands off to Darren McFadden who ran for 129 of Oakland's 226 total yards in their victory over Jacksonville.

A amateurish game riddled with penalties, miscues, and ineptitudes, this battle of the young and restless was won by the Oakland Raiders. That made me happy. Like the Browns, I hate to see teams with classic uniforms suck. They still sorta suck, but any glimmer of hope for the silver and black to escape from the purgatory of suckdom should be cheered.

I have no love for the Jaguars though. Not with those helmets.

17 Kansas City Chiefs, 16 Dallas Cowboys

Dwayne Bowe catches a 12-yard touchdown pass from Alex Smith to put the Chiefs ahead of the Cowboys 14-13 late in the 3rd quarter.

Andy Reid’s Chiefs played mistake-free ball against the Cowboys. And when you play mistake free ball, 9.99 times out of 10, you win the game. And that’s what they did. The Cowboys helped of course, but instead of being the team that finds a way to lose, they were the team that did all the things to win. That hasn’t happened in years. And if Oakland can hold up their end of the bargain, an old rivalry would be revitalized. Here’s to the hope that they do, if for no other reason than I think the red and white and silver and black look great together.

New Orleans Saints 16, Tampa Bay Buccaneers 14

Saints kicker Garrett Hartley and teammates celebrate his game-winning 27-yard field goal as time expired.

Two games, two crushing last second losses for the Buccaneers. The defense harassed Drew Brees, sacking him four times and keeping him off balance all day (linebacker Mason Foster¹s 85-yard interception return for a touchdown put the Bucs up 14-13 early in the 4th quarter), but their offense, led by dead man walking Josh Freeman (9-22 for 125 yards and a touchdown), couldn't generate enough mojo to put the Saints down when they
had the chance. Tampa Bay finished the game with 10 penalties for 118 yards, including one for an illegal formation that wiped out a 73-yard TD pass to Vincent Jackson.

Miami Dolphins 24, Indianapolis Colts 20

Charles Clay’s 1-yard TD run put the the Dolphins up for good with 4:40 left in the 4th quarter.

This one went down to the wire too, but Andrew Luck, who has engineered eight fourth-quarter comebacks in his first 18 games, couldn’t save the day like Brees did for the Saints . The Miami offensive scored 14 points in the first quarter for the first time since 2011, and quarterback Ryan Tannehill managed the game nicely going 23-34 for 319 yards and a touchdown.

Buffalo Bills 24, Carolina Panthers 23

EJ Manuel throws the winning touchdown pass to a wide open Stevie Johnson with two seconds left in the game.

This was another feel good game of the week for perennial losers. The Bills squeaked out a victory in the game’s final moments to give their long suffering fans something to cheer about for a change. The Panthers, on the other hand, can’t get a break. Coming off a 12-7 loss to Seattle, the team dropped to 2-14 in games decided by seven points or less in two-plus seasons under coach Ron Rivera. The once beaming smiles of Cam Newton that defined his rookie campaign are now replaced by looks of bitter disappointment. Try as he might, Superman looks positively human these days.

— ∮∮∮ —

Here’s how the cookie crumbled in the rest of the NFL games in week 2.

Tom Brady overcame a sluggish performance to led the Patriots to a 13-10 victory over the Jets.

San Diego Chargers 33, Philadelphia Eagles 30
Houston Texans 33, Tennessee Titans 30
Denver Broncos 41, New York Giants 23
Arizona Cardinals 25, Detroit Lions 21
New England Patriots 13, New York Jets 10

— ∮∮∮ —

If patience is worth anything, it must endure to the end of time. And a living faith will last in the midst of the blackest storm. Mahatma Gandhi

A rare moment of glory for the Redskins faithful came when Ryan Kerrigan sacked Aaron Rodgers for a 9-yard loss on the Packers opening drive.

I know I have been a doomsayer about the Redskins during this young season, but a couple of days removed from their loss to the Packers, I have rebuilt my supply of faith that this week they will record their first win of the season. I can’t base this belief on anything they’ve showed on the field, but like all true believers, the sad reality of what they’ve done on the field has been replaced by my desire to mold reality to my liking. It is my hope that next week, I can log a cheery report filled with giddy optimism for the Skins’ future instead of lamenting another loss. Either way, I’ll be watching and rooting for them no matter what the outcome.

HTTR

Redskins vs. Packers: Limp in Lambeau

Chris Bopst — Mon, 16 Sep 2013 12:08:06 +0000

Nothing is so fatal to religion as indifference. Edmund Burke

I was psyched for yesterday’s game. After catching last week’s Monday night loss to the Eagles in pieces, I didn’t have any prior commitments to interfere with my football viewing. The wife and kid were at the RVA Street Art Festival, so I had the house all to myself. It was primed to be a banner day all right; all that needed to happen was for the Redskins to beat the Packers and it would have been a perfect day.

Sadly that didn’t happen.

Jemichael Finley caps a 6-play, 90-yard drive with a 3-yard touchdown pass from Aaron Rodgers that made the score 24-0 going into halftime.

For the second week in a row, the Redskins stunk up the field. They played befuddled ball, bumbling and stumbling around Lambeau with the structural integrity and grace of a three-legged table. They were beaten in every facet of the game. It wasn’t even close. It got so bad, I stopped screaming profanities after the Packers went up 17-0 with 11:40 left in the second quarter. By the time Rodgers threw his third touchdown of the half (a leisurely 3-yard toss to Jermichael Finley to make the score 24-0 after a Mason Crosby extra point) a few minutes later, I was laughing. It was a dismissive sort of cackle too, a mocking giggle uttered in indifference.

I spent the second half switching between the Packers making the Redskins look silly and NFL Red (Crack) Zone. I saw some of the garbage time, second half points, but I cared more about how my fantasy teams were doing than watching the lost cause.

Pierre Garcon finally puts the Skins on the board with a tip-toe, 6-yard pass from Robert Griffin in mid-3rd quarter action. He finished the day with eight receptions for 144 yards.

It may be only the second game of the year, but given the breathtaking ineptitude they’ve displayed so far (they’ve given up 1,023 yards in eight quarters of play), it’s looking like the Skins will not only be a bad team, they could be one of the worst in the NFL.

— ∮∮∮ —

The more we are consuming oil that either comes from places that are bent on our destruction or helping those who are... the more we are enabling those who are trying to kill us. Frank Gaffney

Let’s look at the one thing they’ve proven themselves to be good at: making the other team look great.

At the end of 2012-13 season, the Redskins were ranked fifth in total defense. Two games into the new season, they have transformed themselves into the number one enablers in the league.

Sunday’s game marked the fifth failed comeback attempt for Brandon Meriweather, a former two-time Pro Bowl player the Redskins signed as a free agent in 2012. He left the game with a concussion after he tried to tackled Packers running back James Starks along the Green Bay sideline 10 seconds into the 2nd quarter. In 19 games since he signed (including the playoffs) Meriweather has only played three quarters of actual football for the Skins.

Quarterback Aaron Rodgers went 34-of-42 for four touchdowns and no picks in yesterday’s 38-20 dismantling of the Redskins. His 480 passing yards tied a franchise record set by former teammate and current Oakland Raiders’ bench warmer Matt Flynn on Jan. 1, 2012, against the Lions. Backup running back James Starks had an all-pro game as well. He ran 20 times for 132 yards and a touchdown becoming the first Packers running back to run for more than a 100 yards since 2010 when Brandon Graham ran for 115 yards in an overtime loss to---survey says: the Washington Redskins. With those two performances, The Packers became first team in NFL history to have a QB throw for 450-plus yards and have a player rush for 125-plus yards in the same game.

— ∮∮∮ —

There is no ghost so difficult to lay as the ghost of an injury. Alexander Smith

Robert Griffin getting hit by Linebacker Clay Mathews in the second quarter.

In (violent) contrast, Griffin completed only six of 13 first-half passes and threw incompletions on all but one lone third-down play that came up short.

Robert Griffin III ran four times for total of a single yard in yesterday’s thrashing by the Green Bay Packers.

His final numbers for the day look impressive on paper (26-0f-40 for 320 yards, three touchdowns, and a pick), but he is simply not the player he was last year. Gone is the bold confidence and element of surprise; he plays now like a player trying to protect an injury. It’s not as bad as watching Patrick Ramsey twitching shell shocked in Steve Spurrier’s it-doesn’t matter-if-the-quarterback-dies offensive, but despite what he may say, it looks to me as if RGIII is having a crisis of faith out there. And after seeing what we’ve seen so far, not having Kurt Cousins start the season under center may very well prove to be the blunder of the season.

I know that would not have been the popular thing to do, but considering the severity of the injury to the knee he’d already injured in college, the money invested in him, and Kurt Cousins’s abilities, it’s looking more and more like that would have been the right thing to do.

Griffin connects with Santana Moss for his third touchdown of the game late in the 4th.

Even if the team lost their first two games with Cousins at the helm, it would have given Griffin that much more time to heal and reacquaint himself with the game. Is it too early to tell if starting him was the wrong thing to do? Mercifully, yes. With the Cowboys, Eagles, and Giants all losing yesterday, the NFC East is looking like a toss up once again, so if Mr. 3’s knee is indeed fine (doubtful) and the team can string together some wins, they have as good a chance as anyone to take the division or wild card spot.

— ∮∮∮ —

Faith is the great cop-out, the great excuse to evade the need to think and evaluate evidence. Faith is belief in spite of, even perhaps because of, the lack of evidence. Richard Dawkins

Alfred Morris had 120 yards (107 rushing, 13 yards receiving and no fumbles) of total offense in a losing effort.

Hope is not lost, but let’s be frank: the team has yet to give us any meaningful reason (other than the odd Ryan Kerrigan moment) to be hopeful. At this point in the season anyway, believing the Skins will turn things around against the Lions (who lost a heartbreaker to the Cardinals 25-21) next week is belief based entirely in faith.

The data does not support the desired conclusion.

HTTR.

Redskins vs. Eagles: The not ready for prime time players

Chris Bopst — Wed, 11 Sep 2013 11:01:29 +0000

Expectation is the mother of all frustration.Antonio Banderas

After all the hoopla, hype, and fevered expectation, The Redskins took the field Monday night and laid a great big giant egg on national television. Not only did they play badly, they were bullied and pushed around by a fleet-footed Eagles team that ran circles around them. Add to that the Redskins’ inability to hold onto the ball and you have a recipe ripe for failure. And that’s what happened; as much as Chip Kelly’s Eagles outplayed the team for the majority of the game, the Skins beat themselves with a series of uncharacteristic blunders. When they did finally start playing as they were expected to in the second half, they had dug themselves a hole too big to climb out of.

Michael Vick‘s screen pass gets batted down by Ryan Kerrigan and taken 75 yards for a touchdown by DeAngelo Hall, giving the Redskins an early 7-0 lead.

Things did start off promising enough. As I juggled the desire to watch the game with the responsibility of making sure people telling stories about coming out of the closet were heard properly, the first game action I saw was in the Lombardy Market when Ryan Kerrigan knocked down a Michael Vick lateral pass that resulted in the Skins’ first points of the game. Little did I know as I ran back to Balliceaux to look after Secretly Y’all, that was going to be the last cheering I would do for the night.

From there, the wheels came off. Alfred Morris fumbled on the Skins' first offensive play from scrimmage and followed that blunder with a dropped end zone exchange with Robert Griffin that resulted in a safety. It was ugly. Worse then Morris’s self-inflicted wounds was the team’s first half ineptitude against an aggressive Philadelphia offensive. Though the Skins did manage to apply some pressure on Vick, Philadelphia ran 53 plays and amassed 21 first downs by halftime.

LeSean McCoy ran for 184 yards on 34 carries and a touchdown.

To put that into perspective: the Eagles had as many first downs as the Skins had offensive plays in the first half. As bad as reading that telling stat is, the reality was much worse. During the course of the game’s first 30 minutes, not only was the game lost, the Skins were made to look like boys playing a man’s game. With the height of expectations at a fever pitch for the Skins’ season, their first-half performance was an abysmal failure.

Michael Vick celebrating LeSean McCoy’s 34-yard run touchdown run in the 3rd quarter.

All is not lost, the unconquerable will, and study of revenge, immortal hate, and the courage never to submit or yield.John Milton

As bad as they played in the first half, they did manage to make it a game of it in the second half. Griffin, who started the game playing as if he was drugged, managed to put together some scoring drives. He finished the game going 30-for-49 for 329 yards with two touchdowns and two picks. The defense played better as well. After being initially confused and bewildered by the blitzkrieg pace of the Eagles’ offense, they settled down and surrendered only seven points in game’s last 30 minutes. Some of that had to do with the Eagles taking their foot off the gas, but they did play markedly better. Because of these things, a game that had no business going down to wire, finally ended when the Eagles recovered an onside kick with 1:14 left in the game to secure the 33-27 opening-day victory.

Alfred Morris’s 5-yard touchdown in the 3rd quarter.

And with that, game one of the Redskins season is in the books. As they prepare for their next game against the Green Bay Packers, fans can take a measure of solace in the fact that they didn’t give up when all looked bleak. It's a long season. Don’t forget that last year’s dream team started the season 3-6 before their magical run, proving that it’s not about how you start but how you finish. While there are some glaring areas of concern (the porous defense, Kerrigan leaving the game in the fourth quarter with concussion symptoms, DeAngelo Hall’s annoying proclivity for acting like an idiot, Griffin’s knee, etc), the team, as evidenced by their second-half effort, has proven to be resilient, and they have all the tools to be legitimate contenders.

Either way, one things for sure. It’s going to be riveting viewing.

HTTR.

NFL review, Week One: Naps, fumbles and how’s the knee doing

Chris Bopst — Mon, 09 Sep 2013 13:54:28 +0000

For Redskins fans, it’s all about RG3. How will the knee, the most talked about knee in modern sports, hold up? We don’t have to ask anymore. We’ll be able to see for ourselves how the knee is when he trots out onto FedEx Field--the same field on which he tore his ACL and LCL a little over 8 months ago--to lead the offense against the Philadelphia Eagles tonight on Monday Night Football.

And really, with the saturation of all things Redskins in Richmond this summer, I, a lifelong Redskins fan, am sick of talking, writing, and thinking about them. At this point, there is nothing left to say. The team is set, the fans are pumped, and we all can rejoice because, finally, the time for waiting is over. The season has officially begun!

Opening day sleep fest with The Titans beating The Steelers at home 16-9.

The Steelers-Titans game put me to sleep for a good 30 minutes. Pittsburgh mustered a mere 195 of offensive and scored their only touchdown late in the 4th quarter (before that, their only points came when Titans return man Darius Reynaud inexplicably kneeled for a safety on the opening kickoff). To add injury to insult, they lost Pro Bowl center Maurkice Pouncey and Linebacker Larry Foote for the year. If yesterday’s folly of failure is any indication of how their season is going to go, it’s going to be a very long and painful year for Steelers Nation. All the teams in the AFC North lost on opening weekend, but the Steelers anemic performance was by far the worst. Titans Quarterback Jack Locker completed just 11-of-20 passes for 125 yards with no touchdowns. They ran for 112 yards on 42 carries. Add that up: 227 yards of offense was all it took to beat the Steelers.

I hope the local NFL affiliates don’t continue to inflict Steelers games on us if they continue to play this bad. Even when the Steelers are good, they are boring to watch, so if they're going to suck this year, broadcast something else where teams actually score points. Just the thought of watching Ben Roethlisberger being perennially abused (he was sacked a league-high five times yesterday) in low scoring soccer matches makes me sleepy.

The Jacksonville Jaguars didn’t score any offensive points yesterday. I think they play so poorly because of that putrid new uniform they have to wear. Like their performance on the field, looking at them is like walking in on someone taking a shit. Everyone just wishes it didn’t happen.

I don’t like fellow Floridians the Miami Dolphins’ new look either. While they were mildly impressive ensuring that the Cleveland Browns would lose their ninth straight opener, I winced every time I saw highlights of them. It’s not as bad as the Jaguars’ excrescence, but still; the postal-stamping of classic logos and uniforms in the NFL that started with the Patriots’ transformation has yet to produce an enduring image that was once the league’s trademark. This year’s change to the Dolphins’ uniform is the first since a minor tweaking in 1996 and only the fifth in the team's 48-year history. If, like the Patriots, the team’s fortunes improve with their new look, that means everybody will start doing it and no iconic logo or look will be safe.

For that reason alone, I can’t root for the Dolphins.

Even though they lost, new quarterbacks Terrelle Pryor of the Raiders and EJ Manuel of the Bills looked impressive in their first games. Both lost hard-fought battles (the Raiders to the Colts 17-21 and the Bills to the Patriots 21-23), but they kept their teams in the game until the bitter end. Their play gives both long-suffering franchises momentary hope for the future.

While it’s easy for some people to hate Jets coach Rex Ryan, it’s hard not to like Jets rookie quarterback Geno Smith. Chicken littled in the media, Smith helped led the team to an improbable victory over the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. He went 24-for-38 for 256 yards with a TD and a pick. Not the greatest numbers in the world, but coupled with a momentary lack of reason by the Buccaneers (Nick Folk kicked a 48-yard field goal with 2 seconds remaining after Buccaneer linebacker Lavonte David's personal foul on Smith), he managed to lead his team to victory. For one week at least, Smith, Ryan and the Jets organization can laugh at all their critics.

Even though they beat the lowly (and garishly garmented) Jaguars, new head coach Andy Reid led the Chiefs to their most lopsided season-opening victory in 50 years (The Chief’s 59-7 throttling of the Denver Broncos in 1963). Alex Smith, jettisoned from the 49ers to the Chiefs in the off season, has a lot to prove and he has a coach that has a long history of getting the most out of his quarterbacks. Smith threw for two touchdowns and managed the game like Reid demands. Again, it is only one game against a weak opponent, but I think good things are starting to happen in Kansas City.

Steven Jackson takes a Matt Ryan handoff for a short gain in Atlanta’s opening day loss to the New Orleans Saints.

Sean Payton, back at the realm in New Orleans, is going to be trouble for everyone else. In one of the best games of the day, his tenacity (coupled with Drew Brees’s 357 passing yards and two touchdowns) led the team to a thrilling victory over the Falcons.

The Patriots are the same old Patriots. No matter what happens on the field, at the end of the game, they are usually the team that scored the most points. Barring injury to Brady, it’s a trend I don’t see ending any time soon.

Tony Romo getting sacked by a pair of New York Giants defensive linemen late in the second quarter.

How the New York Giants can give up the ball 6 times and still be in the game (as they were last night against The Cowboys) is beyond me, but it is systematic of their recent tradition of violent contradiction. One play they look great, the next they're giving the ball up and playing stupid. It’s no wonder why well-documented perfectionist head coach Tom Coughlin always looks like he is about to lose his mind. If they can ever figure out who they are with consistently, they’ll be dangerous. Until then, they’ll be the number one reason for Coughlin’s bleeding-ulcer good looks.

Vikings running back Adrian Peterson’s 78-yard touchdown run on the first play from scrimmage against the Detroit Lions.

The big winners of the day were the San Francisco 49ers in their triumph over the Green Bay Packers. Their principle rivals, the Seattle Seahawks, looked merely human against the Carolina Panthers, and the Niners’ looked like a well-oiled machine. Reggie Bush had a field day in his Detroit Lions debut racking up 191 yards of offense in a 34-24 victory over the Vikings. Cincinnati Bengels reciever A.J. Green shined in a loss to Chicago collecting nine catches for 162 yards and two TDs. Rams tight end Jared Cook had seven catches for 141 yards and two touchdowns. He would have had three if it weren’t for a great defensive play by Arizona Cardinals rookie safety Tyrann Mathieu that caused a fumble on the goal line in the second quarter of their 27-24 home victory.

Safety Tyrann Mathieu causes Rams tight end Jared Cook to fumble during the second quarter of the Cardinals’ loss to Rams.

Oh, and Peyton Manning’s 7 touchdown performance against The Baltimore Ravens on Thursday night wasn’t too shabby either.

Tonight’s picks

Redskins 35, Eagles 17
Texans 28, Chargers 10

The Washington Redskins host the Philadelphia Eagles tonight on Monday Night Football.

Redskins report: Speculation and superfluous fluff

Chris Bopst — Wed, 14 Aug 2013 14:02:20 +0000

The amount of speculation surrounding my romantic life is astounding. It's strange how involved people get: invested and angry, really disappointed.Sienna Miller

Coverage of the Redskins during the last 48 hours has been akin to listening to teenage girls gossip. What is causing these suffocating speculative pontifications? You guessed it. Mr. Robert Griffin. On Monday, he said this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EnPWFVcqJc0#t=12m04s

If you can’t watch the video (or if you did and still can’t tell what caused the onslaught of superfluous fluff), this is what caused it:

“I can’t BS that answer, nope. I don’t like it,” Griffin said during his Monday press conference when asked for the millionth time how he feels about Coach Mike Shanahan’s decision not to play him during the preseason, “I don’t understand the whole plan at all. I can’t lie about that.”

Now, even though he is laughing, people took this simple declaration to mean that, maybe, just maybe, what he was really trying to tell us is that he hates his coach's guts. I didn’t hear it that way, and neither did Leroy, the exceedingly friendly volunteer working the entrance to the camp press room.

“Aw man, that ain’t nothing,” he dismissively observed, “I don’t know why they keep asking him about it.”

I always make it a point to talk to Leroy. He’s why I love the Redskins and the NFL.

— ∮∮∮ —

All who call on God in true faith, earnestly from the heart, will certainly be heard, and will receive what they have asked and desired.Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Leroy

“I see us going 12-4” he says when I ask him how the season will go for the Skins, “If we can stay healthy, I think we can make it to the Super Bowl.”

This is what every Redskins fan thinks; this is the year we go to the Super Bowl. Being one myself, I’ve tried to make myself believe it, but with guys like Danny Wurfell, Jeff George, and John Beck under center for the Skins over the last 20 years, only the most committed zealots actually believed it. “You guys sound like a bunch of battered wives” a fellow Redskin friend’s wife said listening to us discuss yet another crushing loss during those long, dark years. And she was right too. We embraced every winning moment with a gratitude befitting the cure for cancer, and we took every needless indecency with the stoic resignation as if we deserved it.

“You guys are stupid” she told us more than once.

Things have changed though. Since Mike Shanahan and Bruce Allen took over operations, believing the Redskins had a legitimate shot at going 12-4 in the regular season is no longer the laughable pipe dream that it once was.

Leroy is a believer. If you wanted a partner in the shallow end of the pool to talk Redskins with as I did, you’d be hard pressed to find a better companion.

“He’s got a good solid family,” he answers when I marvel at how well Griffin handles all his notoriety, “And with family, anything is possible.”

I don’t know how Mr. 3 does it. His every word is scrutinized, dissected, and analyzed. People scream when he simply walks onto the field. In a world of fetid egos, he maintains an air of confident modesty despite the sometimes-creepy obsession that surrounds him.

Like me, Leroy is in awe of him.

“He’s a baller, man, with a good head on his shoulders. We don’t have to worry about him. He can handle it. As long as the knee is OK, we’ll be fine.”

At this point I make my daily point about the importance of Kirk Cousins.

“He’s the most important person on the team other than Robert.” I call him Robert as if we are close personal friends. I do believe it though. If Robert goes down, the Redskins won't necessarily be--as most teams are when their starting quarterback is sidelined--totally fucked with Cousins as the number two.

This lead to a discussion about the Dallas Cowboys and who their back-up quarterback was. No one knew. Even the guys with official Redskins badges that started shooting the breeze with us couldn’t say who it was. “Kyle Orton, It’s Kyle Orton," I said after checking the internet, “he’s just like Rex Grossman: a constant disappointment.”

We all laughed.

After rehashing last year’s 7-week run of victories with an emphasis on their wins against Dallas (“It was the best Thanksgiving ever,” Leroy remembers with a twinkle in his eye), I wonder off to the practice field.

“You going to be here tomorrow?” I ask Leroy as I make my exit.

“As long as they’re here, I’ll be here.”

— ∮∮∮ —

Do the difficult things while they are easy and do the great things while they are small. A journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step.Lao Tzu

RGIII makes a surprise appearance at Mike Shanahan’s Tuesday afternoon press conference to dispel rumors of a rift between the two regarding his rehabilitation.

As far as actual news to come out of training camp this week, there’s not much of it. Robert Griffin made a surprise appearance at Shanahan’s usual afternoon press conference to assure everybody that he did not hate the coach’s guts for not playing him.

"Just want everybody to know if there's any questions about if there's a rift between me and Coach, or if there's a conflict, there is no conflict," Griffin said. "Coaches coach. I'm the player. Coach has a plan, and I'm abiding by that plan. I'm doing everything the coaches are asking me to do. I trust those guys. They want me to have a long career. And that's what part of this plan is about."

He handled himself with his usual grace, but as you can tell by looking at the photo, he seemed mildly disgusted. I liked that. It proved that he is human.

On the field, he went 12-of-15 in seven-on-seven snaps yesterday. His 35-yard zinger to Niles Paul hit the receiver in stride. It was a thing of beauty.

In Grossman news, his pass intended for Pierre Garcon was taken to the house by safety Jordan Pugh.

Cornerback Ryan Mouton (hamstring), tight end Emmanuel Ogbuehi (ankle), wide receiver Donte Stallworth (hamstring), and linebacker Roddrick Muckelroy (shoulder) sat on the sidelines during Tuesday’s practice. Not playing during training camp hurts these long shots' chances of making the final 53-man roster. I’d be surprised if any of these guys are on the team come opening day.

Cornerback Richard Crawford tweaked his right leg coming down awkwardly after trying to defend a pass intended for Lance Lewis. He left the field and later returned only to come up gimpy once more attempting to knock down a pass.

Left tackle Trent Williams’s injured left wrist is a continued concern. He looks to be in pain every time he has to use it, and that’s not good. A left tackle with one functioning wrist isn’t what you want for your offensive line going into a season.

Even after practice, there were injuries. Receiver Josh Morgan had to be carted off from an after practice TV interview with leg cramps.

I’ll be at camp today watching the team and talking to Leroy. And for the sake of all the unpaid volunteers working the camp, don’t freak out when Griffin comes to the sidelines.

It makes them nervous.

Recap: Cousins shines in win over Titans

Chris Bopst — Fri, 09 Aug 2013 13:08:42 +0000

Your present circumstances don't determine where you can go; they merely determine where you start. Nido Qubein

Ah yes, football. Oh how I’ve missed you.

Last night, the Washington Redskins and Tennessee Titans popped their respective cherries on the 2013 NFL season. Meaningless in the standings, the game is an important first step in determining who makes the roster and who doesn’t on opening day. Lives are at stake. One play can seal your fate.

Let your soul stand cool and composed before a million universes.Walt Whitman

Kirk Cousins runs the first team offensive with poise. If you didn’t know anything about Mr. 3, you’d think he was the starter. Cousins, who keeps making Shanahan look like a genius for drafting him, went 6-of-7 for 52 yards and a touchdown to Fred Davis in his two series. As long as the Redskins can have the Holland, MI native on their roster, resorting to Plan B at quarterback won’t necessarily mean that all is lost. I have a feeling he won’t be around that long though. He’s too good to be sitting on the bench. With the desperate parity at the position around the league, somebody is going to make the Skins an offer they can’t refuse. Barring another catastrophic injury to Griffin, I’ll be surprised if he's a Redskin this time next year.

Making his life easy was second-year running back Roy Helu. He carried the ball 13 times for 57 yards for an 4.4 per yard average. As with Cousins, Helu is backup to firmly entrenched starter Alfred Morris, but unlike Cousins, he will have ample time to prove himself on the field once the season starts. If he can stay healthy, his quickness will compliment Morris’ always-falling-forward, battering ram.

The Titans first drive went like this: a first down, 2-yard run by Chris Johnson, a near interception by David Amerson on second, a collapsing pocket that lead to a Ryan Kerrigan sack on third, punt. The first team defensive manhandled the Titans first team offense. It wasn’t even close. It was a thing of beauty.

Beauty is worse than wine, it intoxicates both the holder and beholder. Aldous Huxley

And then, they got manhandled.

On the first offensive play after the Fred Davis touchdown, Chris Johnson’s cutback, 58-yard touchdown was painful to watch. Johnson made Bacarri Rambo look silly with an open field juke on his way to the end zone largely untouched. The Redskins got the ball back and gave it back as soon as they could. Grossman replaced Cousins after a first down, three-yard loss by Helu.

I can’t help it. I hate Rex Grossman.

The next two plays, he threw his typically putrid, ripe for interception ball in the relative vicinity of Leonard Hankerson before tossing another panicked, career-defining abomination as he was being crushed. Watching him play, you realize why the otherwise congenial Dennis Green lost his mind in 2006 when his Cardinals lost to the Grossman polluted Bears on national TV. He has to live with the fact that, despite playing a team whose quarterback went 14 of 37 for 144 yards, fumbled twice, and threw 4 interceptions, he let them off the hook.

I’m sure Green is still haunted by losing to Grossman. Put it this way. The man hasn’t coached since.

But what really drives you crazy about Rex Grossman is what happened next.

The contradictions are what make human behavior so maddening and yet so fascinating, all at the same time. Joan D. Vinge

After Brian Orakpo gets his first sack since Week 2 of the 2012 season, the defensive gives up an ugly 9-play, 61-yard drive culminating with a carefree, 19-yard touchdown scamper by Shonn Greene.

Expecting failure as I see Grossman trot out onto the field, he then leads the team methodically down the field for a touchdown. The 12-play, 84-yard drive ends with Grossman’s 8-yard dump off to Leonard Hankerson who leaps over a couple of players to score with 26 seconds left on the clock.

Damn you, Rex Grossman. I want Pat White (who ran for a touchdown and threw the game-winning 2-point conversation to Emmanuel Ogbuehi late in the 4th quarter that sealed the 22-21 victory) to be the team’s third quarterback, not you. With that drive, you are all but guaranteed to be our number three.

The way a team plays as a whole determines its success. You may have the greatest bunch of individual stars in the world, but if they don't play together, the club won't be worth a dime. Babe Ruth

The Redskins sat eight starters. Here’s how some of the new guys fared.

Rookies Bacarri Rambo, the sixth-rounder out of Georgia, didn’t make any coverage errors, but he took the wrong angle that allowed Shonn Greene’s seemingly effortless touchdown run. Add to that, his silly shove in the back after the play that resulted a 15-a yard penalty and you have the recipe for what will put a control freak like Shanahan in an early grave. Still, the potential is great and hopefully he’ll mature over the next three games. David Amerson played better nearly getting an interception and recording three tackles. The other rookie in the defensive secondary, Phillip Thomas, left the game with a foot injury after a Greene run.

Also on the injury list: receiver Donte' Stallworth tweaked his left hamstring and did not return. Linebacker Jeremy Kimbrough hurt his right shoulder with less than two minutes to go in the game.

Rookie linebacker Brandon Jenkins had success against Tennessee's first team offensive. Complimenting Ryan Kerrigan with size and speed, the two could cause havoc for opposing offensives with a now healthy, and let’s hope it stays that way, Brian Orakpo demanding attention on the other side.

Left tackle Tom Compton and guards Josh LeRibeus and Adam Gettis all saw action. Each had moments of promise and moments of inadequacy.

The team had a total of 11 penalties. It's the first game of the season, but it's a trend that could cripple them needlessly if it were to carry over into the regular season.

So now, the team comes back to Richmond with a preseason victory under their belts for their final week of training camp here in the city. Shanahan and staff will look at film, evaluate talent, and consider their options as the players gruel it out to prove their worth before their next game at home against the Pittsburg Steelers.

All I know is that it is going to be fun to watch.

Redskins report: A superhuman knee and rookies looking to make an impact

Chris Bopst — Wed, 07 Aug 2013 11:35:38 +0000

For those who aspire to live in a high cost, high tax, big government place, our nation and the world offers plenty of options. Vermont, Canada, and Venezuela all offer you the opportunity to live in the socialist, big government paradise you long for. Marco Rubio

Whenever people tell me that socialism doesn’t work, I always say that it works great for the NFL.

Fans know everything about the NFL, but what most don’t know is that the National Football League is the most successful and profitable socialist organization on the face of the earth. Bill Maher astutely pointed this out in 2011, but in fairness to myself, I’ve been telling people that for years.

Walking around Redskins training, I wonder how many people realize that they are watching commie ball.

— ∮∮∮ —

Jesus was the first socialist, the first to seek a better life for mankind. Mikhail Gorbachev

I got my first up close and personal moment with RGIII, and boy, is dudeman a physical specimen. It was actually kind of unnerving. Even on a field of chiseled physiques, Mr. 3 stands out; it was like standing next Michelangelo's David as he lived and breathed.

Put in this way: he's so beautiful that he makes everybody’s knees (mine included) quiver.

Speaking of knees, as he walked away, people started talking about how good his knee, the most talked about knee in modern sports, looked. “He’s superman I tell ya,”a young black woman with the longest fake eyelashes I've ever seen says to a older woman fighting a losing battle against getting mud on her shoes. “That knee is fine; he’s gonna take us to the Promised Land.”

Watching him throw perfect 15-yard corner passes to Santana Moss and running back Chris Thompson, nobody worries about his arm. “He is a freak, man. He has yet to miss one yet” a guy tells his friend and hits him in the arm as I walk up to the quarterback session. “How’s Cousins looking?” I ask and they both look at me as if I just fired them for no reason. “Who cares about Cousins?” the other guy tells me rubbing his arm, “RG is looking great.”

The staff is more guarded in their optimism. “He is such an athlete, it’s hard to gauge what normal recovery is for him,” a guy with full Redskins credentials tells me as he hustles to get on the field, “We are taking every precaution with his recovery.” I wished him luck. “Thanks. We all have our fingers crossed” he smiled ducking under the rope to the sideline.

— ∮∮∮ —

The gods had condemned Sisyphus to ceaselessly rolling a rock to the top of a mountain, whence the stone would fall back of its own weight. They had thought with some reason that there is no more dreadful punishment than futile and hopeless labor. Albert Camus

I feel for are the guys that won’t make the team. Watching Pat White is like watching a man who knows he's about to die. With Cousins and Grossman ahead of him on the QB depth chart, he's not long for the team--barring injury or stunning preseason performance. To even be on this field you have to be pretty damn special, but the gods play no favorites. You may have been the best player in high school and college, but here in NFL, you are just adequate: a preseason arm to huck passes before the inevitable ax falls. Nothing is written in stone, but if this guy makes the team, it will be akin to peace in the Middle East.

— ∮∮∮ —

Belief creates the actual fact. William James

Leroy--the muscular, wheelchair-bound volunteer assigned to checking press credentials at the main facility--loves being around the Redskins. As I walk up to the entrance, his gold-tooth smile is beaming. “How are you doing today, sir,” he says like he won the lottery. I asked him how he liked working for the team. “Man, being here is like a dream come true. I mean, it’s the Redskins, you know what I mean?” I assured him that I did.

“So what do you think about the team this year?”

“It’s been a long time coming that’s for sure. We ain’t been good in a longtime, but with what happened last year, we actually have a team.” he says contemplating nearly two decades of gridiron disappointment. "We ain’t had a team in years!”

It was then that we started to run off the sad list of quarterbacks that the Skins have had under center before Mr. Griffin. “Tony Banks? Damn, I had totally forgotten about him.” he says in disbelief, “What about Patrick Ramsey? I thought he was going to die out there with all those hits he took.”

That was hard to watch. Ramsey was repeatedly smeared across the field during the Steve Spurrier error.

“But all that’s over now. We got Griff behind center, a good young team and a great coaching staff. I believe our time has finally come.”

— ∮∮∮ —

The secret of success is learning how to use pain and pleasure instead of having pain and pleasure use you. If you do that, you're in control of your life. If you don't, life controls you. Tony Robbins

DeAngelo Hall looked good, and despite tweaking his ankle was on the field for a second consecutive day. He caught a series of laser beams fired from the Jugs machine with only his left hand. It was amazing to watch. Apparently, the brash defensive back dislocated his heavily wrapped right ring finger on Monday when he and tight end Logan Paulsen started beating on each other. Because of the altercation, the passes he caught with two hands caused him to wince. It didn’t really seem to bother him all that much though. He seemed to be enjoying himself.

— ∮∮∮ —

Good habits formed at youth make all the difference. Aristotle

Near the end of the day, rookies Phillip Thomas, Bacarri Rambo, David Amerson (who had an impressive, leaping interception of a Rex Grossman pass), and Chase Minnifield were in the defensive backfield with forth-year pro E.J. Biggers serving as the nickelback. Rambo and Thomas will make their NFL debut Thursday in Tennessee as the first-team free and strong safety. If--and this is a big if--these two rookies can contribute to the team immediately, the defense should improve by leaps and bounds. Both continue to impress, and this will be their first chance to show what they can do during an actual game.

— ∮∮∮ —

I firmly believe that any man's finest hour, the greatest fulfillment of all that he holds dear, is that moment when he has worked his heart out in a good cause and lies exhausted on the field of battle--victorious. Vince Lombardi

And now, after a couple of weeks of beating on each other, the team finally gets to beat on someone else. The Titans, lead by third year coach Mike Munchak, are in the same boat. They want to kill people too.

Training camp is meant to be hell; it is a brutal process of weeding out. In the words of Marv Levy, “When it's too hard for them, it's just right for us.” And for a team to shine through the exhaustion so it’s just right for them, they have to have the mental and physical fortitude to do it. You can see it in the player’s faces. They look like they are being pounded into rocks.

Add to this, the desperation of players trying to make their respective team’s rosters, there will some serious drama going down at LP Field Thursday night.

It’s the only reality TV I watch.

London Fletcher figure by Kelvin Lomax, Santana Moss figure by Mark Francis

Redskins: Welcome to Richmond

Chris Bopst — Mon, 29 Jul 2013 11:46:10 +0000

Adding to my giddiness was the fact that I wasn’t sweating like a pig despite it being mid-July in Richmond. Usually during this time of year, I soak through three shirts daily, but not today, not on this glorious day on my way to see the Redskins.

As I got closer to the team’s new training facility behind the Science Museum, I began to see people--all different types of people--sporting the burgundy and gold: the grossly obese, hipster doodle pads, and crying children. With each step I took, a different human variant came into view. And the small talk came fast and furious. Four different people said, “Hail To Redskins” to me unprovoked even though I wasn’t wearing anything that claimed my loyalty to the team. I raised my fist each time it was said.

And then, there it was; the bright and shinny new Redskins training camp facility (officially The Bon Secours Washington Redskins Training Center)--it still amazes me how fast they put this fucker up. Now, what was a dead urban area just a few short months ago, is a hub of fevered activity. I’ll be interested in seeing what happens after the Redskins head back to D.C. to start the regular season, but as I become part of the growing mass making it’s way into the camp, giving this previously unused space to Bon Secours and Daniel Synder is paying immediate dividends. “This is the first time I’ve come to Richmond in years, “ a middle-aged guy said to me as he herded what seemed to be a flock of anxious spawn.

“I guess we’ll be coming here more often”

My first goal once I was inside the gates was to secure my press pass. I was sent to four different places by a succession of well-meaning volunteers before I finally got to where I was supposed to be. Waiting for the pass, I chatted up the guy whose sole job it was to keep people out of the pressroom. Like most of people I talked to, he was an unpaid volunteer. “Shit man, I’d work here everyday if I could”, he told me without provocation as he confirmed people’s credentials, “I think if RG3 can stay healthy, we have a good chance of winning it all.”

That’s the sentiment I heard from all the volunteers I spoke to. They didn’t care that they weren’t getting paid. All they want was to be around the Redskins.

After a few minutes of waiting, the Redskins press person, a rail thin brunette moving with clear purpose, appeared with my pass. Like everyone else in paid, official employment of Snyder Incorporated, she was a ball of friendly kinetic energy. She appeared and disappeared in the space of three seconds.

The first thing I see once I get to the field is Kirk Cousins running the offense. People questioned Shanahan’s judgment when he drafted the Michigan state quarterback in the 4th round of last year’s draft, but watching him complete an impressive array of touch pass dump offs, laser beam shots across the middle, and soaring bombs, Shanahan has proved his critics wrong. It’s no surprise really. Cousins’s poise was evident last year when he came in to replace an injured Griffin and led the team to a pivotal, season-defining victory over the eventual Super Bowl champions, The Baltimore Ravens. And that was no fluke either. His calm, cool, and collected running of the Kyle Shanahan’s distinctive offensive schemes continued the following week with a win on the road in Cleveland (throwing for 329 yards and two touchdowns). With the health of Griffin’s knee still (and maybe always) in question, the importance of Cousins to the team cannot be overstated.

On the other side of the ball, watching rookies David Amerson (replacing first-team cornerback Josh Wilson, who began the day on the active/physically-unable-to-perform list) and safety Bacarri Rambo fly around the defensive backfield makes you think Shanahan choose wisely in this year’s draft too. Both move like the wind and possess the elite physical gifts to excel at their positions. Shanahan has a lot riding on these two guys. The Skins’ porous secondary was their most glaring deficiency last year, and he hopes to stop the leaking with these two speed demons. For the first day at least, both lived up to expectations.

At the end of the session, I ventured back to the press area in time to watch punting drills. As I watched Santana Moss, Richard Crawford, Niles Paul, and Evan Royster catch kick after kick, legendary Redskins kicker Mark Mosley appeared in front of me. He struck up a conversation with former Redskins general manager and NFL network annalist Charley Casserly, and I was struck by how perfect his hair was styled. I shit you not: it was like each piece of hair was sculpted into place. I was so seduced by his maliciously maintained hair that I totally stopped paying attention to what was happening on the field. At this point, I think they sensed my fascination with Mosley’s hair and moved further down the field. As they walked away, Casserly gave me a passing glance. It probably didn’t mean anything, but I got the feeling that he wanted Mosley’s perfectly arranged hair follicles all to himself.

Shanahan’s press conference was totally pro. I heard a couple of other reporters talking about his stunning bronze tan before he entered the room--as if it was surprising that a millionaire football coach that has two Super Bowl rings and is currently employed by one of the most profitable franchises in all of sports would have one. Anyway, like the consummate pro that he is, Shanahan answered the barrage of questions asked of him like a man dealing with an annoying but necessary evil. The only real news came when he relayed the first true bummer of the training camp: that defensive end Adam Carriker will be undergoing surgery yet again to help repair the torn quadriceps tendon he suffered during Week 2 of the 2012 season. This will be his third surgery on his right leg since the injury and Shanahan couldn’t give a clear timetable for his return.

And then he answered my question. I asked him that since Griffin won’t be playing in the preseason, how would he divide up playing time between Cousins and Sexy Rexy during preseason games. I don’t know if I articulated it correctly because he said Griffin would be on the practice field during training camp and didn’t answer my question. I felt kinda stupid, but he looked me in the eye and plowed through his non-answer as if he did anyway. Oh well, I’ll try to ask better next time.

I never did see Mr. Griffiin, but I did hear the thunderous chants of “RG3” during Shanahan’s press conference when he entered the building. There is so much tied up in the man’s health, I wonder how he can maintain such poise and grace under the weight of it all. All I know is that when he is healthy (and all reports indicate that he is making tremendous progress rehabbing his injured knee), he is the most electrifying player in the NFL since Michael Vick. A lot of reporters asked Shanahan why Mr. 3 didn’t wear his knee brace when he was on the field and why he put it back on after his first play.

“Why did he put the brace back on?”
“Did he hurt his knee out there?”
“How is the knee?”
“Is there any swelling in the knee?”
“Do you worry he will hurt his knee?”
“What is the status of his knee?”
“How is the rehab on the knee going?”
“Are there any developments with Robert’s knee?”

I imagine that Shanahan has dreams about slaughtering reporters. Again, he answered the questions as if it was the first time anyone has him about Griffin’s knee with only a slight, barely noticeable tinge of dread. The knee is getting better, Robert is working hard, we are being careful with him...blah, blah, blah.

And then it was over.

As I left the facility, a cheery black woman at the gate was waving goodbye to everyone and thanking the departing masses for coming. “Y’all come back, ya hear!” she said cracking herself up. When I thanked her for doing her job, she beamed, “God bless you honey. You have a blessed day.”

When as I was about ten feet past her, she left me with one last pleasantry for the day as if she forget to tell me something of dire importance.

“Hail To The Redskins, baby!”

— ∮∮∮ —

The Bopst Show: With some sticks (Episode 241)

Chris Bopst — Mon, 08 Jul 2013 12:30:41 +0000

Listen

[audio:http://media.rvanews.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/The-Bopst-Show-With-Some-Sticks-Episode-241.mp3|titles=The Bopst Show -- With some sticks -- Episode 241]

iTunes: The Bopst show podcast
Everything else: The Bopst show podcast

Download

The Bopst Show -- With some sticks -- Episode 241

— ∮∮∮ —

Title: The Bopst Show: "With Some Sticks (Episode 241)"
Rating: PG-13 (Adult Situations & Language)
Intent: To continue…

Random Richmond Diversion: But it won’t be a carbon copy
Random USA Diversion: Seven hundred miles of new fencing. Twenty thousand new border patrol agents. Radar. Night vision. Even drones
Random World Diversion: The New War Correspondents: The rise of civic media curation in urban warfare
Random Image: It is normal practice, anywhere in India
Random Music Blog: When You Motor Away
Random Bopst Show: The Bopst Show: “Wake Up (Episode 140)"

Whitey is nervous:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5zON0o_d51E

Construction Date: Sunday July 7th, 2013
Equipment: Mac G5, Free Audio Editor & Recorder Software from Audacity, Frontier US-122 USB Audio/MIDI Interface, Shure SM57 Microphone
Posted: Monday July 8th, 2013
Artists and Groups in order of appearance: Nino Rota, John Schroeder Orchestra, Black Flag, The Green Boys, Sun Ra & The Omniverse Orchestra, Crooklyn Dub Outernational with Scotty Hard, Teddy Pendergrass, Slavic Soul Party!, Kurtis Blow, Ray Wylie Hubbard

Liner Notes

Of all that is good, sublimity is supreme. Succeeding is the coming together of all that is beautiful. Furtherance is the agreement of all that is just. Perseverance is the foundation of all actions. Lao Tzu

Here are some shows I’m hustling at Balliceaux this week...

NEXT NEW SHOW: 06/15/13 New show times. The Bopst Show airs Sundays, 11PM and Tuesdays, 6PM (EST-USA) on KAOS Radio Austin.

Figure by Jeff, location: Central Ohio, Occupation: Law Enforcement
Photo: BOPST

Until Next Time:

Stay clean,
BOPST

The Bopst Show: Modern Radio Gramophone (Episode 240)

Chris Bopst — Mon, 01 Jul 2013 13:33:47 +0000

Listen

[audio:http://media.rvanews.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/The-Bopst-Show-Modern-Radio-Gramophone-Episode-240.mp3|titles=The Bopst Show -- Modern Radio Gramophone -- Episode 240]

iTunes: The Bopst show podcast
Everything else: The Bopst show podcast

Download

The Bopst Show -- Modern Radio Gramophone -- Episode 240

— ∮∮∮ —

Title: The Bopst Show: "Modern Radio Gramophone (Episode 240)"
Rating: PG-13 (Adult Situations & Language)
Intent: to totally get all gay marriage up in your ear holes…

Random Richmond Diversion: What’s that?
Random USA Diversion: It doesn’t really change the overall way they’re trying to do this
Random World Diversion: These acts, if confirmed, would be completely unacceptable
Random Image: Between 1924 and 1948
Random Music Blog: Nah Right
Random Bopst Show: The Bopst Show: “The Chick (Episode 64)"

This dude is funny:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WWkm0cBDqiY

Construction Date: Sunday June 30th, 2013
Equipment: Mac G5, Free Audio Editor & Recorder Software from Audacity, Frontier US-122 USB Audio/MIDI Interface, Shure SM57 Microphone
Posted: Monday June 24th, 2013
Artists and Groups in order of appearance: The Bevis Frond, Bethesda, Django Reinhardt, Those Manic Seas, Leonard Cohen, Orgone, Ralph Haughton & The Ebony Sisters, Brownbird Rudy Relic, Tad, Manitoba, The Bar-Kays, The South Georgia Highballers, Prefuse 73, Erol Alkan & Boys Noise, Beach House, Chai Muang Sing (AKA: Mad City Lion)

Liner Notes

If marriage is radically redefined as a way of just affirming loving feelings of attraction, then equality will require allowing people who love dogs to marry dogs. And people who love ice cream to marry ice cream.Daniel Heimbach, senior professor of Christian ethics at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary.

Here are some shows I’m hustling at Balliceaux this week...

NEXT NEW SHOW: 07/08/13 New show times. The Bopst Show airs Sundays, 11PM and Tuesdays, 6PM (EST-USA) on KAOS Radio Austin.

John Elway figure by Chris Fields, photo by BOPST

Until Next Time:

Stay clean,
BOPST

The Bopst Show: A Different Drummer Drumming (Episode 239)

Chris Bopst — Mon, 24 Jun 2013 13:23:49 +0000

Listen

[audio:http://media.rvanews.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/The-Bopst-Show-A-Different-Drummer-Drumming-Episode-239.mp3|titles=The Bopst Show -- A Different Drummer Drumming -- Episode 239]

iTunes: The Bopst show podcast
Everything else: The Bopst show podcast

Download

The Bopst Show -- A Different Drummer Drumming -- Episode 239

— ∮∮∮ —

Title: The Bopst Show: "A Different Drummer Drumming (Episode 239)"
Rating: PG-13 (Adult Situations & Language)
Intent: For Dave…

Random Richmond Diversion: Give me your money or I’ll shoot your dog
Random USA Diversion: I hope to see you Tuesday. Thank you
Random World Diversion: The United States doesn't know what happened
Random Image: Yucky
Random Music Blog: The Handclap Movement
Random Bopst Show: The Bopst Show: “Constant Surveillance (Episode 121)"

Prepare to be rendered useless:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Of2HU3LGdbo

Construction Date: Sunday June 23rd, 2013
Equipment: Mac G5, Free Audio Editor & Recorder Software from Audacity, Frontier US-122 USB Audio/MIDI Interface, Shure SM57 Microphone
Posted: Monday June 24th, 2013
Artists and Groups in order of appearance: Abdoulaye 'Djoss' Diabate, Lee Fields & The Expressions, Septeto Nacional, The Toby Whitaker Orchestra, Love, The Hot Seats, No Trend, Jimmy Riley, Bravura Ltd. Edition, NO BS! Brass Band, Miles Davis, Frisches Big Boy, Dune Rats, The Videos, Loincloth, Arif Sag

Liner Notes

All the works of man have their origin in creative fantasy. What right have we then to depreciate imagination. Carl Jung

Here are some shows I’m hustling at Balliceaux this week...

NEXT NEW SHOW: 06/01/13 New show times. The Bopst Show airs Sundays, 11PM and Tuesdays, 6PM (EST-USA) on KAOS Radio Austin.

1933 Bears by Chris Fields

Photo: BOPST

Until Next Time:Stay clean,
BOPST

The Bopst Show: The Castleman Show — So Good (Episode 238)

Chris Bopst — Mon, 10 Jun 2013 14:22:50 +0000

Listen

[audio:http://media.rvanews.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/The-Bopst-Show-The-Castleman-Show-Episode-238.mp3|titles=The Bopst Show -- The Castleman Show: So Good -- Episode 238]

iTunes: The Bopst show podcast
Everything else: The Bopst show podcast

Download

The Bopst Show -- The Castleman Show: So Good -- Episode XXX

— ∮∮∮ —

Title: The Castleman Show: "So Good (Episode 238)"
Rating: R (Adult Situations & Language)
Intent: Pork Chop Sandwiches

Construction Date: Friday June 7th, 2013
Equipment: Mac G5, Free Audio Editor & Recorder Software from Audacity, Frontier US-122 USB Audio/MIDI Interface, Shure SM57 Microphone
Posted: Monday June 10th, 2013
Artists and Groups in order of appearance: Non, White Stripes, Scissor Sisters, Fat Truckers, The Rapture, LCD Soundsystem, Marie Bryant, The Heroine Sheiks, Electric Six, Johnny Dowd, The Bug VS The Rootsman (featuring He-Man), Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Original Hamster, The Dirtbombs, Kid Congo & Khan, Nazis From Mars, Trash Money, The Drug Punks, McLusky, Kid America, Kid 606, Lord Kitchener

Liner Notes

"So Good"

I can’t even begin to tell you how many times Dave would say this to me as he cued up some new music for me to hear. And those were his exact words when he handed me this CD. He was particularly excited about the Scissor Sisters’ version of Pink Floyd’s "Comfortably Numb" which at that point had not hit the masses yet. I don’t know how he did, but Dave always could find nuggets of goodness way before anyone else.

As he cued the tune up on the above pictured CD that is this week’s show, he turned to me with a fiendish grin and said, "You are gonna love this."

And as always, he was right. I totally loved it.

This past Wednesday, David Castleman passed away after a long bout with melanoma. He was my friend, confidant, and comrade and my world would not have been as funny, interesting, or gloriously profane without him in it. It really is hard for those of us that loved him to think of this world without him in it. I knew his situation was bleak when he was diagnosed with terminal cancer about a year and a half ago, but as fucked up as this sounds, I thought he was being over dramatic. He had beaten cancer twice before so why would this time be any different?

Sadly, that was not the case. In the words of one of our favorite authors Charles Bukowski, "The gods play no favorites."

To give you an idea of the type of relationship we had, a coupla of months ago he came to town with his family, and we were hanging out at a friends house with a bunch of people for a pot luck. As always, Dave, despite being in debilitating physical pain, was holding court while filling up a friend’s hard drive with music (this was something he always did; he was always turning people onto books, movies, and music). As the evening progressed, Dave got up from his comfy spot on the one-man sofa and an acquaintance of ours took over his spot in his absence. When he came back into the room and found his spot taken, he asked her to move. Not knowing the direness of his physical situation, the woman reluctantly relinquished the sofa with a touch of subtle but obvious annoyance. "What’s wrong with you, David?" she said as she got up.

Without hesitating, he answered bluntly, "I have terminal cancer."

When he said it, the whole room stopped. Up until that point, the mood had been light and airy as those of us close to him tried to keep reality at bay, but now, the ugly reality of his situation was exposed. As the room resonated with a deafening silence, from the other room, I did what I always did when David spoke with his distinctive candor.

I burst out laughing. And I’m not talking about a mere chuckle or two; I was convulsing in laughter, which delighted him greatly. The outburst broke the silence and eventually the party (as well as the mortified woman) carried on while the two of us giggled like children. "You have terminal cancer" I said still giggling. "I know; that means I can sit anywhere I want" was his response.

Later that evening after the party ended, the two of us were sitting alone, and I asked him if he was going back to his old job once he got better. "I’m not going to get better, Chris. I’m going to die." I tried to brush it off, but the way he said it, I knew he was serious.

Still, I tired to make light of his situation."Come on, dude, you ain’t going to die. You’ll beat this shit like you beat it all the other times. Besides, cancer seems to like you. You two make such a beautiful pair."

That made him laugh.

"No, I’m going to die. This shit is going to kill me this time."

We sat for a while, and I told him that I loved him. As I got up to leave, we embraced, and he told me he loved me too.

As I was driving home that night, I thought about how we first met. Mutual friends had introduced us back in the mid-80’s because both of us were dealing with extreme physical pain and I guess they figured we’d get along because of it. At that point, he had testicular cancer and I was suffering from cluster headaches. We became fast friends and we dubbed ourselves the pain brothers.

We passed the time making light of each other’s physical aliments. "Ah, little pussy is having another headache? Maybe if you weren’t such a bad person, you wouldn’t be feeling this way" he’d say as I rolled around the floor writhing in agony sometimes puking on myself, "but you are a bad person so you are only getting what you deserve."

"Fuck you, Hitler" was my go to response when I could actually formulate words.

We went on like this for years.

Eventually, my cluster headaches stopped, but Dave’s physical aliments continued and got worse. The only reason I wish my headaches didn’t stop is because of David. I felt I had left him in the lurch all alone without his pain brother to commiserate with. To his credit, he never held my newly pain free life against me ("But you are still a dick" he’d say), but I always felt bad whenever he was in pain and I wasn’t. It just didn’t seem right.

Beyond that, dudeman always (and I do mean always) turned me onto music. And the best thing about his musical choices: he never stopped being interested in the here and now. Sure, he loved the stuff of old that we both cherished, but what really got his motor running was finding out about and turning his friends onto new stuff. I could always count on him to turn me on to something that I had never heard before. Over the two plus decades we knew each other, I can’t even begin to tell you how much music he opened my ears to (he found the "Here’s The Man With Music" intro song on the Bopst Show header), and his appetite for culture and devious wit will forever influence how I listen to things.

When I was doing radio full time, I tried many times to get him to have his own radio show, but for whatever reason, I could never get him to it so for this week’s Bopst Show, I pay tribute to the man that always made my life better not only with music, but with every fiber of his being.

So ladies and gentlemen, it is my great honor to present to you this week, The Castleman Show.

I love you David. I’ll see you on the other side.

BOPST

— ∮∮∮ —

Here are some shows I’m hustling at Balliceaux this week...

NEXT NEW SHOW: 06/17/13 New show times. The Bopst Show airs Sundays, 11PM and Tuesdays, 6PM (EST-USA) on KAOS Radio Austin.

Willie Lanier Electric Football figure by Reginald Rutledge from the collection of Lynn "Weirdwolf" Schmidt. Design by BOPST.

Until Next Time:

Stay clean,

BOPST

Editorial: The (fake) Redskins naming controversy

Chris Bopst — Fri, 24 May 2013 11:12:41 +0000

The perfect metaphor for the fake Redskins name controversy happened at the Toots and the Maytals concert last Saturday on Brown’s Island during Dominion River Rock. As thousands of people were enjoying the group’s performance, one lone asshole ruined the collective good time by hurling a bottle at the stage. The projectile landed on singer Toots Hibbert’s cranium causing an otherwise joyous musical event to end suddenly on the sourest of notes.

And that’s what this whole fuss about nothing is all about: how the misguided actions of a few can rain on the parade of many.

To those of you that haven’t been following this shallowest-end-of-the-pool news story, there has been feigned indignation in some quarters over the name of the Washington Redskins. To this tiniest handful, the name is a racial slur. While this contention has mostly no basis in fact, these self-appointed guardians of public decency still insist on making the argument that it does. And those of us that have no problem with the name of the privately owned professional football franchise are somehow ignorant to the unspeakable harm just saying the name “Redskins” causes. While I do find it funny whenever someone wants to label me a callous boob for pointing out the epic absurdity of their factually challenged assumptions, the argument speaks to a larger, more sinister truth that our world is increasingly becoming a sounding board for irrational chicken littles.

First, let’s hear what an actual “Redskin” thinks about the name.

Claiming “scalps” automatically means “red skins” is revisionist history, to be blunt. It was the Native Americans who first used the term “red” in order to differentiate between indigenous, white, and black people. When not referring to their individual and other tribes collectively, why would they use Indian, Native, or other adjectives to describe their obvious skin differences back then? Ives Goddard is a senior linguist at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of History. Goddard wrote the book, I am a Redskin: The Adoption of a Native American Expression (1769-1826) and notes the earliest uses of “red skin” were in recorded statements from Natives by the French who generally traded amicably with them. The French were careful to denote the “red” distinction was made by Natives themselves.
By the time of the Phips Proclamation, according to Goddard, “red” to describe Natives was used “by both French and English...Although Europeans sometimes used such expressions among themselves, however, they remained aware of the fact that this was originally and particularly a Native American usage.” Also citing Goddard in the recent article, “Before The Redskins Were The Redskins: The Use Of Native American Team Names In The Formative Era of American Sports, 1857-1944,” Professor of Law and historian J. Gordon Hylton writes about the term, “…throughout the nineteenth century, the term was essentially neutral when used by whites, reflecting neither a particularly positive or particularly negative connotation.” Even Sitting Bull once remarked, “I am a red man. If the Great Spirit had desired me to be a white man he would have made me so in the first place.” Adrian Jawort, member of of the Northern Cheyenne Tribe

As we all know, our country was founded on the wholesale slaughter of these indigenous Americans. This undeniable fact--that our pale faced forefathers committed genocide against the red man--is the basis of the argument that the name is racist. While there’s no disputing this inconvenient truth of our nation’s bloody history, there’s no way to go back in time and right the wrongs of the past. More importantly, no one alive today participated in the slow evisceration of Native American culture. That’s the beauty of life: every 100 years or so, the planet is inhabited by all new people. And to hold present day Americans accountable for the actions of their 18th century ancestors is not only patently absurd, it is a diluted, revisionist attempt to whitewash our nation’s dirty laundry by somehow believing that now, nearly two centuries after the slaughter, we can help to make amends for this genocide by making a football team change their name.

Ted Nugent, the aging rocker that I rarely agree with, puts this displaced moral outrage in it’s proper perspective in his excellent article on the subject A Tomahawk Chop To Political Correctness:

If we want to focus on the plight of Native Americans, call me crazy horse, but maybe we should start by addressing issues that truly matter most and would actually save Indian’s lives.

The great white buffalo then goes on to state that the high school dropout rates, the rampant unemployment, alcoholism, and suicide rates that plague the modern day Native American community are the real issues that need to be addressed and not the names of sports franchises.

There are wafting smoke signals of real distress coming from the American Indian community that are being ignored. These are the life and death issues that actually matter, not pushing a brain-dead agenda to get sports teams to change their names. Political correctness doesn’t fix anything. The cult of denial that is political correctness masks what matters most, which is why I refer to it as a social cancer that should be eradicated.

Despite this, the fringe continues to disregard these real life issues and continues to pester the team to change their name even though the majority of the Americans have no problem with it. In a recent Associated Press-GfK poll, four in five Americans don’t think the team should change its name. Only 11 percent think it should be changed, while eight percent weren’t sure, and two percent didn’t answer. And as far as Native Americans are concerned, a poll conducted in 2004 by the Annenberg Public Policy Center (PDF) showed that they had even less of a problem with the name with 90% indicating it didn’t bother them in the slightest. So if we live in a true representative democracy, the majority has spoken. Case closed, right?

Of course not.

In March, Del. Eni Faleomavaega (D-American Samoa) authored the Non-Disparagement of American Indians in Trademark Registrations Act of 2013, which would cancel all existing federal trademarks using “Redskins” to refer to Native Americans and prohibit future trademarks as well. Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.), a longtime critic of the team’s name, is an original co-sponsor, along with Reps. Raúl Grijalva (D-Ariz.) and Karen Bass (D-Calif.). Given the amount of real life problems facing our nation, shouldn’t our elected officials be spending their time working on solutions to our public ills and not badgering a private business to change their name to something more to their liking?

“It’s not up to the offending class to say what offends the offended” says American Indian advocate Susan Shown Harjo. Really? Seems to me, the country that we live in is based in part on the right to offend. And considering that only a tiny fraction of the culture considers the name to be an inflammatory term, there’s simply no basis in fact for her contention that somehow a whole class of people is being degraded because of a football team’s name. Just because someone claims something is offensive doesn’t mean that it actually is.

Like the bottle thrown at Toots Hibbert, these preposterous claims of racism are hurled at a beloved, privately owned sports franchise that brings joy to millions. Thankfully though, unlike that unfortunate incident on Brown’s Island, the despicable actions of this legislative minority will not stop the party.

Hail To The Redskins.

— ∮∮∮ —

Redskins Preseason Schedule 2013

Redskins vs. Titans • Thursday August 8th; 8:00 PM (NBC/Comcast)

Redskins vs. Steelers • Monday August 19th; 8:00 PM (ESPN)

Redskins vs. Bills • Saturday August 24th; 4:00 PM (NBC/Comcast)

Redskins vs. Buccaneers • Thursday August 29th; 7:30 PM (NBC/Comcast)

Home Redskins Electric Football Team by Electric Teams. Away "R" logo Redskins by J. Robinson. All other teams are the last edition 11-man sets issued by Miggle Toys.

The Bopst Show: Meat Wagon (Episode 237)

Chris Bopst — Mon, 20 May 2013 15:51:25 +0000

Listen

[audio:http://media.rvanews.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/The-Bopst-Show-Meat-Wagon-Episode-237.mp3|titles=The Bopst Show -- Meat Wagon -- Episode 237]

iTunes: The Bopst show podcast
Everything else: The Bopst show podcast

Download

The Bopst Show -- Meat Wagon -- Episode 237

— ∮∮∮ —

Title: The Bopst Show: "Meat Wagon (Episode 237)"
Rating: PG-13 (Adult Situations & Language)
Intent: To laugh at Chicken Little…

Random Richmond Diversion: Dipshit River Cock
Random USA Diversion: a Washington Post poll published on May 4 gave Cuccinelli a lead among registered voters of 46 percent to 41 percent
Random World Diversion: freaked out and screamed while his girlfriend was seen praying with her hands clasped outside
Random Image: Meat Wagon
Random Music Blog: Crack In The Road
Random Bopst Show: The Bopst Show: “Swiss Cheese (Episode 105)"

Meet Virginia’s Next Governor:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x-UWJzEFiSE

Construction Date: Friday-Sunday May 17-19th, 2013
Equipment: Mac G5, Free Audio Editor & Recorder Software from Audacity, Frontier US-122 USB Audio/MIDI Interface, Shure SM57 Microphone
Posted: Monday May 20th, 2013
Artists and Groups in order of appearance: Chuck Berry, Cosa Nostra, Wang Li, Barry Allen & Wes Dakus Rebels, Jetsons, Don “Pretty Boy" Covay, Charles Mingus, Amal Saha, Jimmy Wolford, Paul Freeman, Da Twinky Man, Scott & Keith, NO BS! Brass Band

Liner Notes

King & Spalding's willingness to drop a client, the U.S. House of Representatives, in connection with the lawsuit challenging the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) was such an obsequious act of weakness that I feel compelled to end your legal association with Virginia so that there is no chance that one of my legal clients will be put in the embarrassing and difficult situation like the client you walked away from, the House of Representatives Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli in a letter to King & Spalding law partner Joseph Lynch after the firm decided to drop its support of the Defense of Marriage Act, 4/20/11

Here are some shows I’m hustling at Balliceaux this week...

NEXT NEW SHOW: 05/27/13 New show times. The Bopst Show airs Sundays, 11PM and Tuesdays, 6PM (EST-USA) on KAOS Radio Austin.

Image of 1970’s Chargers and Chiefs electric football teams taken from the soon-to-be released book, “The Unforgettable Buzz" by Earl Shores and Roddy Garcia.

Design by BOPST.

Until Next Time:

Stay clean,
BOPST

The Bopst Show: Who Listens to Radio? (Episode 236)

Chris Bopst — Mon, 13 May 2013 14:00:12 +0000

Listen

[audio:http://media.rvanews.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/The-Bopst-Show-Who-Listens-to-Radio-Episode-236.mp3|titles=The Bopst Show -- Who Listens to Radio -- Episode 236]

iTunes: The Bopst show podcast
Everything else: The Bopst show podcast

Download

The Bopst Show -- Who Listens to Radio? -- Episode 236

— ∮∮∮ —

Title: The Bopst Show: "Who Listens To Radio? (Episode 236)"
Rating: PG-13 (Adult Situations & Language)
Intent: To reach man Virginia…

Random Richmond Diversion: And sometimes fraud
Random USA Diversion: It was just dormant
Random World Diversion: by a vote of 388 to 1
Random Image: Steam
Random Music Blog: All Things Go
Random Bopst Show: The Bopst Show: “The Shapely Head (Episode 150)"

I don’t see how it could hurt:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tnst6twjPPU

Construction Date: Thursday-Saturday May 9-11th, 2013
Equipment: Mac G5, Free Audio Editor & Recorder Software from Audacity, Frontier US-122 USB Audio/MIDI Interface, Shure SM57 Microphone
Posted: Monday May 13th, 2013
Artists and Groups in order of appearance: Sarah Vaughn, Rube Waddell, Kendra Smith & The Guild of Temporal Adventurers, Mel Torme, Big Youth, Billy Childish & The Black Hands, Anette Funicello, Trouble Funk, Joni Mitchell, Lightnin’ Hopkins, Melvins, James Cameron, Messer Chups, Johnny Wright, The Polica, Dokaka

Liner Notes

This week’s top ten radio quotes.

George Harrison

Gossip is the Devil's radio.

Johnny Carson

If it weren't for Philo T. Farnsworth, inventor of television, we'd still be eating frozen radio dinners.

Doug Coupland

I like doing radio because it's so intimate. The moment people hear your voice, you're inside there heads, not only that, you're in there laying eggs.

Fran Lebowitz

Radio news is bearable. This is due to the fact that while the news is being broadcast, the disk jockey is not allowed to talk.

Charles Stanley

We're enlarging in every single area of the ministry at In Touch. We're on radio and television. We're in over 110 million homes in America plus radio on satellites. We just acquired the NAMB FamilyNet television network, and with that expanding possibilities of the gospel.

Sting

I made two movies before The Police had a hit record: I did Quadrophenia and a film called Radio On.

Donny Osmond

You always draw from your roots. I'm influenced by everything I hear and see, and that includes music today, but obviously I go back to my early influences: Stevie Wonder, Parliament, Earth, Wind & Fire, Ohio Players, Average White Band. Those kind of artists are what I look to. When I hear that stuff on the radio, I turn it up!

Jason Mraz

When I was in high school, The Dave Matthews Band was a local band, and that was the first time I was starting to connect with a live band that was something that wasn't on the radio or TV.

Kenny Chesney

I'm running a radio station.

Joe Strummer

I think we're going to have to forget about the radio and just go back to word of mouth.

— ∮∮∮ —

Here are some shows I’m hustling at Balliceaux this week...

NEXT NEW SHOW: 05/20/13 New show times. The Bopst Show airs Sundays, 11PM and Tuesdays, 6PM (EST-USA) on KAOS Radio Austin.

Figure by Todd Wellmann

Photo: BOPST

Until Next Time:

Stay clean,
BOPST

The Bopst Show: The What’s Happening Sound (Episode 235)

Chris Bopst — Mon, 06 May 2013 14:27:45 +0000

Listen

[audio:http://media.rvanews.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/The-Bopst-Show-The-Whats-Happening-Sound-Episode-235.mp3|titles=The Bopst Show -- The What’s Happening Sound -- Episode 235]

iTunes: The Bopst show podcast
Everything else: The Bopst show podcast

Download

The Bopst Show -- The What’s Happening Sound -- Episode 235

— ∮∮∮ —

Title: The Bopst Show: "The What’s Happening Sound (Episode 235)"
Rating: PG-13 (Adult Situations & Language)
Intent: To place my bets on an inherent sense of humanity…

Random Richmond Diversion: Our company neither sought nor received any special benefits from any public official and was glad to be part of any effort to promote business and create jobs in the commonwealth of Virginia
Random USA Diversion: The doctor says only a miracle will bring my daddy back
Random World Diversion: “an act of war"
Random Image: Jan 27 2007
Random Music Blog: NNM +
Random Bopst Show: The Bopst Show: “In The Other Ear (Episode 100)"

From the mouths of babes:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jpMqMW5ilFQ

Construction Date: Thursday & Friday May 2nd & 3rd, 2013
Equipment: Mac G5, Free Audio Editor & Recorder Software from Audacity, Frontier US-122 USB Audio/MIDI Interface, Shure SM57 Microphone
Posted: Monday May 6th, 2013
Artists and Groups in order of appearance: Jerry Jeff Walker, B-52’s, The Thurston Lave Tube, Daft Punk, Grinderman, Roy Glenn, London Underground, Chakachas, Slayer, Rev, Gary Davis, Brick, Mel Blanc, The Ruins, Porn Scene Music, Old Time Relijun

Liner Notes

This week’s top ten radio quotes:

Gerald R. Ford

I watch a lot of baseball on the radio.

Maynard James Keenan

If the education of our kids comes from radio, television, newspapers - if that's where they get most of their knowledge from, and not from the schools, then the powers that be are definitely in charge, because they own all those outlets.

Glenn Beck

Quite honestly, I was running from myself. But I knew how to work Top 40 radio.

Jasper Carrott

I am amazed at radio DJ's today. I am firmly convinced that AM on my radio stands for Absolute Moron. I will not begin to tell you what FM stands for.

Joni Mitchell

There was this mountain village in Russia where my music was getting in on some German radio station. I remember this because music used to get up to Saskatchewan from Texas. Late at night after the local station closed down.

Ernst Fischer

The bosses of our mass media, press, radio, film and television, succeed in their aim of taking our minds off disaster. Thus, the distraction they offer demands the antidote of maximum concentration on disaster.

Al Yankovic

You still have Top 40 radio now, but it's 40 different stations. There aren't many hits that everybody knows, and there aren't many real superstars.

Klaus Kinski

About 25 years ago, I was in an apartment, and next door, they put on the radio, so I struck the wall with my fist, but they did not put the radio down. I took a tool and banged until I made a hole through the wall. It was like a comedy movie.

Steven Wright

George is a radio announcer, and when he walks under a bridge... you can't hear him talk.

Aung San Suu Kyi

I could listen to the radio and I had access to books from time to time. Not all the time.

— ∮∮∮ —

Here are some shows I’m hustling at Balliceaux this week...

NEXT NEW SHOW: 05/13/13 New show times. The Bopst Show airs Sundays, 11PM and Tuesdays, 6PM (EST-USA) on KAOS Radio Austin.

Figure by D.C. Smith

Photo: BOPST

Until Next Time:

Stay clean,
BOPST

Meet the Redskins, a recap of the 2013 draft

Chris Bopst — Wed, 01 May 2013 13:34:20 +0000

A little more persistence, a little more effort, and what seemed hopeless failure may turn to glorious success. Elbert Hubbard

Last year was a weird NFL season for me: it was the first time in a long time that I wasn’t embarrassed to be a Redskins fan.

Even when the team was 3-6, I told everybody that would listen that I had no problem rooting for this team. I wasn’t kidding either. They were young, they had the most dynamic player in the league (QB Robert Griffin III), and they played with a gusto that previous Skins teams of the past decade or so couldn’t muster. Hell, even non-Redskins fans freely admitted that things were looking up for long suffering Skins fans.

And then the improbable happened; the team started winning.

This is highly unusual for the Skins faithful--we aren’t used to winning. For many years the Redskins never got the fumble, they never made the field goal, they never made the catch, and they most certainly never won games that actually mattered. All that changed during a magical 7-week span in which all previous proclivities for failure were vanquished and the team actually won games. They were playing so well that instead of my usual pleads of “please don’t fuck this up” instilled in me during previous regimes, I was cheering the team on with a confident enthusiasm that I hadn’t known since Joe Gibbs was leading the Skins to Super Bowl victories. Making the season even sweeter, they beat Dallas not once, but twice in games that actually mattered. Clinching the division and making the playoffs against the spawns of Satan during the last game of the season was something truly special for fans of the burgundy and gold:

As with all things, nothing ever lasts. In their home playoff game against the Seattle Seahawks, the team’s season came to an abrupt end.

The Skins' season ended with RG3's knee.

And in true Redskins fashion, not only did they lose the game, but Mr. Griffin, the player most responsible for the team’s change of fortunes and eventual rookie of the year, suffered further damage to an already injured left knee. It was something straight out of a Roman tragedy.

Despite this unfortunate turn of events, I don’t know a single Redskins fan that wasn’t hopeful for the future.

We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope. Martin Luther King Jr.

And that brings us to the NFL draft.

With RG3 on the mend (and hopefully ready to return for Week 1 of the NFL season), the team, penalized $36 million in salary cap space for attempting to gain a competitive advantage in 2010 by dubiously restructuring contracts in a non-cap season, couldn’t go the free agent route to address areas of concern. If they were going to upgrade this year, they would have to do it through the draft.

Here’s what the brain trust at Redskins Park picked.

— ∮∮∮ —

1. CB David Amerson

51st pick, 2nd round

Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go.T. S. Eliot

With last year’s porous secondary, Shannahan addressed the Skin’s leaky defensive sieve and picked NC State cornerback David Amerson. A top-50 recruit out of Greensboro, Amerson set a new ACC and NC State record during his sophomore year with 13 interceptions, becoming just the second player with double-digit interceptions in a single season since 2004. While most experts agree the 6-foot-1, 205-pound North Carolina native has all the physical attributes to be an NFL star, there seems to be some concern that his aggressive play makes him vulnerable to double-moves.

The footage of him getting beat repeatedly in big games makes me a little queasy, but I, like every other Redskins-loving bench warmer pontificating about a draft pick’s eventual greatness, see only Amerson’s upside. So what if he’s been made to look feeble on occasion? That’s life as a defensive back: everyone gets beaten. The hope, of course, is that the inevitable flaccid coverage happens every once in a while and not with alarming regularity. If that’s the case, the Redskins picked wisely. If not, we’ll be seeing a lot of Victor Cruz salsa dancing in the coming years.

2. TE Jordan Reed

85th pick, 3rd round

Continuous effort--not strength or intelligence--is the key to unlocking our potential.Winston Churchill

This is the pick I’m most excited about. If the Florida Gator can live up to the billing that he is the next Aaron Hernandez, he will cause all types of headaches for defenses. Last year, he recorded a team-high 45 catches for 559 yards and three touchdowns for the Gators, but by the time the Sugar Bowl rolled around, Reed was benched for attitude problems. He’s not a pure tight end, but in Kyle Shanahan’s offensive schemes, he could line up anywhere on the field, and his crisp route running, speed, and soft hands will demand attention. And when he does catch the ball, he’s big and strong enough (6-foot-2, 236 pounds) to break initial contact and take it to the next level.

3. S Phillip Thomas

119th pick, 4th round

Ability is what you're capable of doing. Motivation determines what you do. Attitude determines how well you do it. Raymond Chandler

This big, hard-hitting safety from Fresno State was a unanimous first team All-American. He has experience in the Redskins’ 3-4 defensive scheme as well. This pick was a no-brainer considering the desperate need to shore up the team’s defensive backfield, and he will be given every opportunity to contribute immediately. If he does make his presence felt, not only will defensive backs coach Raheem Morris’s life will be much easier, I won’t be screaming as many profanities at the TV on Sundays.

4. RB Chris Thompson

154th pick, 5th round

Reject your sense of injury and the injury itself disappears. Marcus Aurelius

Thompson is a small (5-foot-7) change of pace back who can run and catch from Florida State with a history of ACL and back problems. Before a knee injury ended his season last year, Thompson had rushed for 687 yards (averaging 7.5 yards a carry), had 21 catches for 248 yards, and scored five touchdowns. I don’t know about this one, but I won’t question Shanahan’s mid-to-late-round running back judgment. Dudeman knows more than me. I’m just a fan that hopes for the best.

5. OLB Brandon Jenkins

162nd pick, 5th round

The art of war is simple enough. Find out where your enemy is. Get at him as soon as you can. Strike him as hard as you can, and keep moving on. Ulysses S. Grant

Another Florida State product coming off a major injury, the upside to Jenkins is that when he is healthy, he can be a force to be reckoned with: he recorded 22.5 sacks in 40 games at Florida State, and in 2010, he recorded 13.5 sacks and 21.5 tackles for loss. If the Redskins can’t pressure the quarterback, it doesn’t matter who they have playing in the secondary because if you can’t make the guy throwing the ball sweat, he will eventually make you look silly on national television. The best pass defense is one that doesn’t let the quarterback throw the ball, and that’s why Jenkins was drafted. Quick off the snap, his job will be to stop the pass before it can even happen.

6. S Bacarri Rambo

191st pick, 6th round

Be more concerned with your character than your reputation, because your character is what you really are, while your reputation is merely what others think you are. John Wooden

When I first saw his name, I read it as “Bacardi Rambo” and he instantly became my favorite NFL prospect. Sadly though, his name is “Bacarri” and not “Bacardi,” but he did have a couple drug-related suspensions while he was at Georgia so maybe he will play like the drunken vigilante I hoped he could be.

This pick speaks to the defensive-backfield desperation of the Redskins; they need somebody, anybody--even a guy who admitted he was half asleep when the Skins picked him--back there to help them shore up last year’s most glaring deficiency. He had 16 career interceptions with the Bulldogs so if he can stay away from marijuana-laced brownies and other illegal intoxicants, he could be a late round steal. Just keep him away from Fred Davis and Trent Williams, they like doobies too.

7. RB Jawan Jamison

228th pick, 7th round

One who gains strength by overcoming obstacles possesses the only strength which can overcome adversity.Albert Schweitzer

As a redshirt sophomore at Rutgers, the 5-foot-7, 203-pound running back rushed for 1,075 yards and four touchdowns on 255 carries (averaging 4.2 yards per carry). He decided to end his college career and head to the NFL so he could take care of his two sisters and his mother after she was diagnosed with breast cancer last summer. You can’t help but to root for a guy like that. But considering the team’s thinness on the offensive line and with no heir apparent for linebacker London Fletcher on the roster, you have to wonder if this late round pick could have been better used to address those areas of concern. Even so, I won’t question Shanahan when it comes to picking unheralded running backs.

— ∮∮∮ —

The risk of a wrong decision is preferable to the terror of indecision.Maimonides

As much as I looking forward to the coming season, what really is exciting is the fact that they will holding training camp here in good ol’ RVA this summer. And I hope Richmond is prepared for it; their residency will transform our sleepy little town into a fevered hub of activity for a couple of weeks.

It should be fun to watch.

Redskins & Seahawks figures by Miggle Toys. R-logo Redskins painted by Jay Dudley

The Bopst Show: Your Left Dimple (Episode 234)

Chris Bopst — Mon, 29 Apr 2013 13:51:20 +0000

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The Bopst Show -- Your Left Dimple -- Episode 234

— ∮∮∮ —

Title: The Bopst Show: "Your Left Dimple (Episode 234)"
Rating: PG-13 (Adult Situations & Language)
Intent: To thine own self be true…

Random Richmond Diversion: I want not to put a band-aid on the situation, but I want us to really solve the root cause
Random USA Diversion: I intend to watchdog this very carefully
Random World Diversion: No one puts anyone in prison for political reasons
Random Image: Doll Face on Ebay
Random Music Blog: I am a moonshiner
Random Bopst Show: The Bopst Show: “People of Earth (Episode 57)

The future of man’s church:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g4ABbktVDIc

Construction Date: Thursday & Friday April 25th & 26th, 2013
Equipment: Mac G5, Free Audio Editor & Recorder Software from Audacity, Frontier US-122 USB Audio/MIDI Interface, Shure SM57 Microphone
Posted: Monday April 29th, 2013
Artists and Groups in order of appearance: Jazz Gillum, Johnny Cash, Gizell Smith & The Mighty Macambos, Crass, Camille, Lee “Scratch Perry & Dennis Alcapone, Lavern Baker, The Olivia Tremor Control, The Boston Typewriter Orchestra, Geordie, Oliver, Sam Spence & John Facenda, Sebastian Cabot, The Echocentrics, Sun Ra & The Blues Project, CSC Funk Band, Minutemen, Stevie Wonder

Liner Notes

A dimple on the chin, the devil within. Pope Paul VI

Life is not a mp3 player where you can play what you want but life is a radio where you have to enjoy what's being played Zayn Malik

A dictatorship would be a heck of a lot easier, there's no question about it George W. Bush

The reason women don't play football is because 11 of them would never wear the same outfit in public Phyllis Diller

Anybody can become angry--that is easy, but to be angry with the right person and to the right degree and at the right time and for the right purpose, and in the right way--that is not within everybody's power and is not easy Aristotle

Here are some shows I’m hustling at Balliceaux this week...

NEXT NEW SHOW: 05/06/13 New show times. The Bopst Show airs Sundays, 11PM and Tuesdays, 6PM (EST-USA) on KAOS Radio Austin.

Until Next Time:

Stay clean,
BOPST

RVANews

Redskins vs. Falcons: The Blunder Bowl

Redskins vs. Chiefs: Now that was funny

Redskins vs. Giants: The 2014-15 offseason has officially begun

Redskins vs. Eagles: Too little too late

Redskins vs. Vikings: The big let down

Redskins vs. Chargers: Forever Young

Redskins vs. Broncos: The Mile High letdown

Redskins vs. Bears Recap: HELUUUUUU!

The offense

The defense

The special teams

Redskins vs. Cowboys: Heaven 17

First quarter

Second quarter

Third quarter

Fourth quarter

NFL Week 5 Recap: Eviscerations, surprises, and the moments you don’t want to define you

Philadelphia Eagles 36, New York Giants 21

St. Louis Rams 34, Jacksonville Jaguars 20

New Orleans Saints 26, Chicago Bears 18

Cincinnati Bengals 13, New England Patriots 6

The Green Bay Packers 22, Detroit Lions 9

San Fransisco 49ers 34, Houston Texans 3

Kansas City Chiefs 26, Tennessee Titans 17

Baltimore Ravens 26, Miami Dolphins 23

Denver Broncos 51, Dallas Cowboys 48

Footnotes

Redskins vs. Raiders: Victorious in Oakland

Redskins vs. Lions: RG 0-3

NFL Week 2 recap: Last second heroics, abysmal failures, and the importance of remaining faithful.

Cincinnati Bengals 20, Pittsburgh Steelers 10

Baltimore Ravens 14, Cleveland Browns 6

Atlanta Falcons 31, St. Louis Rams 24

Seattle Seahawks 29, San Francisco 49ers 3

Chicago Bears 31, Minnesota Vikings 30

Oakland Raiders 19, Jacksonville Jaguars 9

17 Kansas City Chiefs, 16 Dallas Cowboys

New Orleans Saints 16, Tampa Bay Buccaneers 14

Miami Dolphins 24, Indianapolis Colts 20

Buffalo Bills 24, Carolina Panthers 23

Redskins vs. Packers: Limp in Lambeau

Redskins vs. Eagles: The not ready for prime time players

NFL review, Week One: Naps, fumbles and how’s the knee doing

Tonight’s picks

Redskins report: Speculation and superfluous fluff

Recap: Cousins shines in win over Titans

Redskins report: A superhuman knee and rookies looking to make an impact

Redskins: Welcome to Richmond

The Bopst Show: With some sticks (Episode 241)

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Liner Notes

The Bopst Show: Modern Radio Gramophone (Episode 240)

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Liner Notes

The Bopst Show: A Different Drummer Drumming (Episode 239)

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Liner Notes

The Bopst Show: The Castleman Show — So Good (Episode 238)

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Liner Notes

Editorial: The (fake) Redskins naming controversy

Redskins Preseason Schedule 2013

Redskins vs. Titans • Thursday August 8th; 8:00 PM (NBC/Comcast)

Redskins vs. Steelers • Monday August 19th; 8:00 PM (ESPN)

Redskins vs. Bills • Saturday August 24th; 4:00 PM (NBC/Comcast)

Redskins vs. Buccaneers • Thursday August 29th; 7:30 PM (NBC/Comcast)

The Bopst Show: Meat Wagon (Episode 237)

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Liner Notes