It has been a calm offseason for myself as a Redskins fan - disturbingly calm. The usual free agent splashes and flaunting of new famous football names on the back of burgundy jerseys didn't occur, due to the labor lockout. Remarkably, this left the Redskins with most of their draft picks come draft time, and they actually did what looks to be smart on paper with those picks. Hell, the fact they even used them is a step in the right direction. But let's not forget them actually keeping their draft picks is as credible as a crackhead not smoking crack in a town without crack. There was no allowance for squandering draft picks on a "Hall of Fame" QB that no one would want in a year (like Donovan McNabb last year) or a game-changing defensive linemen that would be regarded as a joke in two years (like Albert Haynesworth two years ago). Shit man, go back through the years of Dan Snyder, regardless of who he's conned into being his head coach or pretend general manager, and it's a cavalcade of errors and botched moves. But that didn't happen this year.
But it looks like a labor deal is about to be signed - and we've had a few false starts to this silly season on speed before - but it looks to be an actual about to happen thing, so that the league doesn't jeopardize that Hall of Fame game in a couple weeks (A COUPLE WEEKS?!?!?!) and the full painfully boring preseason.
This means that not only will our normal offseason free agent period - which sort of ferments after the season into full swing before the draft and then wrap up afterwards - be a rapid and ridiculous thing, but it means that even for the retarded who tend to make giant, stupid moves when they think about it, they'll have to act even quicker and with less thought. As a Redskins fan, I cannot tell you how much this scares me. This has actually been the first offseason I've felt good about it in a decade, and simply because management had handcuffs on when it came to making their normal moves.
I saw a friend of mine (what's up Carter?) at the store the other day, another lifelong, God-fearing, salt of the Earth Redskin fan who was spoiled by the '80s excesses like myself, and he mentioned to me how the labor deal was about to really happen, saying "Football season's about to start." And rather than be happy or excited, I had a panic hit me, like my alcoholic dad had just gotten parole or an ex-girlfriend who had three abortions with me had just friended my wife on Facebook or something. It meant the quiet was about to end. It meant feeling good about the future of this team - basically because there was no future, it was on hold, which at least meant nothing bad would happen - was about to go out the window with a flurry of free agent signings and movings and wheelings and dealings and Redskins Park press conferences where that ratfaced child molester Mike Shanahan would play up his team mentality bullshit and that fat-faced bastard Dan Snyder would loom like the end of the American Empire does for us all right now. In fact, with the world economy about to explode into chaos and the illusion of Capitalism's great benevolence about to reveal itself to be a syphilitic dick that's been fucking us in the brain for a couple hundred years, I could not think of a worse man to own and operate the sports team I love the most than Dan Snyder. I'd like to think my football team would make the post-financial Apocalypse transition to the more sinister form of football dominated by Samoan thugs and genetically modified cyborg men cultivated in the wilds of the Congo, and the Redskins would represent my area still as I'd assume when America splinters into 30 or so country-states based on geographically shared interests, my home area is going to be the rural lands that props up the greater D.C. area with food and willing bodies for war. (Did you know that rural America is 20% of the population, but 40% of the military? Yeah, fuck you too.)
But we are about to see Dan Snyder, held back against his will, being let out the gates like a rabid raccoon in a quarry pit full of shiny objects dripping with chicken blood - he won't know what to grab first or what to let go of to get the other thing. The big talk at QB is that Matt Hasselbeck and Marc Bulger are the proven vets out there for the taking, Kevin Kolb is a big name waiting to be taken, and then you have Carson Palmer pretty much saying "Fuck Cincinnati" as well. (The Cincinnati/Washington possibilities of trying to figure a trade are ridiculous, because each is notoriously more stupider than the other. We'd probably end up with Chad Ochocinco as our QB and they'd have their own draft picks traded back to them by the Patriots.) But no one seems to give a fuck about Donovan McNabb, which means we can't get shit for him, and he is Donovan McNabb still. Last year, he sucked, and as comically comical as Rex Grossman is, I was down with letting him play out the season.
That being said, Shanahan doesn't even seem to care if Grossman comes back. He's hyping up John Beck, the unheralded over-30 mulleted 3rd string sensation as his QB of the present, and confident in the dude's abilities, which to me means for once, somebody in D.C. is admitting, "Hey, we really suck, and just need to outright suck, get another good draft, and take stock of where we're at once that happens. Us sucking means we'll weed out some of the bullshit dudes who have no heart, and we'll get some young, hungry motherfuckers in here to take care of business." Of course, I'm not convince Shanahan is that smart, so he may just be fucking the Redskins up as some sort of retribution against Dan Snyder.
Which leads me back our fearless leader, who is probably salivating at the very thought of the players union passing the labor deal so he can start jetting around signing everybody and everything he can, tossing future draft picks and signing bonuses around like dollar bills at an Atlanta strip club. We may end up signing both Marc Bulger AND Kevin Kolb. And keep Donovan McNabb. You never fucking know with Dan Snyder.
What I do know is that whoever famous is available, and preferably aging, he'll sign that guy. This means I pretty much expect either Kris or Cullen Jenkins to be a Redskin this time next week. Also Santonio Holmes, although he may still be too young to get Redskins money. My excitement over the wacky fuckers the Redskins drafted this year will soon be lost to head-scratching analysis of this year's Adam Archuleta or Brandon Lloyd, being there is no Donovan McNabb or Albert Haynesworth superstar bust-in-waiting out there for Snyder to feel like he done good with. Is Ladainian Tomlinson a free agent? Because that's the type of guy I'd expect Snyder to go after. Or Reggie Bush. Big names, little left.
Fuck. The lockout's about to be over and I'm about to face the reality of rooting for the Redskins again. And the summer was so nice.
No comments:
Post a Comment