2006 Point & Laugh at the taterskins thread

[Feva]

Point & Laugh fun fact:

Since 1999, the taterskins under owner Dan Snyder have signed 21 Pro-Bowl players as free agents.

None of these players, zero, have made the Pro Bowl as a taterskin.

[General_Failure]

There isn't enough angelic touching going on.

[MURP]

ha. nice find Feva. 

[Sgt PSN]

Point & Laugh fun fact:

Since 1999, the taterskins under owner Dan Snyder have signed 21 Pro-Bowl players as free agents.

None of these players, zero, have made the Pro Bowl as a taterskin.

That is the most spectacular stat I've ever seen.

[PhillyPhanInDC]

I didn't see this posted on here. Freeman posted this yesterday on CBS Sportsline and it is like wild fire down here. Which is great:

Star-struck Snyder can't win Super Bowls, so he collects trophies    
Sep. 13, 2006
By Mike Freeman
CBS SportsLine.com National Columnist

     
The little man with the gold bouillon probably could not resist. Tom Cruise was for sale. So what does a billionaire squirt who already owns an NFL team, a theme park, media companies, and a few dozen yes men do next to feel important? He purchases a movie star, of course.
   
They looked so cute together in the owner's box the other night, didn't they? Cruise with his flaming brunette hairdo, dark sunglasses at night and Army Ranger security force, and Snyder with his bloated, overrated team. It's a match made in megalomaniac, Napoleonic-complex heaven.

When Cruise was blasted from his $10 mil per Paramount Pictures deal, Snyder could not resist. "Ooooh, goody," he probably thought, "another toy for the collection."

It was Monday Night Football, which meant eyeballing cameras, sweaty paparazzi, and a raucous, plucky arena. Snyder rolled out his new man-toy unable to resist the spotlight and jammed his box with other worshipping celebrities including Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Peter Pace (isn't there a war on?).

Then Snyder's team did what it has mostly done since Snyder purchased it and jammed it predominantly with bad free-agent signings and big-name has-beens: It lost.

TomKat's appearance at the Minnesota-Washington game exemplifies why Snyder will never win a championship. Never, ever, never. That is the most stone cold lock of a football guarantee ever made.

Snyder has celebrity deficit disorder. He cares more about the hype and the stars than he does taking the time to patiently grow a successful football franchise. He cares more about squashing his critics in the media (he counterattacks writers through the team's official website) or trying to buy them off (he purchased his own fan website and radio stations). Snyder employees, I believe, pose as fans and blast media members on various message boards.   

While Hall of Famers like the Rooney family, the late Wellington Mara or future Hall of Famer Robert Kraft focused on building teams the proper way, Snyder has always cared more about which A-lister is sitting where in his box. The welfare of the league, small markets, salary cap manifestations. Forget it. He's not interested.

The late Mara once told me, when asked if he had ever met Snyder: "Yes, we've met. I wouldn't use the word charming with him, but he's been fine." Mara continued, "I don't agree with a lot of what he has done, and I don't want to get specific about what I don't like. He is entitled to do what he wants because he paid $800 million for the team. A lot of us old fogeys wish we had made as much money as he has at that age. But I wonder if he is the type of person who will only look out for himself, instead of the well-being of the entire league."

Mara made those remarks some time back but they still hold true today.

One of the most stunning stories in football over the past several years is while Snyder has turned his team into a giant ATM off the field, on the field, this once fearsome, hungry franchise has been transformed into a slobbering herbivore.

The league needs Washington to be good the way it needs New York teams or Green Bay to be competent. The franchise is too important to the NFL. When it stinks, the league just is not the same.

If you grow up in D.C., you cherish this team. You dress up in their garb and live and die with them. I still have all of my Washington gear: the gloves, the jacket, the wool hat. It's now somewhere in a box and will emerge again only once Snyder sells the team. Or Cruise wins an Academy Award.

The biggest problem is Washington has not been productive despite all of the money Snyder has sunk into big name player acquisitions. During his tenure as owner Snyder is 54-59 with two playoff appearances. No NFL owner in history has ever sunk as much signing bonus money into a franchise and gotten so little from those investments as Snyder. So Snyder might actually be making suckiness history.

Never thought I would say this, but the Cincinnati Bengals are a better franchise right now than Washington.

It is no shock that the Minnesota Vikings, not a great group, post-Pornoboat scandal and all, embarrassed Snyder's football team in the home opener. Not even Joe Gibbs, football royalty, will be able to rescue my once favorite team, my hometown team, from the fumbling clutches of the man Profootballtalk.com aptly nicknamed SnyderBrenner (a combo of Snyder and Yankees owner George Steinbrenner). Steinbrenner at least has numerous rings and the free agents he signs continue to be All-Stars.

When Snyder signs a Pro Bowler, he becomes a Pro Bowler no more.

SnyderBrenner is not an owner, he's P.T. Barnum. He doesn't care about football. He cares mostly about the stars and the spectacle and the political pundits who show up to play smoochy-face with him. The stars make him feel important, they make him feel taller.

Of course, collecting stars has nothing to do with winning football games. Snyder has signed Deion Sanders and Steve Spurrier to mega-deals and still has as many championships as Bill Bidwill.

One day, when he is done pillaging the bank accounts of Washington football fans (he was after all the first to charge fans for attending training camp practices) it will hit SnyderBrenner. He will notice how the New England Patriots built a dynasty utilizing smart drafting, treating the salary cap with respect and making wise free agent selections based on real needs, not Q-rating. You don't sign Elvis. You sign Elvis Grbac.

We've seen this before. It's the movie Titanic. We know what happens. Cue the iceberg. Cue 9-7, at best, again. And again. And again. High expectations followed by raging mediocrity.

When Cruise lost his $10 million a year deal, the Boston Herald, with the use of salary.com, figured that it would take a housekeeper making $19,934 a year 502 years to earn what Cruise did.

If Snyder were immortal -- and please don't give him any ideas -- it would still take him longer than that to win a Super Bowl.

[shorebird]

If Snyder were immortal -- and please don't give him any ideas -- it would still take him longer than that to win a Super Bowl.

 

[PhillyGirl]

I heart Mike Freeman

[PhillyGirl]

Vikings ask NFL to investigate radio trouble

The Vikings didn't suggest sabotage, but their wireless system was OK before the game.
Kevin Seifert, Star Tribune

Last update: September 13, 2006 – 8:10 PM

The Vikings asked the NFL on Wednesday to investigate a sudden disruption of their wireless communications system early in Monday night's 19-16 victory over Washington, a failure of unknown origin that forced them to send in plays manually rather than by radio.

Coach Brad Childress asked Ray Anderson, the NFL's senior vice president of football operations, to "take a peak at" the problem.

The taterskins reported no such malfunctions with their equipment. Childress stopped far short of suggesting sabotage, but he said two experts could find nothing wrong with the Vikings' equipment.

Asked if the problem was the result of an intentional act, Childress said: "I don't know."

An NFL spokesman acknowledged there was an "interference problem" with the Vikings' wireless frequency. The spokesman said no specifics were available on the nature of the interference.

Most teams use some sort of wireless radio to send in offensive plays from a coach's headset to a speaker in the quarterback's helmet. Childress said two consultants travel with the team for each road game to set up the technology and provide troubleshooting.

"It worked right before we came out for the game," Childress said. "They take those helmets all over the stadium and check them in every corner. They worked before we came out [of the locker room]. They didn't work for the first play. They worked before we came out for the second half, because they rechecked everything -- batteries, cells -- and it didn't work as we started the third quarter."

The Vikings eventually resorted to a backup system of wired headsets, but on several drives -- including the opening drive in which they scored a touchdown -- Childress shuttled in plays with several receivers as well as tight end Jermaine Wiggins. "Anybody I thought that could spit it back out," Childress said.

Receiver Travis Taylor was among the group.

"Hadn't done that since Pop Warner," Taylor said. "They would give me the formation and the play. Brad [Johnson] pretty much knows the plays, so I just had to remember two or three words of it and everything was good."

Johnson ran to the sidelines on numerous occasions to pick up the play himself. The Vikings snapped the ball several times with one or two seconds remaining on the game clock, but they were not called for any delay-of-game penalties.

"That's the way it goes," Childress said, "and that's the way it goes in a noisy stadium. You better be able to adjust."

[PoopyfaceMcGee]

Usually, when that is the case, both teams are supposed to suspend use of their headsets.

I guess no such rule applies to the skins.

[SD_Eagle5]

Usually, when that is the case, both teams are supposed to suspend use of their headsets.

I guess no such rule applies to the skins.

This doesn't apply to Gibbs since he gets his plays telepathically from God.

[ice grillin you]

lol

[PhillyPhreak54]

As I was driving to work this morning, I thought that there is a good chance Gibbs told some of his key players that we don't want to lay it all on the line for Minnesota, and if we win that would be great but we don't want to look dominant at this point in the season.

Why? We have the Cowboys at Dallas this week, a tough win by any standards. The genius of losing to Minnesota is that the Cowboys and the rest of the league underestimates us, and we are the decided underdogs.

While losing to Minnesota hurts temporarily, in the long run its the divisional games that are much more important to win. This could all very well be part of the Master Plan.

[ice grillin you]

The genius of losing to Minnesota

i cant believe a living breathing human being believes this

[PoopyfaceMcGee]

I called that one.

[MDS]

Are you sure that wasn't hahafunnyhaha?