There had been rumors for the last few days that Larry Weisman, then of USA Today, might be coming onboard here at Redskins Park for something. But the rumors were unspecific, as rumors tend to be, about exactly what that "something" would entail. Writing seemed to be the logical assumption, although Weisman has also been a regular on local sportstalk radio, including ESPN 980's Sports Reporters. And everyone knows that all sportswriters these days inevitably wind up shouting on TV somewhere, so that was a possibility as well.

The official news release yesterday didn't clarify things much. It named the position -- "Editorial Director" -- and, in the final line, summed up his role as non-specifically as humanly possible: "Weisman will contribute to various Redskins television, radio and print properties."

Despite the slight weirdness inherent in interviewing one's incoming co-worker, I said to heck with it and called Weisman to find out more about him, his cryptic new position, and his pre-Redskins career. But I started with the most obvious question I could think of: what, exactly, would he be doing with the team?

"The discussions that we've had so far have been primarily about me doing a lot of things with Larry Michael on the TV end of things," he said, "with the Comcast SportsNet show Redskins Nation and some other things that may be in the works. Some radio things, some of which I think also need some discussion, and some contributions to the dot-com."

Wow. So you really will be all over Redskins media.

"What we used to call it at USA Today was platform diving."

So after these thirty years or so at USA Today, what do you feel like you're bringing to the Redskins?

This morning, Congressional Country Club in Bethesda played host to the Earl Woods Memorial Pro Am, the opening event in the AT&T National hosted by Tiger Woods. As you may have heard, Woods himself elected to have an NFL player in his foursome, but since it wasn't one of the Redskins I didn't see too much of that.

Instead, I walked the back nine with Jason Campbell, Antwaan Randle El, Capitals coach Bruce Boudreau, and PGA Tour pro Mike Weir while they hit balls. (And, in the case of Campbell and Randle El, hit and hit and hit and hit....)

Here's how Campbell described his performance to me after the fact: "I had a couple good shots, but a little too much inconsistency. I'm nowhere near the professional level at golf, but I had fun."

Anyone who has followed athletes and their post-game quotes at all can translate this one, with its telltale keywords "inconsistency" and "had fun".

A few people who were watching Total Access on the NFL Network last night have asked me about this:


Yes, that's Phillip Daniels down there in the "Lost" column, and, no, that's not accurate. Do not panic. He's still on the team.

It's a pity that this is what jumped out, though, because it's a genuinely good segment. There's a detailed look at the team's offseason, along with one of those slightly goofy announcers-on-a-little-tiny-field things to demonstrate the potential impact of Albert Haynesworth on an already good defense, as well as Brian Orakpo rushing the passer.

Sure, it goes into the by-now-familiar refrain about Jason Campbell's offseason (this time it's a "dalliance" with Jay Cutler, not a "flirtation"), but it's clear that the analysts have done their homework on the team -- especially Rod Woodson, who discusses about half the roster -- and it's a nice overview despite the minor Phillip Daniels glitch.

You can see the video here, or after the jump.

Chris Horton is probably best known for being that diamond-in-the-rough seventh-rounder that fans and general managers everywhere dream about, and for having very noticeable hair. The breakout rookie season earned him a laundry list of honors -- 2008 Pro Football Weekly Rookie All-Pro Team, NFL Defensive Rookie of the Month for September, NFC Defensive Player of the Week honors for his first career start (against New Orleans) -- and the hair earned him the nickname Predator, after the similarly coiffed movie character.

He's less well-known for being a genuinely affable, funny, likeable guy, but a few more chats like this one on NFL.com should change that right quick. For example:

NOVA, Ashburn: When you see Chris Cooley running with the ball in practice do you think a) Who let this escaped mental patient on the field b) He looks like a week old fawn running c) There is no way anyone who runs that goofy had be that hard to tackle

Chris Horton: You have to go with "C" Nova. This guy is really hard to tackle, and everyone makes fun of his running form, but he does break a lot of tackles!

Leaving aside the fact that NOVA in Ashburn is probably Casey Rabach writing in under a pseudonym, that's a pretty solid Q&A. Or this one:

The intrepid guys over at Hogs Haven aren't taking a break here in the depths of the offseason. They are well aware that people have needs, and that those needs include umpty-thousand word interviews with football players (and their significant others) to fill the hours at work.

So they sat down for a long dinner with rookie linebacker Robert Henson and his wife before Henson set off to the rookie symposium, and then they transcribed it for your reading pleasure. The conversation ranges from the draft to Redskins history to where the predaft analysts got him wrong, along with all the other offseason topics of note. It's a detailed, wide-ranging, rambling conversation, and it's perfect for when you've got the time to read it.

Robert: You know who can still throw? TC. Todd Collins. He can THROW. I was dropping back in coverage thinking I was about to get him and that ball was there! I wouldn't sleep on Colt Brennan either. Colt's arm is crazy. You know what messes me up is his release. Most of the time you can time a quarterback's release but that sidearm.

Sugar: The coaches get on him for that?

Robert: I haven't been really paying attention to that. I'm mixed up in my own battles. I can't touch the ball when he throws, but I'll try to change that in training camp. I remember watching him in your pre-season game last year, and he did real good. Chase Daniel is faster than I thought he was. He was scrambling on one way and I had to get on my horse to go and get him. Haha. He's smart. VERY smart. We were doing 7 on 7 today, and actually they only had 5 players. He was drawing up routes telling them what to run to get around certain players.

Kevin: So you're #58...do you know of Wilbur [sic] Marshall?

Robert: Yea, I've heard of him. Well, one name I've heard a lot is Sam Huff. I got in trouble for not knowing the famous TCU guy that came to the Redskins. Sammy Baugh. I got in trouble for that one. But I know now.

You can check out the rest of the interview here.

I didn't see it before I made my earlier post on the subject, but the Washington Post also has video from the Broadcasting Boot Camp, and it's just as fascinating as Carpenter's article was.




A grateful hat tip to Awful Announcing.

NFL.com provides this brief glimpse of Brian Orakpo and Mark Sanchez at the Rookie Symposium. Please do not be confused by the initial presence of Sanchez here; that long nightmare is, in fact, still over. The Jets DID draft him. Patiently wait through the Sanchez stuff for Orakpo's appearance.

The most important soundbite in that appearance is probably the fact that he refers to the defensive ends as "we" when discussing Haynesworth's impact. It's doubly notable because he makes that comment to Steve Wyche, who -- as Hogs Haven noted on Friday -- just wrote about Orakpo transitioning to OLB, which is certainly covering all the bases. Only seventy-odd days until all the speculation is moot.

Also at NFL.com, Thomas George writes a Jason Campbell 2009 offseason profile that is pretty much the apotheosis of all 2009 Jason Campbell offseason profiles. It's all there: reference to Jay Cutler? Check.

Renaldo Wynn was at the broadcasting bootcamp last week, the NFL's three-day seminar designed to prepare current players for a second career in the announcing booth. As I mentioned on Wednesday, SI.com's Ross Tucker caught up with Wynn -- among others -- to get some thoughts about current announcers.

Wynn was impressively frank. After hammering Tiki Barber as his least-favorite current announcer, here's how he responded to the question of what qualities he "really dislike[s] in an on-air personality:"

Wynn: "The least-liked broadcasters are former players who get in the booth and they start bashing other players immediately. They start bashing other players and forget they used to be a player. You can be critical if you need to be without personally bashing people. I think you lose your credibility."

So you have to wonder what, exactly, Wynn would make of this morning's news from an ex-player who recently became an ex-broadcaster.

Apparently Albert Haynesworth did an interview with Adam Schein and Jim Miller on SIRIUS NFL Radio the other day. I wouldn't know, because -- being the sort of ancient person who remembers the Journey arcade game -- I still use terrestrial radio, with static and commercials and all of that.

Fortunately for all of us, a poster over at NFL Spot dot com has transcribed a few of the comments, with a specific focus on how Haynesworth claimed to be "too big" for Nashville. This will no doubt cause all sorts of fuss and furor with Titans fans, but if you read the actual quotes, it seems clear that he means "too big" in the sense of "outgrown the place where he spent his youth," not in the sense of "this town cannot contain all of my awesomeness."

Here, judge for yourselves:

Haynesworth on his move to the Redskins via a $100 million contract: "Believe it or not, I guess I don't have a ton of the pressure on me. I feel like I was almost getting – I don't want it to seem like I've got a big head, but... too big for Nashville."

Haynesworth on why he believes Nashville was more pressure on him than the Redskins market: "I try to explain it to people so they can understand it... say you're in grade school... You stay in the same elementary school. You could be this young kid, coming in at six years old. You kind of do some things as far as misbehaving, or whatever. You're just a young kid. But when you get to the fourth, fifth grade, you've kind of grown out of it. But you still carry around that and you're still dealing with those same teachers and they still view you as that kid in kindergarten. That's kind of what I felt in Nashville. No matter what I did, they always wanted to refer to me how I was when I first came into the league at 20 years old. Now in D.C., I feel like I have a clean slate.

"I'm kind of glad I didn't work out something there because it was time for me to go."

No Redskins content in this post, just a quick note to acknowledge the passing of one of the biggest -- and ultimately most controversial -- pop musicians of my lifetime. He set music industry records, was instrumental in turning MTV into a pop-cultural force, had eleventy-billion number one hits (NOTE: "eleventy-billion" may not be the actual number), and thrilled literally dozens of people as Captain EO at Disney's EPCOT Center.

For those of us of a certain age, though -- that is, "old" -- Jackson's shining moment came in making the only playable home video game based on a musician: Michael Jackson's Moonwalker for the Sega Genesis.



Obviously, the rise of Guitar Hero, Rock Band, Dance Dance Revolution, and all their imitators have wrested that "only playable music game" title from Jackson -- and, to be fair, Moonwalker was never anywhere near as good as the largely forgotten Journey arcade game -- but it is still worth remembering today in honor of Jackson's passing.

UPDATE: Mike Florio at ProFootballTalk manages to tie Jackson to the NFL.