The Redskins Blog

Redskins Sign O.J. Atogwe, Comic Book Fan

The Redskins announced today that they have signed safety O.J. Atogwe. It’s a move that has a lot of promise from a football standpoint; if nothing else, it adds an experienced competitor to the mix at the free safety spot. But perhaps the most interesting thing about Atogwe from a bloggy standpoint is that he’s a longtime comic book reader who has an entire room devoted to his collection.

The picture above is a screencap from a Fox Sports Midwest piece on Atogwe that plays like the geekiest version of MTV’s Cribs ever. “I’m gonna show y’all something a LITTLE special,” Atogwe says, in the familiar vernacular of those shows. Only instead of a room with a tungsten stripper pole, or a chess set with lifesize pieces carved from solid oak, or fishtanks made out of diamond and filled with eels, it’s his “famous, infamous reading room, where I have all of my collectibles. My wonderful action figures which I’ve had for a long time, and my tremendous collection of comic books.”

And he’s not just one of those people who buys the books to keep ‘em in bags and boards. The room also features a “special reading chair” — a Human Touch Zero Gravity Massage Chair that Atogwe says he spends 30-40 minutes in every day, reading. Former Redskins linebacker Marcus Washington — another hugely popular free agent signing — used to walk around the facility in a Punisher T-shirt, but this appears to be of another order of magnitude entirely. (And there’s plenty more in the video.)

So: a signing that addresses a need, is met with overwhelming approval from the masses (at least based on my Twitter @ replies), AND seems like a quirky, bloggable guy? I can handle that.

(If you’re looking for the more nust-and-bolts-y take on the signing, Gary Fitzgerald has you covered at Redskins.com.)