It's an old Monday Night Football tradition to hold a Chalk Talk Luncheon in whatever city the game is being held in. It's an opportunity for the announcers and Monday Night Football crew to talk to invited local guests about the game, about Monday Night Football, and so on.

The one before last week's Redskins/Eagles game featured Jon Gruden, Ron Jaworski, Mike Tirico, and Michele Tafoya chatting with folks at Sequoia on the water in Georgetown. There was lots of speculation about how the playcalling would work out, about if the Redskins or Eagles were reeling more, and -- among the media in attendence -- about if they'd get a chance to talk to Gruden or not.

(The answers, in order: not terribly, the Redskins, and no.)

There was also a cake, which -- given the way the game turned out -- was pretty pretty much the highlight of the day.

The cake -- celebrating the fortieth anniversary of Monday Night Football -- was made the by Baltimore-based Charm City Cakes bakery, made famous on the Food Network show Ace Of Cakes. The bakery's founder, Duff Goldman, was on-hand to set up the creation, and was just as enthusastic as he comes across on the show, more than happy to talk about what made this cake different from the countless other football cakes they've done ... and to share his one Redskins memory.

"This cake," Goldman told me, "is a representation of the fortieth anniversary of Monday Night Football. And Monday Night Football is VERY dear to my heart. Because Mondays I get off of work, I'm usually tired, I'm kinda sad because Sunday football's over ... and then Monday I get to go home and there's another game. It's almost like, you know how after the Super Bowl you get kinda sad about having to wait until next season? Monday Night Football's kinda like a little slice of the Super Bowl, like, 'Oh, wait! There's ONE MORE GAME.' They're just something special about it."