When DeAngelo Hall pitched the ball to LaRon Landry at the end of his interception return, I was skeptical -- and I wasn't the only one. Professional Redskins critic John Riggins, presumably tweeting from the woodpile behind his house, wrote "you can't win with guys that think like D-hall...it's all about them...."

I didn't feel quite that strongly about it, but as far as I'm concerned, the fewer moving parts on a play like that, the better. The key, to me, is not losing the ball.

And this wasn't a play that had gotten a lot of work in practice. "Nah, man," Landry told me. "It just happened. I asked him to pitch it." Landry shook his head. "I didn't think he was gonna DO it, though."

DeAngelo Hall never pretended that this was "just another game" or that he didn't care about going back to Atlanta, but -- despite what yesterday's AP story claims -- I never felt like his talk got out of control. He was pointedly, brutally critical of Falcons general manager Thomas Dimitroff, but still said all the right things about the players and coaches.

Still, Hall was lustily booed every time he was the spotlighted player -- at player introductions, back to return punts -- and, of course, was involved in possibly the lowest moment of a Redskins season that has seen plenty of low moments.



What strikes me watching the video today is how accurate Hall's post-game recounting of the incident is.

In yesterday's links post, I wrote briefly about an Associated Press article that put forth the idea that not tackling in practice was leading to shoddy tackling in games. Here's a quick excerpt to give you the flavor of the thing, but it's really worth reading:

Sure, [not tackling in practice] keeps everybody healthy, but some Sundays can look pretty ragged. Many players get a chance to tackle at full speed only during exhibition games. It shows once the regular season begins.

"It shows a whole bunch," Redskins safeties coach Steve Jackson said. "That's one of the fundamental skills. A lot of people don't tackle now because of the salary cap. You lose a guy because of a tackling drill, you're the dumbest guy on the planet."

But one thing I noticed as I read it through is that most of the quotes come from people who definitely aren't missing tackles on Sundays: coaches. Since missed tackles have been a problem for the Redskins defense at points this year, I thought it would be worth asking some of those guys for their thoughts on this article's premise.

It certainly feels like there's been a lot of DeAngelo Hall content this week. I'm not going to count posts to see if that's true, but if it is, it's more by accident than by design, and there are two contributing factors: first, because he's going back to face his old team -- a team he left somewhat acrimoniously -- for the first time as a member of the Redskins. That's pretty much always going to turn into a story. And second, because Hall is consistently willing to speak with unusual frankness about the realities of NFL life.

Thursday, both of those factors kind of came together as Hall spoke with unusual frankness about the reality of leaving a team under somewhat acrimonious circumstances.

Around noon on Monday, reports surfaced via Rick Maese's Twitter that DeAngelo Hall would be the primary punt returner for the Redskins, replacing Antwaan Randle El. By a little more than an hour later, Ryan O'Halloran was tweeting a conflicting report -- one that squared with what I had been told here at Redskins Park -- that both Hall and Randle El would be involved in the return game, along with Santana Moss.

Randle El talked about this during open locker room today, and he wasn't particularly happy about the change, and he was doubly unhappy that he had learned about it via questions from reporters.

"I gotta find out the logistics of it myself in terms of the punt return," Randle El said. "My whole thing is I'm still gonna ... you know, given the opportunity, when I get the chance, I gotta go out and be little more productive, but, you know, it's not always just one guy there. So it's just a matter of ... you take it as it is: go out and play when you get your opportunity and be thankful for it and make the best of it."

A reporter mentioned that he didn't look thrilled about this change. "Not at all," Randle El responded. "But that's part of it sometimes."

In case that wasn't clear enough, another reporter asked if this was a tough pill for Randle El to swallow. "Little bit," he said.

Later in the day, speaking after practice -- and, apparently, after a meeting with Randle El -- head coach Jim Zorn clarified the situation. Mostly.

It's only Tuesday, and it's already been a heck of a week for DeAngelo Hall. Yesterday, he found time to discuss his old team and he reportedly added some more punt returning to his responsibilities. Today, he updated his blog --

We have to regroup as a team and hopefully this bye week helped guys clear their heads and come back ready to finish the season strong. We still have a lot to play for and one of the most important things is PRIDE! Pride in ourselves, Pride for this organization, and pride for our fans! I can tell you this much they always say a wounded animal is an even more dangerous animal. I think we've been licking our wounds for a while now, but it's time to fight back!

-- and launched his online store.

You can get the T-shirt pictured on the left there -- and plenty of other stuff for Redskins and Virginia Tech fans -- but unfortunately not the custom Redskins Beats By Dre headphones. You can see a slightly closer-up picture of them after the jump, though, which is almost as cool and vastly cheaper.

I've mentioned before how entertaining DeAngelo Hall can be while addressing the media, and you had to figure that he'd be fired up to face his old team in their home stadium, but his chatter today surpassed even my high expectations.

(I should note that Hall didn't address the reports that he would be the primary punt returner this Sunday, because those reports hadn't been published yet. Also, possibly, because follow-up reports have indicated that it'll still be a three-way split at punt returner. Either way, don't expect to hear anything about that during this interview.)

Here are some excerpts, for those who don't feel like watching it above. (And thanks to the Redskins.com TV people for the video.)

At this Sunday's home game against the Kansas City Chiefs, there will be Redskins Read collection bins set up at every gate into FedExField. If you're coming to the game, please consider bringing a new children's book to donate; all books received will be redistributed to needy children throughout the DMV.

Last year at about this time, I went around the locker room asking players about their favorite children's books. In the process, I learned that Fred Smoot was the only guy on the planet who had fond memories of a book called Sun Up, and virtually everyone else like Green Eggs and Ham.

This year, instead of thinking of something new, I figured I'd ask the same question to some of the guys I had missed last season.

Pretty much nothing had changed.

If you believe that admitting you have a problem is the first step to recovery, then today's open locker room was absolutely full of recovering football players. For just about every problem that has been brought up about the loss to the Lions and the team's play in general, there was a player somewhere explaining to a microphone just how aware they were of that problem.

The event last night at Maté in Georgetown was marketed as a launch party for DeAngelo Hall's website. And, to an extent, it certainly had all the trappings: other players in attendance, a charity auction, computers set up displaying the site (which Hall is hugely proud of), screen showing DHall highlights and snapshots, the whole fooferaw.

But secretly, to Hall himself, the website launch was pretty much secondary.

"This is about my mom's book," Hall told me. "It was a no-brainer for me. At first I had gone back and forth for even doing this event because I didn't feel like I needed to do it to launch the website again. I feel like we had a good enough buzz coming off of training camp but when I had the chance to partner with my mom, that really made it a no-brainer."

Hall looked around at the whole scene, waitresses carrying trays of sushi and drinks and people seeing and being seen, and shrugged. "It's her, and I'm behind her. If my name can get one more person to pick the book up ... once you pick it up, you'll instantly be hooked."

The book in question is called Bitter Sweet: A Woman's Journey, and it's the work of more than twelve years for Hall's mother Joan.