With just under eight minutes remaining in the game and the Falcons leading by two touchdowns, the Redskins lined up Devin Thomas to one side, and Fred Davis, Santana Moss, and Malcolm Kelly to the other. Todd Collins, in at quarterback for Jason Campbell during Campbell's second injury of the game, dropped back and -- despite a blitzing linebacker coming unblocked in his face -- put the ball exactly where it needed to be for Moss, streaking down the seam.

Moss reached for the ball, visibly turned his head to check on the safety closing in, was unable to haul the ball in, got hit by the safety and the cornerback, and wound up like this for the next thirty-odd seconds.


And make no mistake: he wasn't moving. It didn't just look like he was down, it looked like he was out. Cold. Speculation in the pressbox, after Moss got back up and resumed playing, was that he was frustrated at not making the catch, or had had the wind knocked out of him.

Turns out, he didn't think he laid on the field at all.

For obvious reasons, there were a lot of quotes coming out of the Redskins locker room today that dealt with owner Daniel Snyder's statement yesterday that he feels disappointed and embarrassed with the first half of the season. That was not a surprise.

Santana Moss discusses the owner feeling disappointed:
"I think we all are. It's not a good feeling to be who we are and where we are right now. We know it's people out there that pay a lot of money and that respect what we've been trying to do, and you hate to let 'em down. But at the same time, I hope they understand that we're not TRYING to, you know what I mean?"

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.

When Mike Williams gets a haircut ... well, it's honestly not that worthy of note. Williams's hair was fairly unremarkable. If you had stopped me on the street and asked me to describe it, I probably would've stammered a lot and said something like, "Um, it's dark?"

But when Williams shows up to the locker room bald AND fellow offensive lineman Stephon Heyer shows up with his characteristic dreadlocks gone, at that point it start to looks more like a story. Like it's something they're doing out of solidarity in the face of a world turned cruel.

It's been another zany one here at Redskins Park. Defensive coordinator Greg Blache is no longer speaking to the media, for what Coach Zorn describes as "personal reasons" and "a needed break". Wide receiver Malcolm Kelly discussed a thumb injury, which Coach Zorn describes as "ongoing" and something that the receiver has played with. A scant two or three sentences later, Zorn talked about how Devin Thomas is "coming on." Thomas has looked good in practice -- better the last two weeks than he has in quite some time, honestly -- but saying that he's "coming on" feels a little premature at this point.

As I mentioned earlier, the team is watching some of the most unpleasant preseason football I can remember for motivation. And it turns out that the scout team defense has taken to color-coordinating their outfits as yet another motivational tool.

Hey, remember earlier today when I wrote about Santana Moss dancing at the Play 60 event yesterday? And there was a still picture but no video? Well, the kind folks in the Redskins Broadcasting Network have rectified that. Here's Moss's Cupid Shuffle in its entirety.

It's Wednesday, so things will be getting back into gear. There'll be practice, there'll be more news about offensive consultant Sherm Lewis, there'll be open locker room, and I'll get to all of that once it actually, you know, happens.

But yesterday while the Sherm Lewis conference call was going on, I was at the Washington Ballet Studio at THEARC (The Town Hall Education Arts & Recreation Campus) in Southeast D.C., where Santana Moss was serving as one of the judges for a dance competition. This was a Play 60 event hosted by the Redskins Charitable Foundation, the United Way, and the United Way of the National Capital Area, and Moss took his duties exceedingly seriously.

It was my least-favorite part of an unfavorite day: with, in all likelihood, one play left to pull out a Pyrrhic win against a desperate Detroit team, the logical move would seem to be the classic Hail Mary, a desperation hurl into the endzone hoping for a miracle catch or a defensive pass interference allowing one final play.

That's not what happened; instead, we saw this.


A pass to Santana Moss followed by two designed laterals, one to Antwaan Randle El and the next to Ladell Betts.

Coach Jim Zorn defended the call at his press conference yesterday. "If you looked in the end zone," he said, "they had both of their wide receivers standing in the back. So we decided to go with a play that would maybe give us a chance to run the ball in, with an opportunity to pitch, lateral and try to get in running. So that's what we did. That's all I can tell you that play was."

Moss was a bit more forthcoming.

When Tropical Depression ERIKA was getting going a week or so back, my wife -- also Erika, although not in all caps -- was actually a little excited. And when ERIKA fizzled out near Puerto Rico, Erika was a tiny bit disappointed. So when I read yesterday that Hurricane FRED had grown to a Category 3 storm, I thought Fred Smoot might be slightly entertained and enjoy the opportunity to go on a weather-related rant.

Wrong.

"Y'know, that's not good," Smoot said. "I hate for a storm to be named after me."

Mississippian Smoot does not view hurricanes as a reason for excitement. At all.

"I hope FRED goes down as one of the weakest hurricanes ever," he said. "That's nothing that I wanna be famous for."

Smoot walked away shaking his head, then shouted back, "I hope I fizzle out over Old Creek Road."

Santana Moss, meanwhile, was much more enthused about a totally different kind of Hurricane.

I will give you one guess how this one ends.

Anyhow, once I got over being completely and utterly dumbfounded that Santana Moss is a fan of Gossip Girl, the conversation moved on to his other favorite TV genre: reality shows. It would've been easy enough to let the subject drop, but in honor of the season premieres of Top Chef (which I watch) and Project Runway (which I don't) -- along with the fascinating experiment in psychological torture that is this season of Big Brother -- I figured I'd press for some details.

"I'm a fan of a lot of reality shows for sure, man," Moss said. "I also watch the E! Channel a lot. I watch the Kardashian show, I used to watch the Girls Next Door show. I watch all that crazy stuff, man. It's just reality TV, you know? It's stuff that's going on right now and that -- you can tell some of it they're probably acting on certain parts, but some it's just their life, you know? Their reality. So I be tuning in to see what's going on with them."

So the obvious question, when an NFL wide receiver tells you he's a fan of reality shows, is: have you ever considered getting one of your own?