An interesting item on ProFootballTalk this morning about the provisions put into the CBA to prevent an uncapped year from turning into the rich getting richer. I hadn’t been thinking about it much because it was so far from relevant to the extremely non-playoff 2009 Redskins, but it boils down to this: teams in the final eight will be faced with certain limitations in the upcoming 2010 free agency period.

Here are the four major restrictions as cited in PFT, with me attempting to do a lawyerese-to-English translation on each one.
(Note that this entire post revolves around the assumption that there will be no progress in negotiations and 2010 will be an uncapped year as is currently slated.)

First, the Final Eight teams may sign any unrestricted free agent who obtained that status by being released and clearing waivers.

That is, the F8 teams can sign players who were cut from their previous teams, not guys whose contracts were up. In some years, this would be extremely limiting. In the case of the uncapped year, though, there are likely to be a lot of cuts. Possibly, like, a LOT-LOT of cuts, if teams use the opportunity to dump some bloated contracts and the like. On a restrictiveness scale of 1 to 10, with 1 being absolute chaos and 10 being life under an oppressive regime, this is probably a 4. Maybe a 6 in other years, but we’ll go with 4.

Second, the Final Eight teams may sign any unrestricted free agent who was under contract with that team at the conclusion of the 2009 league year.

You can re-sign your own free agents. Fair enough; the point of these rules isn’t to cripple existing good teams. Restrictiveness quotient: 1.

Third, one unrestricted free agent may be signed for each unrestricted free agent that a Final Eight team loses, but only at the same first-year salary the departed player receives elsewhere, with limitations on future growth of the deal.

You can only have to lose a guy in free agency for each unrestricted free agent — a guy who is on the streets because his contract was up, as per Item the First — you sign. And you’re going to be signing guys of roughly the same caliber as the guys you lose, based on first year salary.

Here’s a Redskins example, if the 2009 Redskins were in the final eight. If a non-starting unrestricted free agent — someone like, say, Anthony Montgomery — were signed by another team to a contract commensurate with his expected contribution, that would free these hypothetical playoff Redskins to sign someone to a comparable contract. So in this example, you wouldn’t be able to sign, say, Vince Wilfork to replace Anthony Montgomery.

And from what I can glean, the “limitations on future growth” are relatively stringent; these non-existent playoff Redskins wouldn’t be able to just give Wilfork the same first-year salary as Montgomery and then quintuple the money in year two.

Restrictiveness quotient on this one is pretty severe. Let’s call it an 8.

Fourth, the Final Eight teams may sign one unrestricted free agent at a first-year salary of $4.925 million (plus the annual percentage increases in total football revenue since 2006), and an unlimited number unrestricted free agents at a first-year salary of $3.275 million (plus the percentage increases of total football revenue since 2006), with limitations on future growth of the deal.

F8 teams can sign one $5 million dollar-a-year guy, and as many $3 million-a-year guys as they want. But, again, those “limitations on future growth of the deal’ may be stringent enough to prevent players from wanting to sign multi-year deals. Which isn’t that restrictive at all, and in fact may reduce the restrictiveness of Items One, Two, and Three. We’ll arbitrarily assign a restrictiveness quotient of -1.

Not that any of this matters to the 2009 Redskins, who haven’t been able to talk realistically about the final eight in, like, months.

Which brings us to the somewhat provocative title of this post, actually. Teams that advance to the Conference Championship games, aka the NFL final four teams, aka the winners of this weekend’s games, lose Item The Fourth. Meaning that they will be even more restricted this offseason.

The Cowboys, being in the final eight, are already operating under all four of these items. The suggestion from ProFootballTalk is that Redskins fans should actually be rooting for the Cowboys to win this weekend, advancing them to the final four and further restricting their offseason maneuverability by removing the liberating fourth item.

I’m not sure that I buy it. I could root for the Cowboys in maybe two circumstances:

1) If a Cowboys win secured the Redskins a playoff birth while a Cowboys loss or tie eliminated the team, or;

2) If my life or the life of someone I cared about depended on it.

A possible 3) would be if the Cowboys were facing the ever-irritating Brett Favre, so I suppose I’ll find out this weekend if that’s true or not. But I don’t think that 4) To further limit their offseason spending freedom actually makes much sense to me. All of that said, at least it’s one small good thing about missing the playoffs this year.

But that’s me. What do you think?

Waleed Zarou, owner of The Don’s Wood-Fired PIzza in Sterling, Va., had one major concern with letting Redskins players act as servers during his second annual Christmas Eve free pizza dinner: “They take too much space,” he said. “You see how tight it is. I was nervous with them being in the kitchen how the other guys were gonna move. It’s a tight space, [and] you got a 700, 800 degree oven going, man.”

The dinner — supposedly two hours of free pizzas for all, although Zarou was still handing them out when I left half an hour past the scheduled end time –is partially about fellowship, a place for people who don’t have anyone else to come on Christmas Eve, and partially about charity, raising money for a mission in Africa. This is the first year that the players have participated — “I thought these guys would help me to grow it,” Zarou said — and Kedric Golston, Derrick Dockery, Lorenzo Alexander, and Renaldo Wynn seemed to really be enjoying themselves.

“We’re very blessed people,” Golston said. “To be in the NFL — regardless of the record — we’re very blessed, and to be able to give back and help … I mean, you never know.”

Golston is friends with Zarou through his father-in-law, and was acting as the de facto manager of the restaurant-working Redskins. “It was hard to get Derrick from the pizza,” Golston said, explaining how the group divided their labors. “I didn’t wanna fight that battle, so I just left him there. And Lorenzo’s more of a calmer dude, so he just said he’ll get the drinks. Renaldo was actually the last guy to show up, so we was actually already operating when he came, and so he was kinda like the guy in the restaurant that went around talked to everyone.”

Watching Golston and Dockery handing out pizza like old pros — asking a firm “Cheese or pepperoni?” like they’d been doing it forever — was entertaining, but not as entertaining as watching them eat seeming one slice for every one they handed out.

Golston was indignant at the suggestion that he had eaten as many slices as he served — “I mean, of course I served more,” he said — and insistent that Dockery had, in fact, out-eaten him.

“It had to be Derrick,” he said. “I probably ate three, four pieces.” Then he shouted the question over to Dockery of how many slices he had eaten.

“‘Bout five,” Dockery said with a shrug.

“Bout six or seven,” Golston corrected. “I’m not lyin’, I’m just bein’ honest. If you said five, it’s gotta be seven or eight.”

Zarou had been informed about the eating/serving ratio as well. “Someone came up to me and said, ‘Hey, man, these guys are eatin’ more pizza than they’re serving,’” he said, laughing explosively and entirely unconcerned. “They’re earning their keep.”

In fact, Zarou sounded willing to give the guys anything they wanted, and was just grateful that they had shown up. “These guys got families, they got kids, this is Christmas Eve night for them,” he said, “and I’m not paying them. They’re volunteering, giving their time to the community.”

Golston shrugged off the praise. “I think the guys in here,” he said, “we’re all men of faith” just doing what they believe Christmas should actually be all about, and using their fame to help spread the word. “You know, it’s easy to get people with Redskins and food, and hopefully they heard something today that would change their life.”

Golston added, “I mean, really, this is a day that people wanna try to give back, but that’s really the motto I think we should all take every day. Try to, you know, no matter what it is, whether it’s your time, energy or anything, just try to help people out.”

(Which is not to say he was completely unaware of the materialistic part of Christmas. When I mentioned the defensive backs’ secret Santa, Golston laughed. “I saw Reed Doughty comin’ down the stairs with a Gucci bag. I said, ‘He must’ve bought his wife a purse for Christmas.’ And so I guess Smoot had Reed, and so Reed pulls ‘em out and, like, ‘Man, look at these!’ He says, ‘Man, I needed some brown shoes!’ That was his thing. He’s got probably a pair of seven hundred dollar shoes Smoot bought ‘im, and he’s like ‘Yeah, I needed some brown ones.’ He could care less what they were.”)

All photos except the last courtesy of Rebirth Studios; last photo courtesy Shawnita Marshall and Mozelle Meyers. Donations benfited the Africa outreach efforts of Calvary Temple. Oh, and the pizza was excellent.

Well, I suppose that description fails to mention the horse, the elephant, and the “gilded Indian dancers,” but you get the idea.

I hope everyone is having a happy and healthy Christmas day, whether you’re celebrating it with a tree and gifts, Chinese food and a movie, or a nice comforting day at work waiting for Redskins practice.

Okay, one more dip into the well on this failed trick play thing.

In the yellow circle and over the yellow arrow above is Fred Davis, the second option — and eventual target, sort of — on the play. Davis is not, as some people have suggested to me, just standing around wondering what the heck is going on. What he’s actually doing is acting; because of the shifted offensive line, the defense is meant to believe that the ball is coming quickly to Davis with an entire offensive line of blockers in front of him. (This is, in fact, one of the most common ways that the swinging gate formation is used.)

Meanwhile, Hunter Smith is dropping back while being rushed by three Giants, Malcolm Kelly is running across the formation away from us, theoretically taking a couple of the defenders with him, and Todd Yoder is about to — again, theoretically — come open and unnoticed into empty space from the long snapper position. But we’ve heard from Yoder at length on this already, so let’s leave him frozen in time, with the play not yet a complete disaster, and get Davis’s point of view.

“Man,” Davis said, “I think if it would’ve went through without the timeout, I think it would’ve worked better. I did what I was supposed to do, but they kinda overcrowded; they kinda looked at me before the snap as, oh, he’s probably gonna get it.” Which was the point, of course, because the ball should’ve gone the other way while half the defense was focused on Davis.

But that didn’t happen, and suddenly the second option became the first; Smith got crushed as he threw; the ball got intercepted well short; and hundreds of words of cranky football criticism were generated (and expertly skewered by Dan Steinberg a bit later).

But, despite Hogs Havens’ assertions yesterday, Davis is convinced he was open, albeit with one giant if. “If Hunter was able to throw it, yeah, I was open,” Davis said. “‘Cause they were looking at him still, because I faked like I was just going for the screen; they looked at me, then straight at him to see what he was gonna do. And then when I started running, I was just about past the secondary, but he’d already thrown it way before.”

Davis shook his head, frustrated by the whole thing. “Maybe, possibly, maybe if he threw a little before, I might’ve still gotten to it. I would’ve had to speed up really fast, but, I mean, there was a possibility.”

Oh, and Davis — like all the other players I’ve talked to (and, apparently, no one else on the planet) — had no problem going for the trick play, even after the New York timeout. “That wasn’t gonna hurt us,” he said bluntly. “By the way that the whole game was going, we needed something. They called it ’cause we needed some points on the board and they wanted to try anything, so why not?”

Which is not to say that he disagrees with the people who say that trick plays refers poorly on the offense. Davis agrees with that to a certain point — but he says it’s the offense’s job to make sure no trickery is required. “We didn’t do what we needed to do; if we did that, we wouldn’t have to go to trick plays.”

“Back in the day,” Lorenzo Alexander said, “when I was this age, I’d be looking for a Starter coat. Everybody wanted one, so probably a big Starter coat. Even though I wasn’t a Raiders fan, the Raiders one was pretty hot. I liked the way they looked with that black and silver. I was a Niners fan growing up, but those colors just didn’t look fly. That black and silver looked tough. You could wear it with a lot of different things. You were only going to get one coat, so you had to make sure it worked for everything.”

London Fletcher didn’t have a Starter jacket, but, he says, “I had something similar to a Starter jacket. It was this other type of jacket that was similar to the Starter. I had a Missouri Tigers one. It was sweet, but it got stolen. I only had it like two or three weeks. I was in high school when it happened. I was on a school bus and I put the jacket up top, and somebody took it. I had bought it with my money from my summer job.”

Fletcher was the only who mentioned a coat from Triple F.A.T Goose. “I got one of those,” he said. “That was a big deal for me. They had different sizes, but they were really long. People in my era would know. I was pretty popular when I got that Goose.” (Speaking of London Fletcher’s popularity, have you cast your Pro Bowl vote for him today?)

These days, Randle El — a stylish guy — claims to be less focused on choosing particularly popular brands for his outerwear. “I would have some kind of casual peacoat, probably a dark blue, dark brown, maybe a black. Something that’s got some style to it, but at the same time, keeps me warm. That’s what I care about.”

Well, that and keeping other people warm as well. “I’m going to be honest,” Randle El said, between chatting with the kids and making sure their new coats fit, “Christmas for me is every day. God has given me this gift of life to be able to be here and I just try to open it up and live for him every day.”

Not everyone in the Redskins locker room has a rooting interest in tonight’s presentation of the Heisman Trophy. There are plenty of guys who simply couldn’t care less; as far as they’re concerned, Tim Tebow is the same as Toby Gerhardt is the same as Colt McCoy is the same as Ndamukong Suh is the same as Mark Ingram.

Linebacker Chris Wilson is not one of those guys.

“Mark Ingram, baby,” Wilson was shouting the other day. “Flint!”

Alabama running back Ingram is from Flint, Michigan, Wilson’s hometown. And it’s the sort of hometown that inspires fanatical loyalty from its proud children.

“The latest pride of Flint is holding it down like never before,” Wilson said. “It’s just good to see somebody on the football side get this much college hype. You know, not to disrespect any of the former Flintstones, but it was just nothing that could compare to that basketball hype, with Mateen Cleaves, Charlie Bell, Antonio Smith, and Morris Peterson.”

Wait a second. Are all people from Flint called Flintstones, or just the former Michigan State basketball superstars?
“A ‘Flintstone’ is just a term that …” Wilson trailed off, trying to explain the importance of the term. “I mean, we don’t call each other Flintstones when we’re back home in Flint, but a fellow Flintstone is somebody that’s just doing their thing that’s from the city. Even Brian Carpenter, the former Redskin; I ran into him a couple of weeks ago, he said the same thing, like, ‘What’s up, Flintstone?’ You know, it’s just an acknowledgement, a way to acknowledge a person from Flint, Michigan, that’s doing their thing.”

Ingram is certainly doing his thing, to the tune of 1,542 yards and 15 touchdowns this season. He’s hardly a lock for the award, but is certainly a more-than-reasonable choice.

Wilson, of course, is a bit more confident. “Absolutely no doubt in my mind,” Wilson said. “It’s comin’ home to Flint, Michigan. He’s the best player, on the best team, and he played against good teams, teams that was hittin’.”

In Wilson’s worldview, there’s only one potential hurdle to Ingram’s Heisman triumph. “They might give it to Tebow for cryin’” after the SEC Championship game last weekend, he said. “You know, people love that stuff. And lemme just say this about Tim Tebow: I know he’s a kid, he’s in college, but I just think it was too much acting. Because it’s hard to cry in front of people.

“I cried after our last game,” he continued. “We lost; I didn’t cry in front of EVERYBODY, on the bench, then gonna tear up again in front of the reporters, you know? Throw a towel over your head or somethin’. That’s what most guys do. But I think he just wanted to show everybody a little bit of vulnerability so he could win the Heisman. I mean, Tim Tebow’s a heck of a football player, but this year the best player is on the best team. Mark Ingram.”

One last bit from yesterday’s “Holiday Wishes Come True” event, hosted by Renaldo Wynn and his wife LaTanya (along with the Washington Redskins Charitable Foundation, the Family of Faith foundation, and Target).

Even though the event was about giving tangible gifts to kids as we get into the meat of the holiday season, Wynn made absolutely certain to remind everyone what the real purpose of the event — and the holidays — is. “Whenever we’re given the opportunity,” he said, “that’s our goal as human beings: to serve others. And it’s just a great feelin’ when you come and you give yourself to someone else, I think that’s the greatest gift you can have.”

And he’s probably right about that. Still, though, the kids seemed really enthusiastic about the material gifts they were getting, too.
For example, Kareem Moore said, one of the kids in his group was “little Miss Hannah Montana; she got everything Hannah Montana.” He showed me a cart full of Hannah Montana gear, and I asked if he had helped was the selections.

“Nah,” he said, “She did that on her own.”

I tried to get him to admit that he was a closet Hannah Montana fan, and that it’s because of him that Party in The U.S.A. is played during pregame at FedExField, but he stuck to his guns. “Nope,” he said. “I think that’s Justin Tryon‘s iPod.”

But another one of the kids had needed help picking out a toy, and Moore was happy to take credit for the suggestion. “We got an Easy-Bake Oven” Moore said. “They’re improved now.”

Moore said he didn’t have an Easy-Bake as a kid, but, he added, “my cousins did; we used to go over there almost every day and we used to cook. Some of them would be good, some of them would be” — and here he made an un-transcribable gagging noise — “nasty.”

Moore said he offered the girl who got the Easy-Bake one piece of advice: “Follow the directions,” he said, shaking his head. “Don’t try to wing it.”

Comcast Sportnet’s Kelli Johnson — who called her childhood Easy-Bake Oven “big time” — could not have disagreed more. “That’s a guy for you,” she said. “Guys can’t cook.”

Her one piece of advice for Easy-Bake purchasers? “Be creative, definitely,” she said. “You don’t have to follow the recipes all the time.”

(I feel obligated to note, so it doesn’t appear that I said, “Hey, Easy-Bake Ovens, let’s ask a girl,” that Johnson was also enthusiastic about the He-Man toys and Hot Wheels of her childhood. “I collected Hot Wheels and baseball cards,” she said. “I was a total tomboy.”)

Big Mike Williams didn’t have an Easy-Bake Oven (“We didn’t roll like that in the Williams residence,” he said) and neither did Jason Campbell, who preferred Tonka trucks and playing in the woods.

(I asked Campbell about being “fine” after being slammed to the turf at the end of the Eagles game — more specifically, I asked if his skull was made out of titanium — “I just did that good cornbread and collard green eatin’ back in the day,” he said. “We’re just moving forward. Just stayin’ strong, continuing to compete.” I should’ve eaten more cornbread.)

But one Redskins quarterback was happy to admit that he was a big fan of the Easy-Bake.

“Dude, I had two sisters,” Colt Brennan said. “Now, I don’t wanna say that I HAD an Easy-Bake oven, but I HAVE baked with the Easy-Bake oven. And it tasted good.”

“They’re making more stuff now,” Leslie Daniels (wife of Phillip) added, “like chocolate cake, and sugar cookies. Cupcakes. And now they’re making real food, like little pizzas, tortillas, all variety of foods that you can put in there.”

“I can’t imagine,” Brennan said, shaking his head in seemingly genuine astonishment. “When I grew up, it was like brownie and chocolate chip cookies. That was it. Now? The possibilities are endless. I saw kids buying Legos today that I wanted to buy. I had the ranch and the horses and the castles, but the stuff they got going today is unreal.”

(Brennan also said that he’s rehabbing on schedule and looking forward to getting back on the field this offseason. Let me head off the inevitable comments by reminding people that he’s STILL on injured reserve and thus STILL unavailable to play this season.)

The only cautionary tale about Easy-Bake Ovens came from practice squad wide receiver Anthony Armstrong, last seen in blog-world telling cautionary tales about chitlins.

“My sister had an Easy-Bake oven,” he said, “and we used to make some cupcakes on there. They turned out pretty good. Then she started experimenting, cooking all types of stuff, then melting things, and almost burnt the house down a couple times. That Easy-Bake Oven, it actually works.”

In the end, though, Renaldo Wynn was probably right that the holiday is more about giving and joy than about specific toys, so let’s give Jason Campbell the final word on the day.

“This was fun, man,” he said, of using his day off to shop with kids in need. “Coming out, just being with the kids today, it’s a great opportunity. Just showing them a joyous time and giving them an opportunity to experience this, it’s terrific.”

Renaldo Wynn‘s “Holiday Wishes Come True” event was a big success today. Wynn, along with his wife LaTanya and a huge number of his teammates, escorted local children in need through Target, providing each kid with a hundred dollars to use toward whatever they wanted for the holiday season.

Byron Westbrook was one of the players who helped out with — and enjoyed — the event. “This was a great event today,” he said, “being able to help these kids who can’t get some of these gifts all the time get some of what they did want for Christmas. And it helps the parents out as well, gets something to make their kids happy. The kids had big smiles on their face the whole day.”

Westbrook and a few of his teammates, though, did run into some downtime before the event got started, and they amused themselves by tracing their hands on the disposable tablecloth in front of them and autographing the handprint.According to Westbrook, this was his idea. “Just in case the kids wanted to see how big an NFL player’s hand is,” he said, “I just [drew] my hand up there so they can put their hand in it. Just something for the kids.”

To hear Westbrook tell it, Kareem Moore and Lendy Holmes were just riding off his idea. “I put my hand up there first, and then Kareem wanted me to trace his hand,” he said. “I’m like, ‘Come on, man! You’re a grown man, you gotta do it by yourself!’ I made a little stick figure first, a little portrait, and he drew all over that too, so I’m like, ‘You gotta get your own creative mind, make your own designs.’”

You will no doubt be shocked to hear that Moore has a different recollection of the events.

“Man,” Moore said, “he was like, ‘I’m ’bout to draw my hand,’ and I said, ‘Let me do mine first.’ So we draw the hands, but did you see the extra work I put in mine? I put my tattoo on it. I actually put that in there, and then he wanted to put his fingernails in too.”

(The tattoo is of his son’s name, Kamren, and actually appears on his wrist pretty much like it does in the top drawing on this post.)

“You know, it’s like….” He paused, considering his simile. “It’s like water,” he said. “People come out with water, but then they come out with soda. Gatorade. They improve on it. So what?”

One thing Moore did not disagree with? The success of today’s shopping trip. “This was a good event, you know,” he said. “I had a chance to have fun with some of the kids. Just a good thing to give back to the community, period.”

For Thanksgiving last year — a year ago to the day, in fact — I talked to a bunch of the players about how they prepared their turkey. It turned into a much livelier debate than I expected — and introduced the word Fred-o-synthesis to the world — but ultimately boiled down to two major choices: roasted or fried.

This year, I thought it might be interesting to hear about something a little less binary, so I posed one question to a bunch of guys in the locker room: what’s your favorite Thanksgiving side dish? And that seemingly simple question led to some surprisingly elaborate answers.

The Importance Of Dressing

“Dressing,” Fred Smoot said when I asked for his Thanksgiving favorite. There was no pause, no hesitation, no rumination. Smoot, as usual, is supremely confident in his likes and dislikes. “I am a FIEND for dressing.”

But Smoot declined to provide specifics of his family’s dressing recipe. “If I tell you, I’m'a have to kill you,” he said. “But I will tell you something: I love dressing. I could eat dressing 365 days a year. But the key to a good dressing is a great giblet gravy. ‘Cause no matter the range of your dressing — if your dressing’s great or it’s okay or it’s good — you got the right giblet gravy, it’ll turn out great.”

Just the mention of dressing got Chris Wilson fired up.
“I’m ’bout to make some dressing,” Wilson said. “I might make some dressing to-NIGHT. You get some chicken broth, get some Bob Evans sausage, the Italian Bob Evans, you know–”

“Bob Evans sausage is nasty,” Kedric Golston said.

“You crazy,” Wilson replied.

“Man, that Bob Evans is disgusting,” Golston repeated, getting up to leave.

“That guy doesn’t know food,” Wilson said, shaking his head.

“You don’t know anything,” Golston said. “Look at you.”

“He don’t know food,” Wilson reiterated. “And we all got here from eatin’. None of us are skinny guys.”

Then there were the regional variations. Lendy Holmes won’t make his dressing without Jiffy mix, and he wasn’t the only one. D’Anthony Batiste swears by the oyster-cornbread dressing of his Louisiana upbringing. (Fred Smoot on oyster dressing: “Oyster dressing? That’s all Louisiana right there. I’m gonna keep my dressing straight regular.”)

And Reed Doughty had an even more specific dressing request. After some debate as to the difference between dressing and stuffing (stuffing is cooked in the bird; dressing isn’t), Doughty shrugged.

“I like stuffing,” Doughty said, “but I think we literally made, like, Stove Top stuffing.”

Albert Haynesworth has a locker near Doughty’s. He had been largely ignoring the conversation, but this was just too much. “Damn,” he said, “You got a [jacked] up childhood! You had Stove Top for Thanksgiving? That ain’t even real. I won’t even eat that [stuff] NOW.”

The Unexpected Racial Implications Of Macaroni And Cheese

One overwhelming favorite answer to the question was macaroni and cheese.

“My momma’s homemade mac and cheese,” Jeremy Jarmon said.

“Always have macaroni and cheese,” Santana Moss said. ”That’s one of the dishes that it ain’t Thanksgiving unless you’ve got macaroni and cheese.”

“My favorite side dish is my grandmother’s macaroni and cheese,” Antwaan Randle El said. “Unfortunately for me, I’m lactose intolerant. Unfortunately for everybody else, I’m still gonna eat it.”

“Macaroni and cheese,” Haynesworth said. “Now, I’m talkin’ about baked [stuff], not, like, Kraft. My mom MAKES it. She bakes it.”

“Mac and cheese or something,” Devin Thomas said. I must’ve looked slightly surprised. “Damn right! Why not?”

“Well,” I said hesitantly, “I just don’t think I’ve ever considered macaroni and cheese part of Thanksgiving dinner.”

Thomas was aghast. “Never had mac and cheese on Thanksgiving?!?!”

“You gotta go to a black Thanksgiving, then,” Fred Davis suggested.

Haynesworth agreed. “What kind of family do you have?” he asked rhetorically. “It’s cause you’re white and you’re from here.”

So I figured I’d see if that was true in the simplest way possible: by specifically asking white players if they’d eaten mac and cheese as part of Thanksgiving dinner.

Shaun Suisham: “Never.”

Hunter Smith: “I wish I did, but I don’t.

Todd Yoder: “I don’t know. Maybe. But it’s not a staple or anything.”

Casey Rabach: “Mac n’ Cheese? No. Nope. It’s a black thing.”

Whenever you do research like this, though, it seems like someone else has already published on the subject. In this case, Reed Doughty, who had really thought the thing through. “It’s ’cause you’re white,” he said plainly. “It’s not prejudiced, it’s just true. It’s also ’cause you’re not from the South. Bein’ from Colorado, fried turkey and baked macaroni and cheese was not a staple at our Thanksgiving.” And it was something he didn’t see until his first year in the NFL. “It was just kinda funny — I was just like, ‘What is going on?’ There was some fried turkey leg, some ribs. It was good, but it was different.”

There was only one outright outlier: practice squad tackle Clint Oldenburg. He’s white, he’s from Wyoming, and he considers macaroni and cheese an essential part of the Thanksgiving experience. “I don’t know if it’s a state-wide thing,” he said, “but my family definitely did it.”

“He’s from Wyoming,” Doughty said, shaking his head. “What does he know about that?”

And D’Anthony Batiste fell somewhere in the middle. “Mac and cheese isn’t a staple,” he said.

Jeremy Jarmon took some umbrage at this suggestion. “WHAT?!?!?” he said. “It’s a staple.”

“That’s more of a Memphis type thing,” Batiste suggested.

“It’s a STAPLE,” Jarmon insisted.

Batiste shrugged. “We don’t really have mac and cheese. We more believe in the oyster dressing.”

The Question Of Cranberry Sauce

“I love cranberry sauce,” Jarmon said. Then he laughed at me when I asked if he preferred canned or fresh. “I was just kidding about that,” he said. “I never really use cranberry sauce.”

On this question, Jarmon and Batiste agreed “Yeah,” Batiste said. “If you need cranberry sauce, you’re trying to cover up the taste of something.”

Reed Doughty again had a different take on the situation. “The cranberries are my favorite,” he said. “Not canned. I don’t know what it is: the tartness, the way it goes with the turkey. My favorite really is the day after Thanksgiving, a cold turkey sandwich with little bit of the cranberries on top.”

Hunter Smith was onboard. “Amazingly,” he said, “the cranberry [is the favorite]. And not because of its solo ability, but because it is an amazing complement. A bite for me will have turkey, stuffing, gravy and cranberry, all on the fork.”

Smith isn’t even choosy about where the cranberry comes from. “It doesn’t matter,” he said. “I prefer the real stuff, but … cranberry altogether, just to have that taste.”

In fact, Smith has condensed his feelings on cranberry sauce into a tidy little maxim: “The cranberry is to the thanksgiving dinner,” he said, “what ketchup is to a burger and fries.”

And there was Albert Haynesworth’s take: ‘”I hate cranberries. Hate ‘em.”

Greens Versus Green Beans

Practice squad wide receiver Anthony Armstrong was ticking off his Thanksgiving requirements. “You got the dressing, turkey, yams, collard greens–”

“No greens at my table,” Casey Rabach interjected.

“Not greens on Thanksgiving,” Haynesworth said. “Probably green beans.”

Jeremy Jarmon was going through the Thanksgiving must-haves: “Let’s see … the ham, the turkey, the green beans — or greens, either/or.”

“Not with Thanksgiving dinner!” D’Anthony Batiste said, sounding scandalized.

Jarmon nodded. “Last few years,” he said, “I’ve started to accept the green bean casserole.”

Batiste was not mollified. “Nah,” he said. “See, y’all just throwing things together. You can’t have collard greens with Thanksgiving dinner, now.”

“Why not?” Jarmon asked.

“Because … because you’re supposed to have TURKEY. And … and ham hocks! You could put the hocks in the greens, but you’re still doing too much. See, you gotta understand: you need your turkey, your turkey dressing. You can smoke the turkey, you can bake it, you can deep fry it — or you can mix it up — then you gotta have your green bean casserole.”

Brian Orakpo listed green bean casserole as his favorite side dish — “Cheese, the whole works in there,” he said — but refused to be drawn into the contentious argument at this festive time of year. “We do greens too, because that’s one of my favorites too. We try to put in everything. Every meal that anybody suggests, we put it in there so everybody can be happy.”

The Relatively Non-Controversial Marshmallow Issue

“My favorite thanksgiving side dish has to be the candied yams,” Santana Moss told me. “Man, I’m talkin’ about … man.” He got a faraway look, like he was already envisioning the plates of sweet potatoes.

But, I asked, what about marshmallows on top?

“Naw,” he said. “I just eat ‘em like they is, man. I like mine real sweet. I make sure whoever’s makin’ ‘em has a lot of sugar in them, you know what I mean? And if you know how to make ‘em right, trust me, you’ll have me going back to the table all night.”

Casey Rabach agreed, to a point. “Come on, now,” he said. “Yams with the marshmallows. You gotta do marshmallows. If you don’t, they suck.”

I explained Moss’s philosophy of marshmallows, and Rabach looked completely flummoxed.

“Does he put sugar on it?” he asked, and I allowed that he did. “Well, what’s the difference. It’s fluffy sugar versus granulated sugar.”

(Fred Smoot and noted sweet-tooth Malcolm Kelly were also in the pro-marshmallow camp; Lorenzo Alexander grew up without but can take them or leave them at this point.)

Malcolm Kelly Is Unique

“Favorite side dish?” Malcolm Kelly repeated when I asked him. “Dang, man, I don’t even know, cuz. Maybe … dang.”

This was clearly an important question. “I like broccoli casserole,” he finally said, and I stammered out some kind of surprise. “You gotta see how it’s made, man. It’s off the chain. I’ll find the ingredients, I’ll let you know.”

No one else even mentioned broccoli casserole.

The Problem With Chitlins

Anthony Armstrong was still trying to think of all the components of his Thanksgiving table. “Maybe chitlins,” he said. “They’re good until you mess around and clean them one time.”

“You stink like hell when you cook ‘em, though,” Casey Rabach said, shuddering. “You gotta clean all of the [crap] out of ‘em.”

A brief aside, for those who are unfamiliar with chitlins — or, to be more technical, “chitterlings.” I’ll just let wisegeek.com go ahead and define. Chitlins, the site says:

are a type of food made from pig intestines. In the US, they are a common soul food offering, though their cleaning and preparation can take a good deal of time. They are especially popular served during Thanksgiving and Christmas celebrations among African American families.

Wikipedia helpfully adds the following, which speaks to Rabach’s point:

Chitterlings are carefully cleaned and rinsed several times before they are boiled or stewed for several hours. A common practice is to place a halved onion in the pot to mitigate what many regard as a pungent, unpleasant odor that can be particularly strong when the chitterlings begin to cook.

It’s something that Armstrong remembered all too well. “You literally gotta pull the lining off the insides of the intestines,” he said, “and there’s leftover corn, and … it smells like –”

“[Crap],” Rabach said flatly, although he didn’t actually say “crap”. “You take the [crap] out of ‘em,” he said.

Armstrong was becoming visibly shaken by the memory. “And the house stunk forever,” he said, “and …” he shook his head as he trailed off as if to clear the memory. “I haven’t been the same since.”

Albert Haynesworth Wraps It Up

It was at about this point that a TV crew came up to Albert Haynesworth and asked if they could grab him just for a second to shoot a quick “What are you thankful for” question.

Haynesworth looked at the camera briefly, then laughed and shook his head. “I don’t do Thanksgiving,” he said. “I’m Amish.”

(Yes, he was joking. Yes, he eventually did the segment.)

Wishing everyone a healthy, happy holiday today.

Photo via Wikimedia Commons.