At the NFL combine today, Sam Bradford, who is 1/16 Cherokee, was asked if he would prefer the quarterback-bereft Redskins not draft him.

(If Bradford was full-blooded Cherokee and embraced the culture, would it be?)

Bradford replied, “no.” Earlier the same day he had said, “I’m not going to address that issue,” when the subject was broached.

Doug Farrar of FootballOutsiders.com tweeted that the query was the, “Official dumbest question of the Combine.”

Mark Maske of the WASHINGTON POST also noted the questions, reporting that, “some Native Americans have been critical of the team’s nickname, calling it derogatory, and have challenged it in legal proceedings.”

I actually don’t think the question was inappropriate.

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UPDATE (11:17a ET): Bob Glauber of NEWSDAY has same thought I process I do on the Redskins’ abrupt announcement - via Snyder-owned ESPN 980 - of Bruce Allen’s hire:

(In zeal to control message, did scooped Snyder break hiring rule?)

“The announcement that the Redskins had replaced vice president of football operations Vinny Cerrato with former Buccaneers general manager Bruce Allen may have been a violation of the league’s expanded Rooney Rule requirements for diversity hiring practices.”

At 9:30am ET this morning Jay Glazer was first to report the possibility of Bruce Allen being hired by the Redskins as the team’s new Executive VP of Football operations - posted at FoxSports.com:

Redskins coaches were told the team is now in talks with former Bucs and Raiders head honcho Bruce Allen to replace Cerrato, FOXSports.com has learned.

It is unclear what job title Allen will be given if they lock him up, but his brother George Jr. is a big player already in Washington, D.C. Their father was legendary coach George Allen.

It’s unclear who the team interviewed to satisfy the Rooney Rule or if such an interview has taken place yet. They cannot hire Allen until a minority candidate is interviewed for the position.

What followed was a predictable response from Dan Snyder’s radio station in DC.

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Dan Snyder-owned ESPN 980 in DC is reporting Redskins Executive VP of Football Operations Vinny Cerrato has “resigned” this morning. The station certainly wouldn’t be reporting the news if it didn’t have a seal of approval from the team.

Snyder must be stoked. Not because Cerrato’s departure signals a new era in Redskins football that will actually give fans hope.

No, because the owner got to report the news himself and control the message.

Last Monday I noted a Jay Glazer-bylined story on the Foxsports.com website that had apparently been completely deleted.  The piece examined the scenario that could lead to Mike Shanahan taking over as Redskins Coach as soon as this season.

(Glazer Tweet: Web story was “dummy post” he didn’t write) 

At the time I was perplexed why the story was removed. But thanks to Glazer setting the record straight on Twitter this week, we now know what happened. Read more…

Last night Jay Glazer posted a piece on the Foxsports.com website that trumpeted the distinct possibility that Mike Shanahan would take over as Redskins coach “as early as this season.“

(Full text of piece at the bottom of this post)

That piece was later deleted from the Foxsports.com website, but remains in Google’s cache - for now.

You can also still search it on Google News, but when you click on the story, you get a “page not found” message.

As noted by Dan Steinberg at DC SPORTS BOG, before the article was posted on Foxsports.com, Glazer went on Fox Sports TV yesterday with this:

“It doesn’t matter if you talk to a head coach, a GM, a team president or team owner — everybody in this league, it’s unanimous, they all believe Mike Shanahan will be the next head coach of the Washington Redskins, and they think it’ll happen during the season at one point. Certainly exacerbated by the fact that Daniel Snyder, after they lost to the Lions, flew out to Denver on his private jet, although he claims it wasn’t to meet Shanahan.

You know, the big problem here though, I talked to the league office about it this morning, they said that the only thing they could really do is hire Shanahan on an interim basis during the season because of the Rooney Rule.”

The content of the above Glazer Fox Sports television hit is basically the exact same content as what he posted on Foxsports.com later in the day. So why the delete? Read more…

Promotion is a tricky game. Often the usual virtues of ethics and nuance are mere weaknesses, barriers to the type of bombast and distraction that can really grab a viewer’s attention. By this, of course, we mean exclamation points and boobs.

(Please pay attention to the ladies and not the fine print.)

In this world, then, Dan Snyder is a veritable genius, building his team’s fortunes with a generous helping of T&A. That’s teamspirit and attitudecommapositive, if you were wondering. Oh, and sweet, glorious, misleading promotion. For example, the ‘Skins are turning their cheerleaders into car wash bunnies for a promotion, which is exactly the way 2/3 of my pornographic collection starts (I’m what they call a “niche” viewer). Only problem is… well, there’s multiple problems.

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Dan Snyder, the controlling interest in Six Flags as well as the owner of the Washington Redskins, installed his crack management team to solve that Six Flags things over there when he forcefully took control of the company in 2005.  Mark Shapiro, formerly the ESPN programming chief, took the reins and promptly instituted cheerleaders, which should have taken care of the company’s money woes.

(”No, no… we had Bugs Bunny tested and his theta levels are stellar.  So are you interested in investing?”)

Somehow, though, young men and women hopping up and down rhythmically didn’t wash away the  $2.4 billion in debt nor the losses each quarter.  Therefore, Six Flags is following the cool kids in town and filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy just to ditch most of the debt and then climb right back out.  You know, like that time you ran up $50,000 on your credit cards, declared bankruptcy, ditched the debt, and kept your house and car.

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Well, Jim Zorn has officially passed the fun, “everyone loves him” stage of coaching that included “Horny for Zorny” t-shirts, and is now in the full-fledged dregs of losing streaks and chemistry problems. All it took was benching star running back Clinton Portis.

(The many faces of Portis, via JUSTCALLMEJUICE. Zorn likes none of them.)

With Portis playing in only one series in the second half of Sunday night’s Washington loss to the Ravens, the running back who only a couple weeks ago was the league’s leading rusher was all too happy to unload on Zorn and the rest of the Redskins staff during his weekly appearance on the John Thompson show this afternoon. Luckily, DC SPORTS BOG was transcribing as quickly as Dan Steinberg’s little fingers would move. What do we mean by “unload on”? Well, take a gander yourself:

“We got a genius for a head coach, I don’t know, I’m sure he on top of things. He’s got everything figured out. Hey, that’s up to him. All I can do is when he calls a play is go out and try to execute to the best of my ability.”

How about this gem?:

“What I need to be around for is Sundays and that’s what I try to be around for. So I mean, if you’ve got a problem with me not practicing and can’t do it that way, maybe you feel like you need to sever ties, split ties with me? Split ties with me. But don’t sit here and throw me out like I don’t pay attention, like I don’t know what’s going on, like I’m making mistakes, I’m the problem. You know, so, it is what it is, bro.”

Oh, don’t worry. There’s even more after the jump.

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Post-football life for a ex-NFL player is a time to finally relax. While their careers end at a relatively young age, their bodies, like porn stars, have taken on an extraordinarily amount of mileage in a short period of time, leaving them hobbled with arthritic knees and stiff wrists, also like porn stars. So it’s common for most of them to just kind of take it easy and live out their golden years quietly. Thank God that’s not the case for former Redskins linebacker LaVar Arrington, who still has plenty left to say.

In a compelling read over at THE WASHINGTON TIMES, we’re taken through what Arrington has been up to in the 2+ years since his career was ended by a combo Achilles tendon explosion/motorcycle wreck. After discussing his latest string of eateries and other entrepreneurial ventures, he opens up about his football life, specifically by talking hilarious trash about Dan Snyder and Joe Gibbs.

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The NFL season opener featured the defending Super Bowl champion New York Giants against their NFC East rival, the Washington Redskins. And It was like Joe Gibbs 2.0 never left. The new guy, Jim Zorn, was supposed to bring all this new energy, a new way of doing things, a new offense, so on and so forth.

All ‘Skins fans got was more of the same: inept play-calling, a barrage of penalties, seven measly points and a loss. As usual, this is all owner Dan Snyder’s doing. And Tom Cruise. I’m sure he’s somehow responsible.

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