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SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 28, 2010


KLMNO PROFESSIONAL FOOTBALL


Long-running drama continues for Vikings


vikings from D1


receiver Randy Moss’s second stint with the franchise is now a fading memory after just four games. Everyone in the Vikings locker


room is trying to figure out how thingswent sowrong inwhatwas supposed to be a Super Bowl sea- son. “For anybody to tell you it


doesn’t affect them, they’re lying,” saidformerRedskinsquarterback Joe Theismann. “Like the situa- tions in Washington with Albert and Donovan, other players are asked about it. It becomes a pain inyourneck. It’s the same thing in Minnesotawith Brett orRandy or whatever else. Football players are like anyone else. Theywant to come towork and feel good about things, and they’ll be more pro- ductive. That kind of constant dramamakes itmuch tougher.”


Familiarwith notoriety It’snothingnewfor either fran-


chise.TheRedskinshave changed coaches and remade the roster with headline-grabbing transac- tions regularly over the past de- cade, failing to recapture their SuperBowlglorydaysof the1980s and early ’90s under Joe Gibbs even when they brought back Gibbs as their coach. The hiring of Shanahan, who


JIM ROGASH/GETTY IMAGES Brett Favre’s ability to play well at an advanced age inspired plenty of 40-somethings. Regrettably, his good run appears over. A swan song we don’t want to hear


weekend, all mortal and no myth with that dysfunctional Minnesota family in tow, I’m still grappling with how and why Brett let us down. If this is how his career depressingly ends, we all would have been better off with Brett Favre dropping back in a pair of Wranglers, the scruffy man in white cotton and denim, frozen in celluloid. He could have just kept motioning for us to go further downfield, till we either sawthe revolving laces in that spiraling football over our left shoulder or the Ford pickup parked behind the makeshift goal line after the flatbed farm truck leveled us. I suppose I should explain


A


“us.” We’re the millions of 40-ish


or just-plain-old-and-crotchety Americans who believed we were once bona fide athletes, until someone at the high school or small-college level told us to do something else for a living. We grewup, still enraptured


by the games we were good at as children, and joined intramural leagues at the big colleges who wouldn’t give us athletic scholarships. We became weekend warriors


and Turkey BowlMVPs of our neighborhoods, designing brilliantly choreographed plays on our palms because we knew the “button hook” to be timeless, as useful at 10 as it is at 46.


Some of us won three-on-


three trophies atHoop-it-Up tournaments or used marathons to donate our ligaments and cartilage.We didn’t care that we finished two or three or four hours behind the winners from Kenya or Ethiopia, most of whom were on layovers in Zimbabwe when we crossed the finish line; we were just happy to compete, to show we, too, still have an incredible human capacity for physical suffering. Like, Brett at 39 years old. Or


40. Or, we hoped, 41. See, he was our guy, the way Michael Jordan was our guy at


s the go-long legend of Kiln,Miss., limps into FedEx Field this holiday


Minnesota. It’s those overly maudlin


news conferences, too, as painful to watch as to see woozy No. 4 play. The gray doesn’t look


MIKE WISE


first, when he came back at 40- something years old and pinned Jerry Stackhouse’s ball against the glass backboard. Brett was our guy the way


George Foreman was our guy when he knocked outMichael Moorer more than 20 years after Muhammad Ali had seized the heavyweight title from him. Brett was our guy the way Jimmy Connors was when he won a five-setter at theU.S. Open at 39, the way double- clutching like Kirk Gibson was as he hobbled around the bases in the 1988World Series. Something about an old head


getting it done against the kids made us believe again, no? Made us want to go back to


the Y and yell, “Next!” Made us want to oil the


gloves we somehow found in our musty attics. Or if we couldn’t find them, at


least get on the Stairmaster, start moving and sweating again, next to the peroxide blond undergrad and her iPod annoyingly pumping out techno. If Brett could turn back the


clock, why couldn’t we? Like the loyal spouse of 20


years lives vicariously through their single, dating friends, so too did we live vicariously through Brett on Sundays—the way he used guile and grit to get away from larger, stronger, much younger and faster men who were paid to hurt him.How he Indiana Jones-ed his way out of tight spots, funneling the ball to his receiver so theatrically, as if Brett had planned the whole game-ending touchdown all along. But now there are no more


NFC championship games.Now it’s 17 interceptions for every 10 touchdowns. It’s 3-7 on a Vikings team that just fired the coach, the guy who originally convinced Brett to come to


Redskins Insider Excerpts from washingtonpost.com/redskinsinsider


Galloway released, replaced by Austin The Washington Redskins re-


leased unproductivewide receiv- er Joey Galloway on Saturday and signed rookie wideout Ter- rence Austin from the practice squad to fill the opening on the 53-man roster. A 16-year veteran, Galloway


has contributed little in his first season with the Redskins, catch- ing only 12 passes for 173 yards in 10 games.


After the embarrassing 59-28


loss to the Philadelphia Eagles in Week 10, offensive coordinator Kyle Shanahan criticized Gallo- way, who opened the season as a starter, for his performance on a play that resulted in an intercep- tion. The Redskins selected Austin


in the seventh round (219th overall) of the 2010 draft. Also a return specialist, Austin spent the first 11weeks of the season on the practice squad after he did not make the opening roster out


of training camp. It appeared the Redskins


planned to activate Austin last week if rookie wideout-return specialist Brandon Banks was unable to play because of prob- lems with his knee. Banks, how- ever, played in the 19-16 overtime victory over the Tennessee Titans at LP Field. Banks has been limited in


practice with a sore knee and is listed as questionable for Sun- day’s game against the Minneso- ta Vikings.


Banks, who had arthroscopic


knee surgery during the bye week, is the team’s top punt and kick returner, and Austin’s pro- motion could provide the Red- skins’ some special teams insur- ance in case Banks is unable to play Sunday. Austin was second-team all-


Pacific-10 as a kick returner as a senior and left UCLA as the team’s all-time leader in both kick and punt returns. Galloway, who began the sea- son starting opposite Santana


Moss, had been listed as the team’s No. 3 wide receiver on the depth chart, ahead of Banks and RoydellWilliams but behind An- thony Armstrong.


Counting on Doughty Starting in place of injured


strong safety LaRon Landry, vet- eran safety Reed Doughty played every snap on defense against the Titans. Because of injuries during the game, Doughty also played every


snap on special teams. The Red- skins know they can rely on the dependableDoughty,whowill be in the opening lineup in place of Landry (Achilles’ tendon) again Sunday at FedEx Field. “First of all, Reed is tough as


nails,” defensive coordinator Jim Haslett said. “He will do exactly what you want. You ask Reed to go run through a wall, he’s going to pick out what bricks and he is not going to deviate it. That’s Reed.”


— Jason Reid and RickMaese


distinguished anymore; it just looks old. He didn’t let us down because


he went from hayseed with a Hattiesburg twang to aMort- and-Peter-King texting, NFL diva in a millisecond, who alienated at least two franchises, scores of teammates and at least two coaches.We knewthe cameo in “Something AboutMary” wasn’t enough; he needed to make it All About Brett. Everything about his life and career has been public. The texts Jenn Sterger


allegedly received from him in 2008 when he was briefly Broadway Brett? Some of us were less disappointed about his inappropriate, adolescent overtures than we were about the fact he didn’t use regular mail. Most of us aren’t even sore


that Brett acknowledged he sent voicemails to women not his wife, Deanna, though it wasn’t very classy the way America found out during Breast Cancer AwarenessMonth—especially since Deanna is a survivor. We knewthat anyone that


had TigerWoods over to watch last year’s Super Bowl at his home inHattiesburg, where Tiger spent time at an addiction-treatment center, has to know something about filling the hollowness inside with the shallowness outside. Bottom line, we didn’t care


about Brett violating some unwritten morality clause in the contract between sports icons and their fan base, because we all forgave someone who played well for our teams, especially NFL teams. Look how some of us now embrace Ray Lewis, Michael Vick and Ben Roethlisberger. It’s when Brett starting


looking old and feeble on the field; we couldn’t stomach that —too close to home. Brett faltering this badly on


the field hurt our unhealthy belief in our athletic heroes past


their prime. That’s Dad wheezing in the


back yard, out of breath, physically unable to play with us.


Brett trying to come to his


senses after another sack is our senile uncle, wandering aimlessly through each room of our house, looking for a hat he left . . . in 1972. We knewnot everyone was


going to be Jim Brown,Nolan Ryan or Larry Bird. Any of those three should have written at least a pamphlet on how to retire gracefully, so others who came afterward would learn how not to destroy some of our memories and their ownmyths. But we expected more than a


guy who brought glory to one franchise for so many years to then start throwing the ball routinely to the other team in his fumbling farewell. Johnny Unitas already tried that. We didn’t expect Brett to remember the great Willie Mays, who, after falling down at the end of his career in theMets outfield, admitted that, “growing old is a helpless hurt.” But we figuredMichael


Jordan’s unseemly end in Washington would help Brett to know when a sports icon had overstayed his welcome. We deserve some blame, too.


We want the old guy raising the trophy one more time, if for no other reason to justify our own unfulfilled athletic glory. It’s not our ending; it’s Brett’s.


Of course he deserves to go out the way he wants. Bottom line, we all wish we had the talent to scratch the itch at the highest level of the game before our bodies gave out in our 40s. But seeing him look so old


and desperate is not what we want to see from our guy.We would have rather had him play quarterback for any team in Hattiesburg this Thanksgiving, told someone to go long and just left it at that. Why did Brett Favre let us


down? We don’t mind knocking our


sporting gods off their pedestals; we just hate it when they do it for us. wisem@washpost.com


won two Super Bowls with the Denver Broncos, and General Manager Bruce Allen last offsea- son was supposed to usher in a new era of stability and more traditional NFL decorum at Red- skins Park. But, with Shanahan’s handling of theHaynesworth and McNabb situations, the team’s maneuvers have remained prime topics for debate by the army of commentatorswho scrutinize the NFL. “You try tomake lemonade out


of lemons,” said cornerback Fred Smoot, who had two stints with the Redskins and one with the Vikings over nine NFL seasons. “But my whole career, it was dif- ferentdefensive coordinators,dif- ferent head coaches, different teammates all the time, always starting over. All I knew was change. There was always some- thing happening. . . . I wanted to have continuity. Neither of those places has had that for awhile.” The Vikings have had their


share of off-field turbulence in recent years. Former coach Mike Tice was fined $100,000 by the NFL in 2005 for his role in selling his Super Bowl tickets. The same year, formerVikings runningback Onterrio Smithwas stopped at an airport security checkpoint and found to be carrying a device, called “The Original Whizzina- tor,” designed to evade detection in drug tests. In December 2005, fourVikingsplayerswere charged with misdemeanors after alleged lewd behavior aboard a cruise boat. Smoot, who was among the players charged, pleaded guilty in 2006 to disorderly conduct and being a public nuisance on a wa- tercraft. Since 2008, the NFL has been


attempting to enforce four-game suspensions of Vikings defensive tackles Kevin Williams and Pat Williams for testing positive for a banned diuretic contained in the weight lossproductStarCaps.The case remains tiedupincourt.This season, the league is investigating Favre after a report by the Web site Deadspin that he sent inap- propriate electronic messages to former New York Jets employee JennStergerwhenbothwerewith the team. Favre faces possible dis- cipline under the NFL’s personal conduct policy if the accusations are substantiated. Favre had what he has called


the best season of his career last year, after he was lured out of his second retirement from the NFL by the Vikings. Childress drove to the airport personally to pick up Favre, who threw 33 touchdown passes and only seven intercep- tions before finishing fourth in the league most valuable player balloting and leading the Vikings to theNFCtitle game.They lost in overtime atNewOrleans.


‘Coaches usually go first’ This year, Favre agreed to play


another season—his 20thand,he vows, final season in the NFL — after three of his teammates trav- eled to his home in Mississippi during training camp to urge him to make up his mind. But he has played like the 41-year-old grand- father thathe is, laboring through a series of injurieswhile throwing 10 touchdownpasses and 17 inter- ceptions.Heis theNFL’s32nd-rat- ed passer and the Vikings have a record of 3-7. “Whether you like your coach,


get along with him, agree with what is called, not called, you still have to play,” Favre said at amid- week news conference. “I think it would be easy to pass the buck off on the next player or the next coach or the past coach. It’s the way this business works. The coaches usually go first. The play- ers, you can’t get rid of everybody right now. You wouldn’t field a team.” Vikings owner Zygi Wilf dis-


missed Childress on Monday, a day after a lopsided loss to the Green Bay Packers, and elevated Frazier from defensive coordina- tor to interim head coach. After unsuccessfully interviewing for other NFL head coaching jobs in recent years, Frazier gets his chance Sunday. “I don’t knowif I felt a sense of


gratification or reward when you consider the circumstances,” Fra- zier said during a news confer- ence last week. “I just know that we have somework to dowith our players. I care a great deal for them. I care a great deal for this organization and I want us to be successful.” TheVikingshaveplayedall sea-


sonwithout injuredwide receiver Sidney Rice. They traded a third- round draft choice to the New England Patriots for Moss but then Childress abruptly released him. Childress informed his play- ers of that decision a day after Moss followed a one-catch show- ing in a Halloween loss at New England with a postgame mono- loguethatpraisedthePatriotsand questioned Childress’s coaching decisions.There alsowere reports thatMoss was critical of the food served to theVikings players after a practice. Childress’s ouster was far from


surprising after multiple reports that he had lost the support of Vikings players. Childress publicly criticized a


three-interception performance by Favre during a defeat at Green Bay this season and reportedly had a heated practice-field ex- change with wide receiver Percy Harvin. “He knows football,” said


Smoot,who played one season for Childress inMinnesota. “What he fails at is the day-to-day relation- ships.” Theismann said he faults the


entire Vikings organization, not Childress alone, for this season’s unraveling. “You don’t show up to training


camp, how do you expect to suc- ceed?” said Theismann, an ana- lyst for the NFL Network. “. . . Football playerswill take asmuch autonomy as the organization al- lows. I don’t blame Brett. If you want to blame someone, blame theMinnesotaVikings. They gave himfree rein.” Theismann said other NFL


teams, including the Cincinnati Bengals and Oakland Raiders, have been more dysfunctional than the Vikings and Redskins in recentyears.Better times couldbe ahead for Shanahan and the Red- skins, said Theismann, who also could envision improvement for the Vikings if they retain Frazier andmove onwithout Favre. “Mike is strong enough to be


able to build what he wants to build inWashington,” Theismann said. “Leslie could do the same thing in Minnesota if they keep himin that job. It will be a differ- ent organization without Brett. This time, he simply can’t come back. The president could fly Air Force One down to Mississippi this time, andit shouldn’tmatter.” maskem@washpost.com


EZ SU


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