Thursday and Long: Redskins Pack It In

Nobody knows what Dan Snyder was hoping to accomplish by changing general managers with three weeks left in the season. But what the Redskins' owner actually did accomplish was to ensure that his team would treat the rest of 2009 like a sad obligation. They'll show up for the games, because they have to if they want to get paid. But nobody had better expect them to do anything.

The Redskins' players sent that message Monday night in one of the most embarrassing mail-it-in performances of the year by any NFL team. Watching the Giants move up and down the field at will, watching the Redskins muster nothing against one of the worst defenses in the league, there could be no doubt in your mind that this Washington team has quit. But if there were any doubt -- if you wondered for a second whether you might be wrong -- it vanished as soon as you walked into the locker room and started asking the players about the game.

"I don't think this team is that bad of our players are that bad," Albert Haynesworth said. "The score and the record say we're horrible, but I don't know. I think we're all going in different directions and we just need somebody to lead us in the right direction."

Replacing GM Vinny Cerrato with Bruce Allen last week completely eliminated any possible credibility Jim Zorn and the current Redskins coaching staff still had with the players. They would be shocked if he were back as their coach next season. They all expect to be playing for Mike Shanahan in 2010, and most of them would probably be disappointed if they weren't.

"The rest of this season, we all have to look at it as an audition," cornerback DeAngelo Hall said. "There's a new man in charge, and it's hard to believe he liked anything he saw out there (Monday) night."

The shame of it is that the Redskins had actually been playing fairly hard for the previous five or six weeks. They'd had some crushing losses, sure, but they were finding ways to fight, to put points on the board, to at least give the impression that they were still toting around some professional pride. But on Monday ... not so much. This was a team that has quit on its season, and it's impossible to believe the timing of Allen's abrupt arrival wasn't at least part of the reason.

"As a player, you want to be able to say you don't pay attention and you just block all that stuff out," quarterback Jason Campbell said. "But you can tell it's definitely had an effect, just all the uncertainty going around."

I don't know. If I were Shanahan and I were thinking about taking this job, it would concern me that many of the players I'd be inheriting were the kinds of players who were capable of quitting on the final three games of a season. And it would concern me that the owner was the kind of man who's so tone-deaf that he couldn't foresee the kind of impact such a weirdly timed front office move could have and just wait until the season was over to make a major change.

But Snyder pays well, so somebody's going to take this job. And whoever it is, if he watched ESPN on Monday night, he's not going to be able to say he didn't know what he was getting himself into.

Labor Wars Update

The NFL Players' Association last week sent a letter to Special Master Stephen Burbank protesting the NFL's decision to eliminate the supplemental revenue sharing fund in 2010. The league has downplayed this issue, saying it deals with only a small amount of money and won't affect this season or next season, but the union has major concerns on a number of levels.

First, while the league is saying the SRS money will only be about $100 million, the union's projections have it closer to $200 million based on previous years' trends of how that fund has grown and been distributed. This is a fund that is divided among the bottom eight revenue teams, and the union contends that it is significant money. The Minnesota Vikings, for instance, got about $20 million from that fund for their 2009 payroll. Without it, they may not have had the money to sign Brett Favre.

The union says it's asked the league twice for the specific figures in question on the supplemental revenue sharing and the league has refused to provide them. That refusal has fueled the union's concern that this move by the NFL is designed to affect changes to the salary cap and revenue-sharing system without their approval, so in the letter to the special master they cited Article XXIV, Section 11 of the collective bargaining agreement, which states that the league's revenue sharing program must "be reasonably satisfactory to the NLFPA" and that "any material modification to that program must also be reasonably satisfactory to the NFLPA."

Also, while it's true that the proposed changes to the SRS fund wouldn't affect the 2009 or 2010 seasons, the money they're proposing to eliminate would be distributed to teams for use on their 2011 payrolls. So by scrapping the fund, the league is deepening the union's belief that the owners intend to lock out the players in 2011. An additional $200 million sure would help get them through a lockout, would it not?

Old Friend Dawk

Their playoff spot-clinching victory over the 49ers hadn't been over for an hour Sunday night, and Eagles players were already fielding questions about this Sunday's return of longtime Eagles safety Brian Dawkins, who now plays for the Broncos. Even more amazing, the players didn't seem to mind talking about it.

"I'm sure the fans will welcome him back, and he's a guy that deserves a tribute," cornerback Sheldon Brown said. "He did a lot for young players, such as myself, as far as teaching us how to play the game and to be a man. I miss him."

Brown did have some advice. He suggested to the Broncos that they discourage Dawkins from participating in pregame warmups Sunday.

"He's going to be emotional, too," Brown said. "He was emotional when he played here. We used to have to keep him in the locker room during warmups on big games because he'd spend too much energy and emotion out there in warmups. So I'm pretty sure he won't come out, because he'll want to make sure he saves something for the game."

Hat Tip of the Week: Miami Dolphins

Maybe it's because it's Christmas time. Maybe it's because it seems so strange to think of NFL teams and players as focused on anything but the playoff scenarios that are occupying so much of our time. But I absolutely loved this story about Miami Dolphins players filling up Farah Clark's house with furniture as part of a charitable effort with Rooms to Go. Clark has MS and is home alone in Homestead, Fla., with two children while her husband is serving in Afghanistan. She was recently forced to sell much of her furniture, and the storage company that was holding the rest told her they'd lost it. Dolphin players Ricky Williams, Donald Thomas, Nate Garner, Tyrone Culver and Akin Ayodele showed up in a the Rooms to Go truck and began moving new furniture in. Ayodele even went over to a local Target and bought a flat screen TV for the kids' room so they could play video games. Call me a sap, but I liked that story.

Three for the Road

NFL road teams went a stunning 10-6 in Week 13. Remarkable, given the fact that -- even when you include last week's results -- NFL road teams are just 96-128 (.429 win percentage) for the year. Even more remarkable, of the six road teams that lost, two were teams I'd picked to win -- the Bengals in San Diego and the 49ers in Philly. I did win big by predicting the Cowboys' upset of the Saints in New Orleans, though, so I'm 12-12 since I started doing this every week and I'll hang my hat on the Dallas pick and move on with the three road teams I like this week:

1. Ravens over Steelers. Big win for Pittsburgh last week. Unexpected last stand. And they may be out for revenge, since Baltimore beat them a few weeks back in the middle of their tailspin. But the Ravens can smell the playoffs and I don't see them coughing up this opportunity.

2. Panthers over Giants. I'm pretty much on record with how I feel about these Giants. Steve Smith is licking his chops watching film of their defense. I say Carolina sneaks up on them and finally puts an end to this thing. Giants lose their last game ever at Giants Stadium.

3. Cowboys over Redskins. Given what we saw Monday night (see above), this is almost too easy to qualify.

It's Just a Fantasy -- Three guys I wish I had on my fantasy team this week

1. Steve Smith vs. Giants. I'm talking the Carolina Steve Smith, who's in the midst of a big finish and gets to face one of the worst pass defenses in the league.

2. Jerome Harrison vs. Raiders. Yeah, it sounds silly to put a Brown anywhere near this list. But the guy almost ran for 300 yards last week, and do you expect the Raider defense to play that well two weeks in a row? Harrison could pull the football version of a Johnny Vander Meer.

3. Philip Rivers vs. Titans. Chargers end the Titans' dream this week. And Rivers needs to be in the MVP discussion.

Traveling Man

This week I'll be checking in on the cage match that is the battle for back-end AFC playoff spots, as I travel up to New England to see the Patriots take on the Jaguars. Jacksonville coach Jack Del Rio and his staff spent the week showing the Jaguar players highlights of Tom Brady and the Patriots making bad plays and mistakes, then trying to drill into their players' heads that these are not the Patriots of two years ago -- that this year's New England team is actually pretty mortal and can be beaten. Jags coaches felt it was important to knock down some of the Patriots' aura of invincibility, since the Jaguars are 1-7 against the Patriots all-time and New England is 7-0 at home this year. It'll be interesting to see if it works. I wrote here a couple of weeks ago that the Jaguars were playing over their heads, and they've lost two straight since then. But due to the weak state of the AFC playoff race, they're still alive. Much moreso if they can spring the upset in Foxborough.