Landover, MD.  Attorneys for the Washington Redskins have filed a lawsuit against 68-year-old  ”Chief Zee” Zema Williams for failing to have enough money to pay for both his own medical expenses and his Redskins tickets.  According to a complaint filed yesterday, the Redskins claim that Chief Zee’s mounting medical bills due to stomach surgery and a big toe amputation made it impossible for Chief Zee to afford his tickets, which he has been purchasing at full face value for the past 31 seasons.  The Redskins are temporarily providing Chief Zee with free tickets to keep the unofficial mascot at the stadium on game days, but the team intends to recoup this cost through litigation.

“Chief Zee is the only man who can get the fans to cheer these days,” said Snyder, “and we can’t have him staying at home because he doesn’t feel well.  I don’t see why he doesn’t have health insurance to pay for his medical care.  We need him hobbling his old ass around FedEx field, waiving that plastic tomahawk, and rallying the fans.”

Snyder said that despite Chief Zee’s deteriorating health, he has no sympathy for the elderly mascot: “I got another old fart mascot for my Six Flags operation, and he is agile, sprightly, and an excellent dancer.  Chief Zee needs to step up his game.  As you saw with the Sherman Lewis hiring, I have my scouts canvassing nursing homes for under-priced talent.”

“I want to be buried in a burgundy-and-gold coffin. And when I’m gone, someone named Cooke is going to run this team. And when he’s gone, someone else named Cooke is going to run this team.”  Jack Kent Cooke, 1992

Trinity Episcopal Church Cemetery, Fauquier County, VA.  Early Wednesday morning, the corpse of Jack Kent Cooke slowly came back to life, read Mike Wise’s article about the saga of John Kent Cooke, rolled over, and died again.  Jack Kent Cooke, who previously died in 1997, was majority owner of the Washington Redskins dating back to 1974 and became the team’s sole owner in 1985.

At the time of his death, Jack Kent Cooke was frequently preoccupied with the drunken antics of his on-again-off-again Bolivian wife and failed to properly plan for an orderly transition of Redskins ownership after his demise.  The chaos ultimately resulted in the team being sold by the Cooke estate to a group headed by Dan Snyder, who promptly destroyed everything that Jack Kent Cooke worked to establish, including a culture of competence, winning, and fan loyalty.

Graveyard maintenance man Stanford Downs was raking leaves in the vicinity of Cooke’s grave when the re-awakening occurred.  “I do believe I heard the sound of moaning and groaning ,” said Downs, “it sounded like he was saying ‘rallllllll … johnnnnnnn … rallllll … johnnnnn….’”

Landover, MD.  Due to the growing piles of perishable toppings at area Papa John’s franchises, the Washington Redskins and Papa John’s have ended the Papa John’s Redskins Touchdown Special.  Sources report that a new promotion, the Papa John’s Washington Redskins Douchebag Deal Days, will allow fans to receive two free toppings every time Vinny Cerrato makes a stupid roster move.  With the recent release of Marcus Mason and Anthony Alridge, fans can receive four free toppings for the remainder of the week.  Limit one pizza per household (that means you, Growler).

It’s time to see some of our young guys get their turn (actually it was probably time in the Tampa game). I was hoping Jim Zorn might shake some things up on offense for the next game and we’d get to see Marko Mitchell, Marcus Mason and Anthony Aldridge. All of these guys could provide a much needed spark. Mitchell some size and play making ability playing with Moss and Randel El. Mason breaking some runs and catching balls out of the backfield. Aldridge returning kickoffs and showing some of that much needed speed. I was even thinking Zorn might move Devin Thomas to punt returner and tell him to just focus on that and not worry about playing receiver right now (it worked for Desmond Howard in Green Bay). Maybe these young guys could provide a spark. Maybe they could remind some of those vets what is was like to want to play and to play hard.

The timing was perfect. There was nothing to lose. The offense has been so bad, anything would have been better. The fans cheered for Todd Collins! They’d go f*cking crazy for Mitchell lining up on the outside. The same old, tired offense isn’t working so maybe these guys could add some speed and heart.

Well, Vinny went ahead and f*cked that all up today by releasing Marcus Mason and Anthony Aldridge. Who knows for sure if either was going to be any good. Mason made a couple of nice runs during the season and showed some great upside during the preseason. They just never gave him a chance. It was the same for Aldridge. When your team is struggling so bad on offense why wouldn’t one of these guys get a chance? When I heard they released these two I figured it was for 2 offensive linemen but they brought in another f*cking running back. This team makes no sense.

Mitchell may still be around but I doubt he’ll get a chance because they’d need to admit they were wrong about Thomas and Kelly. Who on this offense is a young, up-and-coming player? No one! This may seem like a minor move by Vinny but, I think, it’s typical of the kinds of mistakes he makes.

Fantastic video:

Ashburn, VA.  During a late-night brainstorming session after yesterday’s loss to Kansas City, Vinny Cerrato and Dan Snyder identified a key shortage on the Redskins’ roster:  insufficient Shermans.  ”We just brought in Sherman Lewis to bolster the offense and to supplement Sherman Smith who was struggling as the sole Sherman on the staff,” said Cerrato.  ”We prefer to hire and draft for talent rather than for need, but in this case it is clear that another Sherman will have an immediate impact.”

Early Monday morning, Dan Snyder boarded Redskin One and flew to a deluxe apartment on East Side for a breakfast meeting with Sherman Hemsley, a retired dry cleaner renowned for his motivational speeches.  Hemsley accepted the position as Associate Head Coach – Motivation.

Hemsley was formally introduced at a 10:30 press conference.  ”We are proud to announce the hiring of Sherman Hemsley, who will complete the Sherman triumvirate on the Redskins staff and help us finally get a piece of that pie,” said Snyder.  After taking a few questions, Hemsley called General Manager Vinny Cerrato to the lectern, put an arm around him, and proclaimed, “Now we’re up in the big leagues, Campbell gonna take some snaps; long as we live, it’s you and me Vinny, ain’t nothing wrong with that!”

Cerrato:  Jim, things didn’t go to well today; what happened?

Zorn:  That’s a good question, a really good question, I know we had guys out there competing.

Snyder:  Did you just quote Norv Turner?

Zorn:  That’s an excellent question.

Cerrato:  Stop saying that, we know how good our questions are.

Zorn:  Okay.

Cerrato:  Jim, we’re going to give the play calling duties to somebody else.

Zorn:  That’s a really good idea.

Cerrato:  Are you disappointed?

Zorn:  No, why would I be?

Snyder:  Because you’re no longer calling plays!

Zorn:  I was supposed to call plays?

Cerrato:  Yes!!!

Snyder:  Holy sh*t!  Who has been calling the f*&^ing plays?

Zorn: Hey, that’s a really good question there.

Snyder/Cerrato:   Shut the f%$* up!!

Zorn:  Hey guys, let’s try to stay medium here.

Snyder (whispers to Cerrato):  Get Gruden here, now.

I feel bad for Zorn because originally he was hired to be the offensive coordinator. When no one else wanted the Skins head coaching job because of Snyderatto, he was given a promotion to head coach. Anyone would have taken the job even if they knew they were in over their heads. Mike Florio writes in his post “Zorn, Cerrato’s fates apparently are intertwined“:

We’re hearing that there’s a strong belief within the Redskins organization that the fates of coach Jim Zorn and V.P. of football operations Vinny Cerrato are tied together.

So if/when Zorn goes, Cerrato could be dumped, too. (There’s a chance Zorn would go after the Eagles game next Monday, and that Cerrato wouldn’t be fired until after the season ends.)

If this is the case, sorry Jim but you have to go because Vinny HAS to go. Too bad Vinny would last until the end of the season but atleast there would be light at the end of the tunnel.

Not a surprise at all that Cerrato has asked Jim Zorn to give up calling the plays according to Peter King as reported on Dan Steinberg’s blog post Tony Dungy: “This is Not a Good Thing”. Steinberg writes:

A few moments earlier, Peter King had given his take on this news.

“Just got off the phone with the Redskins vice president of football operations Vinny Cerrato, and Cerrato told me that they had just had a meeting, Cerrato, Dan Snyder and Jim Zorn the head coach, and Cerrato has recommended to Zorn that he give up his playcalling duties during the game,” King said. “And so he’ll design the game plan, coach the quarterbacks, but Cerrato told me, ‘Look, we’re just not scoring points, our coach has too much on his plate, and I want him to concentrate on head coaching stuff, not all this other stuff like playcalling.’ “

When does Vinny step aside to let someone else deal with the day-to-day football operations? My idea is simple and nobody gets hurt. Vinny keeps his title Executive VP of Football Operations but just adds a ‘Co-’ before it. But, here’s the real selling point – he can keep his existing business cards as is so when he meets girls out at bars he can still tell them he’s the Executive VP of Football Operations. Vinny concentrates on ‘big picture stuff’ while the new Co-Exec VP of Football operations deals with “all this other (football) stuff”. I stole the whole idea from ‘The Office’ but it seems like it would work perfect here.