Keefe To The City

Dec 17, 2014

‘Road to the NHL Winter Classic’ Recap, Episode 1: The Joel Quenneville Show

The behind-the-scenes show is now on EPIX instead of HBO, but thanks to Joel Quenneville’s vocabulary it doesn’t matter what channel it’s on.

I was devastated when I found out that the NHL’s version of 24/7 wouldn’t be returning for this season. Sure, the series was coming off its weakest season with the Red Wings and Maple Leafs featured for a month without Pavel Datsyuk and Henrik Zetterberg involved for a majority of the time. But for the previous two seasons of the show in 2011 and 2010 (thanks to Gary Bettman for the 2012 lockout), it had become can’t-miss TV and quickly became a December tradition like going to Rockefeller Center to see the tree or watching Tom Coughlin’s Giants collapse down the stretch.

Thankfully, EPIX stepped up and stepped in to replace HBO and keep the series running this season, so we could watch life with the Chicago Blackhawks for the first time and, unfortunately, with the Washington Capitals for a second time. As I did back in 2011 for the Rangers and Flyers and in 2010 for the Penguins and Capitals, I decided it made sense to dust off the series recaps and start them up for this year’s four episodes. And I’m happy I did because of Joel Quenneville.

There used to be talks that the Winter Classic should always feature one consistent team, like the Lions or Cowboys on Thanksgiving, or make the game always be between the two same teams. Fortunately, for the sake of the series, that has never happened.

I always thought MTV’s biggest mistake with The Jersey Shore was that it didn’t change the cast after the first successful season and then just kept changing the cast for each following summer. Because of the original’s cast immediate rise to fame, each subsequent cast would have gone over the top to make sure they wilder parties, sleazier at the bars and clubs and more creative when it came to nicknames. If Mike Sorrentino was able to set the bar as high as he did in the first season of the show, who knows what his successors would have or could have been capable of to try and become that season’s version of “The Situation”. Luckily, when it comes to the Road to the NHL Winter Classic, we get a new cast every year. And when Bruce Boudreau burst onto the scene as an F-bombing leader with BBQ sauce or ketchup all over his face, I wasn’t sure if he could be topped until John Tortorella displayed just how much of an a-hole he can be by ripping his players, the media and the HBO production team all while passing Boudreau’s F-bomb record like Mark McGwire passing Roger Maris. But now both coaches have been surpassed and by a much more likable leader.

Joel Quenneville, a former Whaler, has the demeanor of the type of dad you hope your girlfriend’s dad is not. But aside from seeing his press conferences in the past and hearing him speak in official settings, I never really got a sense for who Coach Q truly is. After the opening 15 minutes of the first episode, I was worried that might carry over into the series and maybe EPIX wasn’t about to let the show go completely uncensored the way HBO had. And then we got our first glimpse of Quenneville behind the bench and what had been a tame introduction suddenly turned into hockey’s version of the Urban Dictionary from the mustached-man.

Quenneville’s overall vocabulary broke into the series’ all-time moments, which previously included the Penguins’ practical jokes, Alexander Ovechkin’s tramp stamp, Marian Gaborik drinking the night before a game and carrying his massive Christmas tree home and Ilya Bryzgalov’s philosophy lessons. Quenneville has a chance to be the best character the series has ever had and right now he’s on pace where it’s his title to lose. And he’s the reason why watching new teams every December is what makes this series. Now let’s just stop having the Capitals in the Winter Classic.

***

Here are the thoughts from the first episode:

– Kevin Dineen going over the practice plan with the Blackhawks an assistant coach for the team made me both nostolagic and sad for the days of the Hartford Whalers when Dineen was their captain.

– When was the last time Joel Quenneville taped his stick? 2012? 2010? Such a head coach/old-man move by Quenneville to leave his knob taped like it hasn’t been changed since 1993 and has just been collecting dust and losing its grip in a basement or garage.

– When talking about the Kings’ Western Conference finals game-winning goal in Game 7, Corey Crawford says, “I think I ran through that last goal maybe 100 times in my head.” 100 times? That’s it? Does Crawford think that’s a lot of times? I have run through the Kings’ three overtime goals in the Stanley Cup Final against the Rangers about 1,000 times each in my head and I wasn’t playing in the game let alone the goalie who the puck got past to end the series. (If Crawford doesn’t let goal in, then maybe the Blackhawks end up winning the West and the Rangers beat the Blackhawks and win the Cup. There’s no way of knowing this would or wouldn’t have happened, so I’m going to pretend like it would have.)

– Quenneville talks about winning the two Cups and getting back to being a championship team while mentioning how hard it is to win a championship. When you look at any Cup-winning team, there are so many things that had to happen and countless bounces that had to go their way just in the playoffs to make the champions. It seems like Quenneville realizes how fortunate he has been to be the head coach of two winning teams in a three-year span. It’s also this realization that makes me depressed knowing how close the Rangers were last year and how hard it is to even get back to the Finals, knowing it could easily be another two decades until they are back there.

– Patrick Kane and Jonathan Toews are so soft spoken when the camera is on only them that it’s interesting to see how vocal and different they are during the games, and for Kane, how crazy he gets when he’s out on the town.

– I’m sure Bauer wasn’t thrilled with Toews pulling their sticks off the rack and saying, “These sticks are garbage” and holding them responsible for his scoring drought.

– I wasn’t sure if we would see Ovechkin’s tramp stamp the way we did four years ago, but sure enough, there it was in the first episode. It’s really not exciting to watch or write about the Capitals and it’s gotten even worse over the last four years.

– Barry Trotz reminds me of Bruce Boudreau. He also reminds me of someone who would play a police chief if he were an actor.

– Last season, I went to Chicago to the Rangers play. It was my first time in Chicago, my first time at a Blackhawks home game and my first time witnessing Jim Cornelison sing the Anthem in person and it’s incredible. The people of Chicago are doing it right. Everyone should be cheering and clapping during the anthem at every event.

– Any time I see Michal Roszival score a goal, it hurts. And it hurts even more knowing he has his name on the Stanley Cup.

– I miss Daniel Carcillo. Come back “Car Bomb”. You can take Tanner Glass, Chicago. I will drive him to you.

– I was a so-so Brandon Prust fan when he was on the Rangers. He was fan favorite because he was a third- and fourth-line grinder who did the things every blue-collar fan enjoys. He got overpaid on the open market and went to Montreal and turned into a scum. Maybe he was always scum when he was on Calgary and then here in New York and I just didn’t realize it. But putting on that Canadiens jersey has changed Prust for the worst and now he’s even diving as he did against Kane. And when he’s not diving, he giving out flying elbows in the Eastern Conference finals.

– Bryan Bickell looks like a mess in the Blackhawks’ trainers room and should have been an easy target for a joke from Andrew Shaw, but Shaw totally botched whatever he was going for and set up Bickell almost too perfectly to rip him about his Lloyd Christmas-esque haircut. (After Quenneville’s mouth, this was my favorite scene of the episode.)

– Scott Darling rips through the teams he has been with and they are as follows: Louisiana IceGators, Reading Royals, Florida Everblades, Mississippi RiverKings, Las Vegas Wranglers, Wheeling Nailers, Wichita Thunder, Cincinnati Cyclones, Charlotte Checkers, Hamilton Bulldogs, Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins, Milwaukee Admirals, Rockford IceHogs and Chicago Blackhawks. According to Darling’s HockeyDB page, he didn’t even play in a game with all of those teams, which makes his path to the NHL that much more remarkable. But the craziest part of it all is that four years ago he was playing in the Southern Pro league and now he is on the Blackhawks.

– Capitals goalie coach Mitch Korn, who is supposedly called one of hockey’s Top 10 geniuses, lives in a hotel for the entire season, yet he checks out and moves everything out of his room and into his car before every road trip. Louis CK was right when he said “genius” and other adjectives are used too loosely nowadays.

– Brad Richards was a good Ranger. He wasn’t great and wasn’t what everyone thought he would be when he signed a nine-year, $60 million deal after the 2010-11 season, but there is a short list of players in the league that could have lived up to that deal and he wasn’t one of them. Now he gets to be on the Blackhawks and not have to worry about being a star or carrying a team or running a power play and bettered his chances at winning his second Cup. Good for Brad Richards.

– After I graduated from college, I lived in Hoboken, making little to no money and my apartment looked and was furnished like and my fridge was stocked exactly the way Tom Wilson and Michael Laatta’s apartment is, all the way down to the bed on the floor without a frame and the team blanket folded over the couch with XBox controllers also on the couch. The problem here is that I had no money. Like zero dollars. Tom Wilson is making $925,000 this year and Michael Laatta is making $575,000. Step it up a little.

– The final thought of the first episode goes to Joel Quenneville: “Kaner, what a f-cking shot. Peanut Butter. Holy f-ck.”

NHL • Podcasts

Dec 17, 2014

Podcast: Ryan Brandell

Three years ago, Rangers fans got to see how their team operates prior to their Winter Classic appearance and this year Blackhawks fans get that same chance.

It’s the holiday season and that means Christmas, New Year’s and the Road to the NHL Winter Classic. What used to be part of 24/7 on HBO is now on EPIX, but it’s as good as it could be without Leiv Schreiber narrating it. The four-episode series is once again must-see TV and even though we have to sit through the Capitals and their boring roster and personalities, we do get to go behind-the-scenes with the Blackhawks.

Ryan Brandell of Barstool Sports Chicago (known as “Chief” on that site), joined me to talk about the first episode of the series, Joel Quenneville’s extensive vocabulary on the bench, former Rangers Michal Roszival, Daniel Carcillo and Brad Richards and what life’s like as a Blackhawks fan these days.

Podcasts • Yankees

Dec 16, 2014

Podcast: Chad Jennings

The Yankees lost David Robertson and Brandon McCarthy to free agency and the team’s offseason strategy seems to be a questionable one so far.

It’s been a so-so offseason for the Yankees so far. They got their shortstop of the future, signed an elite reliever and re-signed their third basemen, but let their homegrown closer and reliable starter/midseason reclamation project leave in free agency. They re-signed Chris Capuano to provide some rotation stability, but it’s going to take more than an addition of the veteran left-hander to the rotation for the 2015 Yankees to get to where they want to be. Unless where they want to be is where they have been the last two seasons.

Chad Jennings, the Yankees beat writer for The Journal News and the LoHud Yankees Blog, joined me to talk about the Yankees’ offseason and their decision to not re-sign David Robertson and to a lesser extent Brandon McCarthy, how the remaining list of question marks on the team can be answered and what the level of comfort should be for Yankees fans with two months until spring training.

Blogs • Yankees

Dec 16, 2014

The State of the Yankees: Post-Winter Meetings Edition

The 2015 Yankees’ roster is starting to take shape and it’s easing my pre-Winter Meetings fears.

The 2015 Yankees are starting to come together. Maybe not necessarily in the way I hoped they would be coming together, but at least they are coming together and some of the questions are being answered and the holes being filled.

Before the winter meetings started, I wrote The State of the Yankees: Winter Meetings Edition and commented on Brian Cashman’s recent comments to Mike Francesa. Now that the winter meetings are over, I thought it would be good to look at the current state of the team now that it’s more of a team by looking at three Yankees-related players to sign in the last week.

Let’s start with the worst part of the past week and work out way up, so that we can end things on a positive note.

The Ugly
David Robertson should have never been a free agent. He should have been taken care of prior to the end of the 2014 season and therefore he shouldn’t be the White Sox closer right now. But the Yankees gambled and lost with a homegrown impending free agent and decided to make a lateral move by bringing in Andrew Miller, who is pretty much a left-handed Robertson. I wanted both Robertson and Miller this offseason and if I had my pick between the two, I would have picked Robertson, but the Yankees got only one and now their bullpen is in the same shape it was in last year. It’s currently Dellin Betances and Andrew Miller and then the Goof Troop, which features a combination of Shawn Kelley and Adam Warren, neither of which I would trust to tell me the day of the week. Maybe Justin Wilson ends up being reliable or someone else steps up and becomes a trusted commodity for 2015 since the majority of relievers work on a year-to-year consistence basis. But if no one steps up, on the days when Betances or Miller are unavailable, it’s going to be another mental and emotional grind watching the Yankees’ latest collection of misfits try to navigate their way through the final outs of games the Yankees are winning.

The idea of having Robertson and Betances and Miller to lock up games after the sixth and asking a rotation that aside from Masahiro Tanaka has trouble going past the sixth inning anyway is such a beautiful idea that it makes me physically sick to think that it could have happened and now it won’t. And it could have easily happened. The White Sox gave Robertson four years and $46 million. The Yankees gave Andrew Miller four years and $36 million. So for $46 million, the Yankees could have had the best on-paper bullpen in the entire league and arguably their best bullpen since … well, ever. If you think $46 million is a lot of money to give to someone to pitch about 65 innings, just remember that last year, the Yankees gave a five-year, $85 million deal to Brian McCann with catcher being the deepest position in their farm system, three years and $45 million to a then-36-year-old Carlos Beltran and oddly enough he broke down, couldn’t throw a baseball and played in only 109 games and seven years, $153 million to Jacoby Ellsbury, which was money that could have been used to re-sign Robinson Cano. The Yankees could have re-signed Robertson, they just didn’t want to, and I’m not sure why.

So, goodbye, David Robertson. I will remember him becoming David “Copperfield” Robertson (it has always worked better than those who use “Houdini”) in Game 2 of the 2009 ALDS when he escaped the bases-loaded, no-out jam to extend the game before Mark Teixeira’s walk-off home run, which to date is one of only about two or three positive things Teixeira has done in four postseasons with the Yankees. Robertson proved himself as a middle reliever, the go-to seventh-inning guy, the best setup man in the league and then one of the most reliable closers in the game. Goodbye, David Robertson. You will be missed.

The Bad
I wanted Brandon McCarthy back and thought the Yankees should have extended him before the end of the season, so that like Robertson, we never get to this point. (The same goes for the next and last person in this column.) But I understand the Yankees not wanting to invest in a multiyear deal with a pitcher with a history of varied success in the league and injury problems. So McCarthy hit the open market and got paid (four years, $48 million from the Dodgers) more than double what he has made in his career to date. I don’t have a problem with the Yankees not signing McCarthy, but I have a problem with Cashman saying the Dodgers “went to a level we couldn’t play on” as if the Yankees suddenly became the Rays or A’s. Maybe instead of “couldn’t” he could have said “didn’t want to” so that I didn’t have to worry that the Yankees are suddenly poor. It probably wouldn’t have been in the Yankees’ best interest to give a 31-year-old, coming off his only full season as a starter in the league, a contract that will end he’s 35. Then again, the Yankees’ current rotation is Masahiro Tanaka, who could be out for at least a year any time he throws a pitch (though I guess you could say that about any pitcher), Michael Pineda, who has made 13 starts in three years a Yankee (all last season) and CC Sabathia, who was rumored to have a career-ending injury last year and hasn’t looked like CC Sabathia since the end of 2012. When you look at a rotation that is full of question marks, a $12-million-per-year starter isn’t that outrageous, even given McCarthy’s spotty history.

The Yankees have to bolster their rotation. Chris Capuano is a good insurance policy and Hiroki Kuroda would be a nice addition and certainly provide stability, but those two aren’t going to take the Yankees to where they need to be. With Jon Lester off the board, that leaves Max Scherzer (yes, please) and James Shields (ehh, OK) as the only two free-agent starters left that can change my comfort level on the 2015 Yankees.

The Good
Welcome back, Chase Headley! If I had done a Yankees’ Offseason To-Do List, Headley might have been No. 1 because he allows the Yankees so much more flexibility when he’s in the lineup. Here is the Yankees’ Opening Day infield without Headley:

1B – Mark Teixeira
2B – Martin Prado or Rookie
3B – Alex Rodriguez or Martin Prado
SS – Didi Gregorius

And here’s the Yankees’ Opening Day infield with Chase Headley:

1B – Mark Teixeira
2B – Martin Prado
3B – Chase Headley
SS – Didi Gregorius

Headley being back on the Yankees means that both Rob Refsnyder and Jose Pirela will get more time in the minors, Martin Prado can play second or wherever he’s needed and not be forced to play only third base with A-Rod being an unknown and A-Rod can continue to be an unknown and not someone who is needed to be healthy and productive.

The four-year, $52 million deal for Headley might be too much, but as I always say, “It’s not my money,” and sometimes you have to overpay for things in the time of need. Last week I bought a Christmas tree in the Upper East Side and if I were to build a village around it with those light-up figurines, people might think the tree is part of the village. But my apartment needed a tree, that was the going rate for a tree of that size since the next size was double in price and then an additional fee or a stand that I wasn’t going to save, so I bought that tree. For the same price, outside the city, I could have bought a 12-foot tree or a forest of similar trees. But like the free-agent market this offseason, the Christmas tree market isn’t exactly a bargain.

I think we can all agree that there was never a four-year, $65 million deal on the table for Headley and that was a negotiating ploy. I know Cashman said, “Chase wants to be a Yankee,” and if he did take a 20 percent pay cut to be a Yankee then he is a legend in my book and I will buy a Chase Headley shersey right now, but I have a hard time believing the guy who was born in Colorado, grew up in Colorado, went to college in Tenneessee and California and played 908 games for the Padres before playing 58 games for the Yankees wanted to be a Yankee so bad that he was willing to leave $13 million on the table. But like I said, if he really did, I think I found my new favorite player in the post-Derek Jeter era. He did say he took less money to be a Yankee and maybe that $13 million is the difference he is talking about, so for now, Chase Headley is my favorite Yankee as usher in this new era.

Where is that era taking me? I have no idea. A little over a week ago, I said that on a scale of a 1 to 10, I was a 10 before the Yankees traded for Didi Gregorius and signed Andrew Miller and then that 10 became a 7. The Yankees didn’t re-sign Robertson or McCarthy and the rotation still scares me more than the thought of the Yankees relying on A-Rod to provide middle-of-the-order power, but for now I’m a 5 and with a couple of months to go until spring training, a 5 isn’t the worst place to be.

Blogs • Email Exchanges • Giants

Dec 12, 2014

The Battle for the Basement

The only thing left for the Giants and Redskins to play for is pride and after 13 games, I don’t think either team has any.

The last time the Giants and Redskins met back on Sept. 25, the game was meaningful. The Giants were 1-2 and looking to get healthy and go on a run and the Redskins were also 1-2 and looking to try to stay afloat until Robert Griffin III returned from injury. The Giants’ won that Thursday Night Football game convincingly (45-14) and won their next game as well before going on a seven-game losing streak. The Redskins dropped their next two gamse as well to fall to 1-5 and have pretty much kept on losing to get to where they are today.

With the Giants and Redskins meeting this week, I did an email exchange with my friend and the biggest Redskins fan I know, Ray Schneider, to talk about his thoughts on the Redskins, the perception of Jay Gruden, if Robert Griffin III is still considered the future and face of the franchise and if the entire fan base has turned on Daniel Snyder.

Keefe: I know this email exchange is going to destroy any happiness you have that the Cubs might be competitive for the first time since 2008, but it has to be done. It’s the “Battle for the Basement” in the NFC East when the Giants and Redskins meet on Sunday at MetLife and the only things that will really come from the result of this game are draft pick seeding and schedule making for 2015. The Giants’ and Redskins’ seasons have both been long, long, long, long, long, long, long gone and I’m sure you feel like you’re in the same boat as me in that this season has just felt like what will be a 17-week continuation of the preseason. Because for a couple months now, both teams have been playing meaningless games.

There’s so much to talk about when it comes to the Redskins that I feel like this exchange is almost the equivalent of trying to break down the entire Friday Night Lights series in a handful of emails. So many characters, both new and old, and storylines when it comes to the Redskins that I don’t know where to start. So let’s start with the newest character to join the mix on this season of The Washington Redskins and that is Jay Gruden, who has decided that RGIII isn’t going to be his quarterback and has done just about everything that Mike Shanahan did to get fired, basically daring Daniel Snyder to pull the plug on a second head coach in as many seasons.

Who’s side are you on: Jay Gruden’s or RGIII’s?

Schneider: If I’m Dan Snyder/Bruce Allen and I had to pick a side, I’m siding with RGIII. And if I’m Jay Gruden, I wouldn’t expect them NOT to side with RGIII. Jay Gruden knew what he was getting into when he took the job, fully understanding he was coming to D.C. to develop RGIII. If Gruden is saying he can’t work with RGIII after approximately four games, he isn’t living up to his side of the bargain and should be shown the door.

Obviously all of this is easy to say when it isn’t my $16 million on the line, but I’d force the marriage and if Gruden quits, he quits. In my opinion, the ceiling for Griffin as a quarterback is higher than the ceiling for Gruden as a head coach.

Keefe: I think my biggest issue with Gruden isn’t even related to his head coaching abilities. It’s that when the Redskins are on Monday Night Football that Jon Gruden refers to his brother as Jay Gruden throughout the broadcast. I can’t imagine having to talk about my brother and continuously using his full name as if the only conversations I had ever had with him were some pregame meetings to find out tidbits of information to include in the telecast. Luckily with the way the Redskins are going I won’t have to sit through many of their appearances in primetime.

If you’re going to side with the supposed franchise quarterback, who clearly has an issue with accountability and placing any blame on himself when talking with the media, then that would mean that you still believe RGIII is a franchise quarterback. And that would mean that you believe that after the league has adjusted to RGIII, that he will be able to readjust to their adjustments and figure out a way to play well enough to lead the Redskins to a championship. Well, maybe we shouldn’t start there. Let’s start with … that he will be able to readjust to their adjustments and figure out a way to play well enough to not get benched for Colt McCoy, who I thought had long been forgotten from the game of football before this year.

Are you still an RGIII believer after everything that has gone on over the last two seasons on the field and the way he has handled himself off the field?

Schneider: Two years ago I would’ve bet my life, as well as the life of my future first born on RGIII being the savior. Present day I’d possibly be willing to bet the stack of SpongeBob post-it notes sitting on my desk that RGIII is the savior.

The off-the-field “concerns” aren’t really concerns in my book. He’s not out partying, drinking and driving, beating his wife, etc. He tweets too much and loves to see himself on camera. I can say with 100 percent confidence that Redskins fans would be fine with Griffin’s off-field behavior if the Skins were winning.

That’s a big IF and I am no longer confident that Griffin can consistently win, but given what was invested to get him, I’m not ready to part ways with him until I am 100 percent certain he is not the guy. There are some glaring on the field issues that raise doubts (decision-making, inability to make reads, mechanics, etc.), but that’s what Jay Gruden was brought here to fix. Instead, not only has RGIII regressed under his watch, so has the other potential long-term answer at quarterback, Kirk Cousins.

Keefe: I used to think that Kirk Cousins was the future of the Redskins and not RGIII until Cousins played himself out of that role. Now they essentially have three quarterbacks and no real answer for who the future is going to be. I can’t imagine the future is going to be Colt McCoy and I’m not sure anyone really thinks he is. So if McCoy isn’t the future, then why is he starting right now for the Redskins? Wouldn’t it make more sense for either RGIII or Cousins to start if those are the most realistic choices to be the Week 1 starter in 2015? Or does McCoy really truly have a chance to be “the guy” for the Redskins? I have a hard time imaging fans in D.C. walking around with McCoy jerseys on, but maybe that’s where this is headed?

Schneider: I think you would be hard-pressed to find a Redskins fan that thinks McCoy is the answer, which is why starting him ahead of Griffin and Cousins is so strange. The only answer that seems to make sense is that McCoy is the only hand-picked Gruden quarterback on the roster. Either that or Gruden realized what a mess the team is and is begging to be fired.

McCoy has established himself as a serviceable backup, but starting him at the expense of developing one of the other two is asinine. Also, McCoy is a free-agent after this year, so what’s the point?

Keefe: I never thought about the idea of Gruden trying to get fired. What would be better than making millions of dollars to not coach the Redskins? It’s a pretty great plan if that’s what his plan is: get paid to not coach.

The only person who can decided if it’s worth it to waste money on yet another coach that isn’t coaching is Daniel Snyder, who might be the last true RGIII fan there is. There always the idea that Redskins fans liked Snyder’s willingness to spend money even if he spent it incorrectly, but what is the perception of him now?

Are you a fan of Snyder?

Schneider: A lot of Redskins fans think Snyder is the problem and the Skins won’t win again until he sells the team. I’m not one of those fans. His gaffes have been well-documented and have impacted on-field performance, but I no longer think he is to blame. He was too involved for far too long, but from what is reported, he has removed himself from the equation and now simply signs checks.

I think he actually curried himself a lot of favor with Redskins fans this past offseason with his “over my dead body” stance on changing the name, but that evaporated by the first week of October once it was clear the Skins would be picking in the Top 10 come April.

One other thing that somehow gets overlooked, the Skins weren’t very good in the years prior to Snyder taking ownership. In the seven years between their last Super Bowl and Snyder buying the team, the Skins record was 45-66-1. So it’s not as if he took over this dynasty and ran it into the ground — he’s just helped to carry on the tradition of suck for the past 15 years.

Keefe: Well, the last time we ended our email exchange I asked you how the game would play out on Thursday Night Football back in September when Derek Jeter still played baseball, the weather was still nice and the Giants and Redskins both still had seasons to play for. The score and result doesn’t matter this Sunday in what is a meaningless game, so there’s only one thing left to ask. We talked about the coach, quarterback and ownership situation with the team, but aside from those things what is your overall perception and feelings of the Redskins as a whole?

Schneider: I can honestly say that in my 20-plus years of true fandom, this is probably the low point. The roster is a mess, the coaches are a joke, the front office is incompetent. I don’t think a sane person could look at the Redskins and say, “Boy, that’s an organization that is headed in the right direction.”

They won’t win another game this season and the silver lining there is that they’ll have a top draft pick, but they’ll inevitably screw up the pick and/or draft a stud that they’ll run out of town in three seasons (see: Robert Griffin).

I’m pretty defeated, BUT … Pitchers and catchers report in another 70 days or so!

Like Jimmy V said, “Don’t give up, don’t ever give up.”