On September 9th, the first Sunday of the 2012 NFL season, Robert Griffin III (RGIII) led the Washington Redskins to a 40-32 victory over the New Orleans Saints in the Superdome. The days of tepid offensive performances were gone, replaced by a skilled quarterback who seemingly could engineer scoring drives at will. The next day, via his local radio show on D.C.’s Sportstalk 980, Tony Kornheiser proclaimed that this new and improved RGIII-led Redskins team was ushering in an era of “unbridled optimism.” Read more »
Second of all, he and LeBron hugged. The above video comes courtesy of TAI’s John Converse Townsend, and it is LeBron talking about RGIII, not hugging him.
And first of all…
“Of course I seen him.” {giggles… chuckles… ‘this guy’} —LeBron
[RGIII looks sad hugging LeBron James; Sam Cassell's head was there.]
Hey, did you know that RGIII (Robert Griffin the Third) was at the Wizards-Heat game on Tuesday night?
Yep, he totally was. I know because I watched it on the T.V., and there he was, definitely in attendance. He just about sat in Randy Wittman’s lap thanks to courtside seats. Seats that Ted Leonsis sits in sometimes. But this time, RGIII was there. You’ve certainly heard about it via the Internets, via the Twitter, perhaps even via the Google.
Maybe RGIII saw a Wittman face (i.e., #WittmanFace). Maybe RGIII saw John Wall’s red pants. He definitely saw the Wizards beat the Heat, 105-101. That RGIII, what a guy.
RGIII also witnessed the below GIFery: a sweet block by Kevin Seraphin on LeBron James after some fancy dribbling. Did you know that RGIII was at the Wizards-Heat game?
[John Wall can only watch and wish that he played with Kevin Durant.]
Robert Griffin III is awesome. No getting around that. All of the draft picks that the Redskins traded for him were worth it, and more. Redskins fans are very lucky to even have the a talent like RGIII on their team for years to come. An NBA superstar can make a franchise, but a potentially all-time great NFL quarterback is like nothing else (without getting too far ahead of ourselves).
That said, the Wizards could really, really use an NBA superstar. Kevin Durant is pridefully from the DMV area and just thinking about him in ‘new’ Wizards red (or even sporting the uniform of a more properly-named pro basketball team from the nation’s capital) brings a warm and fuzzy feeling. And even though the quarterback usually gets the girl, if done smartly (note: the Redskins under Dan Snyder have generally been very, very stupid), an NFL team can be built to win and compete for the Super Bowl, with a less-than thrilling QB.
But a guy like Durant, the NBA’s youngest-ever scoring champ and quite possibly one of the top three scorers in the game of basketball over the last two decades (or ever), could be even more of a game-changer for a team like the Wizards than RGIII has been for the Redskins.
So, I posed the question to D.C. sports fans on Twitter (last night before the Redskins beat the Giants and again earlier this morning)… Read more »
The NCAA men’s basketball tournament and the Washington Redskins trading for the number two pick in this year’s NFL draft (Robert Griffin, III) have been competing for time at the water cooler over the past couple of weeks in D.C. Before the Indiana Pacers game last week, I first asked several Washington Wizards players how their brackets were doing, here are some of their responses:
Shelvin Mack:
“I don’t wanna talk about my bracket. It is awful right now.”
On several planes, Gilbert Arenas and Dan Snyder are totally alike. On about a million they are not.
One commonality I can easily think of is that they both appear to be utterly oblivious to the general sensibilities of those who live in reality. Now, it’s not completely the fault of these men that they live in a fantasy world – NFL owner, a $100 million contract NBA man — but the ridiculous ways they can act is on their own accord.
Another similar trait of the two maligned D.C. sports figures? (One of whom the city no longer has to deal with.) Both are championing legal maneuvers against free speech.
It just had to be done. Sure, this is a Washington Wizards blog. And my forthcoming report from Sunday’s Wizards Fan Fest will be exactly that, forthcoming. But, for some reason, I feel the need to share/celebrate the win of the Washington Redskins over the Philadelphia Eagles. And no, this doesn’t have anything to do with a colleague of mine, an excellent writer for Truth About It.net, Rashad Mobley, being an Eagles fan. Although, I take no pity in his team’s loss.
A couple weeks ago I attended a Redskins-Houston Texans game way out in Landover, Maryland. If you were following Twitter that day, you might have noticed a mini-meltdown on my part in reaction to the loss, and the subsequent remoteness of FedEx field. (Why is that place so terrible? Because it’s not in the District, that’s why.)
While there, I captured an Eagles fan in attendance, for some reason (he had two friends who were Skins fans), and a Redskins fan of another party… interacting and ultimately being cool with each other. Although it’s safe to say they aren’t near each other this week.
Sometimes you’ll hear people call D.C. a basketball hotbed. Or you’ll hear claims that Washington has deep basketball roots that are just waiting to blossom, especially after the takeover of the Ted Leonsis regime and the arrival of John Wall.
All good things to hear. But let’s be honest, Washington will be a Redskins town for as long as I live (unless somehow, at some point, the Wizards win four championships in 10 years, while the Skins flounder with a few insignificant playoff appearances, making the top team choice for next generation a little more difficult — a scenario that’s more of a long-distance daydream than reality, and even then …).
Nothing wrong with D.C. being a Redskins town. Football, after all, is America’s sport, even if baseball is America’s way to pass time, and basketball is more global. I’m of the opinion that all D.C. pro sports teams should be embraced together (I’m a hometown guy if you can’t tell).
Of course, in a transient city like Washington, that’s tough to accomplish. But one thing is clear, many Washingtonians take pride in their Redskins … and where better to observe that pride than at the Adams Morgan Day Festival held on Sunday afternoon? (BTW, for those outside of D.C., Adams Morgan is a popular area of the city with bars, restaurants, shops, etc.)
[Howard Theater - 620 T St. NW - Washington, D.C. - K. Weidie]
By now you may know that JaVale McGee has been cut from Team USA … and it also served as another example of news coming directly from a player, via Twitter. This is somewhat disappointing (him being cut, not that word came by means of Twitter). Many signs/media reports gave you the feeling that McGee would at least be taken to Europe to participate in training and exhibitions leading up to the FIBA tournament in Turkey, and it would have been good for his development. Then again, maybe he didn’t want to go, knowing he wouldn’t make the final 12. Or perhaps the team thought it would be best for him to train stateside under the direction of the franchise. Regardless of the reason, a lot of eyes, D.C. and beyond, will be on McGee in 2010-11 because of this Team USA experience. If he becomes more of a student of the game, he can really be special.
Dan Steinberg conveys pretty much the gist of the Redskins’ Brandon Banks doing the John Wall dance after scoring a punt return touchdown in their exhibition opener against the Buffalo Bills. Banks did the dance in front of his boy from Raleigh, John Wall, no less.
[DC Sports Bog]
Even the website of a Lexington, Kentucky NBC television station is covering Banks doing the John Wall dance.
[Lex18.com]
Back on January 16th, the Wizards beat the visiting Sacramento Kings and propelled their record to 13-26. The next day, a Sunday, the team would get a much needed day off before their match-up against the Portland Trailblazers on Martin Luther King Jr. Day Monday.
Caron Butler in particular said he would enjoy having Sunday off because that meant he would be able to watch his “childhood hero,” Brett Favre, play one of his “good friends,” Tony Romo, in the NFL Playoffs.
Butler had trouble choosing who he would root for … although, his “shot out” to Romo (video below) seemed to indicate, in my opinion, that he was pulling for old man Favre. In any case, the Vikings won … surely Caron would have been happy regardless, and Redskins fans were definitely happy.
