Once and Future Redskin

I'll take that

The Washington Post identified London Fletcher-Baker and former Redskin Loveboat Freddie Smoot as the top two targets for free agency, and it did come to pass. London came on board yesterday and I read late last night that a deal was finished in the evening for Loveboat Freddie. Length and terms were not disclosed, and I'll update this thread when they are. The piece has been updated this morning and indicates Loveboat Freddie's deal, like London's, is five years 25 million dollars, though it might be structured differently.

Loveboat Freddie is still in his prime and I think this is a good move, if for no other reason than he always has something to say and is therefore good for people that turn out copy, and he will surely give Clinton Portis a run for his money in the self-promotion department. He was no Champ Bailey for the Redskins, but he was also no Carlos Rogers. If he can return to his old form and just split the difference, the Redskins will be much improved at cornerback. If Shawn Springs wants to stay in town, he will have to take a paycut now or else goodbye, you annoy me. No one that fragile should get that much money.

It will be fun to watch Sean Taylor and Loveboat Freddie duke it out over who should wear number 21. My prediction: Loveboat Freddie will take his case to the press but Sean will win because the Redskins press corps is in mortal fear of Sean Taylor, a man one inflamed hangnail from the clock tower.

It was not entirely unpredictable that Loveboat Freddie would come back. He did not leave the Redskins due to dissatisfaction per se, he just wanted to get paid. The Redskins offered him a longterm extension in 2004 with 10.5 million dollars in signing bonus but he rebuffed the team and signed with the Vikings for six years, 34 million dollars with 11 million dollars in signing bonus. The sticking point was not so much the signing bonus as it was the fact that the Vikings contract offered Loveboat Freddie more money in the first three seasons of the deal, which of course he only saw two of. It is worth noting that Champ Bailey's sticking point when he left town in a trade was not the total dollar value of the Redskins offer to him, but rather that the Broncos structured his contract to pay more, sooner. Now that Loveboat Freddie been released he would have no reason not to come back to the Redskins since he knows as much as the next player that Dan Snyder will pay top-dollar for any given player, just as long as that player's not a current Redskin.

Hard to say for sure what happened in Minnesota and I may have to go to one of Curly R's Vikings 5 Questions partners from last season to get the real scoop. On the bye week in 2005 he was allegedly the ringleader of the Loveboat incident (op. cit.), and was charged with a misdemeanor, paid a one thousand dollar fine and was fined a game check by the NFL (82 thousand dollars). That episode wound up getting Mike Tice fired and I am sure Brad Childress had the stinkeye on Loveboat Freddie from the git-go.

In November 2006 his half-brother died in a car accident and the next month Loveboat Freddie had his own car accident, a one-car crash into a guard rail, a Rolls-Royce that I presume was his. He broke his jaw in get this five places. He had already lost his starting job to rookie Cedric Griffin and the 2006 Vikings passing defense finished nine places below Washington in dead last as measured by yards but oddly enough finished fourth in the league when it came to giving up passing touchdowns (where the Redskins finished dead last). With a new+rookie head coach in Brad, the Loveboat scandal hanging around, a promising rookie pushing for playing time and a bunch of personal stuff getting in the way it's hard to know what to think about Loveboat Freddie. Personally I hope it was a rough patch for him and he is ready to come and play.

But that's not entirely the story. Mr. Bleeding Heart Liberal Registered Democrat 2004 Kerry Supporter Anti-war Troop Hater Gay-marriage-loving Socialist Defeatocrat Babykiller Atheist Congressional-oversight-starved Anti-Wall-Street Anti-moral-values Global-warming-hoax-perpetrating Fiscally-responsible Clinton-loving Stem-cell-harvesting Science-believing Corporate-regulation-addicted Illegal-immigrant-loving Big-government Business-unfriendly Tax-and-spend Anti-gun Up-or-down-vote-denying Latte-drinking Volvo-driving Loveboat Freddie Smoot was obviously uncomfortable in Washington back in the days of the rule of the Benevolent Republicans. Now that the Dimmocrat Porty has hoodwinked a shell-shocked nation too busy supporting the troops to engage in clever politcal debate into voting them back into majority, Loveboat Freddie will of course now cleave to the bosom of free love, five-day workweeks and the Mommy Party in Washington. Hopefully Republican backup quarterback Mark Brunell will simply tire of Loveboat Freddie's endless lectures on the virtues of universal health care, affordable higher education and repeal of tax breaks for the wealthiest and just smash Loveboat Freddie's soft teeth down his whiny throat.

Curly R aside: this is a picture of Redskins fans burning a Fred Smoot jersey before the Monday night season opener on September 11 2006. What the fuck were these jerks thinking? Who thought it was a good idea to hang anything on a cross and burn it, much less the effigy of a black man? This is one of the stupidest things I've ever seen at a football game, and I've been to a loooooot of Eagles games.

So now it looks like the Redskins can safely deal or cut Shawn Springs who I am tired of. Carlos Rogers and Loveboat Freddie, it's on you guys.



Take your pick: Once and future Redskins cornerback Fred Smoot easily intercepting a weak and poorly thrown Donovan McNabb pass intended for once and future Redskins receiver James Thrash on October 5 2002: Scott Anderson / South Jersey Courier-Post online here. Or, Once and future Redskins cornerback Fred Smoot makes an impossible play, skying over once and future Redskins receiver James Thrash to intercept a perfectly thrown spiral that surely would have resulted in a touchdown on October 5 2002: Scott Anderson / South Jersey Courier-Post online here.

Fred Smoot Vikings jersey burning on a cross before the 9.11.2006 Redskins season opener versus the Vikings from here.