The New John Wall Dance

I've seen this video of John Wall spontaneously dancing at the NBA rookie photo shoot on a couple other other blogs, but not with the importance of the episode truly appreciated:

I've watched the video several times in the most creepy way possible, and I think John Wall might just have a new dance. That thing he does with the hand behind the head, a la Deion Sanders, with the other hand waving in front of his face, a la Deshawn Stevenson, just might be the new John Wall Dance.

He already has his own shoe, shot, and dance, but just when it seemed John Wall had it all, he done did it again with those fresh moves. My friend's girlfriend also said he's a good dancer, so he's that going for himself too.....

John Wall: Uniting DC Sports

For those of you who missed the 42-17 demolition of the hapless Bills in the Skins season opener, there was 1 beautiful moment in the game, that just got me excited for the season...........................the Wizards season (Sports Bog beat me to this).

After Fred Davis caught a a 2nd quarter TD pass from Sexy Rexy, he proceeded to do his usual endzone dance:

I said to all my friends watching, "How awesome would it be if he'd done the John Wall dance instead?" My friends all laughed hysterically at my tremendous question, but little did we know that this was not such a crazy idea. For when rookie WR Brandon Banks took a punt 77 yards to a land that will be entered frequently (the Bills' endzone), he may have won the job as our punt returner, in addition to my heart:

John Wall was in the house for this, and as the Sports Bog points out, and John Wall tweeted, Banks and Wall are boys from growing up in Raleigh.

The other best part of the game was Doc Walker referring to Rex Grossman as "Sexy Rexy" on more than 1 occasion. I can't find video, but trust me, it happened, and if his producers have a stick up their ass, we may not get to witness that glory again.

Let's just hope these aren't the best Skins highlights of the year.

Wale - The Black & Gold, Complete With D.C. Shoutouts Aplenty

Can you spot 'em? I'm going on record saying this song is dope.

What Fat Albert Felt Like Today

The most hated athlete in DC (stop smiling Agent Zero) has failed at everything this offseason (other than picking up a fat $21 million bonus check). First, he tried to get traded and failed, then lost the respect of his teammates, and now, in his first day in training camp, failed his conditioning test. The details are murky, but it sounds like Shanahan was out to get him a little bit. According to Jason Reid, not-as-Fat Albert showed off his offseason weight loss and "killed it" in the first portion, but then look a bathroom break and then Shanahan made him do 1 more sprint, and Fat Albert failed. By bathroom break, I am pretty sure that means Fat Albert ran straight to the throne and puked.

Most reports say he had to run 3-300 yard sprints, but Reid's report refers to 3 'phases' and states that Fat Albert left for the bathroom midway through the 2nd phase, which makes the test sound like more than just 3 identical sprints. Does this mean Fat Albert ran 1 good '300', then was doing well on the 2nd but had to stop and puke, so Shanahan made him run a 3rd? If so, Shanahan sounds like a generous man offering him the opportunity for a 3rd sprint. The other reports seem to indicate that Fat Albert ran 2 great '300s', then immediately puked, and Shanahan somehow made up a ridiculous reason after the fact to make Fat Albert run a 3rd that was not part of the original test. So many questions! Only a few guys on the field know what really went down, but I did dig find this exclusive footage of Fat Albert's experience:

The bright side, in addition to the existence of that video, is that Fat Albert is in better shape than last year, and will soon pass the test and be back practicing as usual. Who knows when he will get back into the starting defense, but baby steps everyone......

D.J. King Will Break His Hand While Breaking Your Face

The newest Capital, D.J. King, is no small cookie. At 6'2" and 221 pounds he's around Alex Ovechkin's size, but instead of scoring highlight-reel goals and pissing off jealous Pittsburgh scrubs and getting with stone cold foxes on boats in Europe, he lets his fists do the talking. Gotta applaud him for that.

He even broke his hand beating the snot out of Krys Barch last season. Dedication to your craft. Toughness in the heat of battle. Bad-freaking-ass.



While I'll miss the somewhat unrealistic hope for a guy like Stefan Della Rovere to become a leader and pest on the Capitals in the near future, he was never gonna be the guy to lay down the law at the NHL level this year when need be. King can be that guy.

I was skeptical at first, but what the hell - he's already off to a good start in my book.

When told what Pittsburgh's Max Talbot had to say about Alex Ovechkin yesterday, King shot back, "Wow. I guess that's not going to be happening too much longer, I guess."

Having your teammate's - and captain's - back AND pissing off fans of a hated rival within hours of joining the team? Sign me up.

DCLS is Always Right - Especially about Strasburg

About a month ago I posted on Stephen Strasburg's current trade value after 4 games in the big leagues. For sake of simplicity, I decided to not factor in team need or player contract, but Fangraphs has used their fancy stats and gone ahead and created a great trade value column taking into account player contract. So what changed from my very-arbitrary list? Not much.

The top-4, in order, are Evan Longoria, Jason Heyward, Strasburg, Hanley Ramirez. Well, whaddya know? Exactly the same as I had them. This is actually not surprising when you consider the fact that younger players are more valuable than older players (aside from Pujols, no one was over 26 on my list of players to consider), and also that young players generally have better contracts than older players in baseball. Therefore, adding contract in the the equation should not change my list very much.

The better question may be how has Strasburg's performance over the past month changed his ranking on my list. As Fangraphs states,

"This may be as high as any pitcher will ever rank on this list. Strasburg has been nothing short of sensational so far in the big leagues, posting a ridiculous 2.11 xFIP in his first eight starts. His stuff is better than anyone in baseball, and it’s hard to see hitters figuring him out as long as he keeps throwing this hard. Oh, and the Nationals control his rights through 2016. He won’t make any serious money for another three years, so for now, the Nationals get one of the game’s best pitchers at about 5 percent of his market value. But, as with any pitcher, the risks are significant. The superlatives could all disappear with one pitch, as it has for so many phenoms before him. Pitcher attrition would keep other teams from giving up the kitchen sink to get Strasburg, but as good as he is, the refrigerator is probably on the table."

I think it is safe to say at this point that only thing holding back Strasburg from being the #1 guy are the injury concerns that go with being a pitcher . There is no issue with him facing good lineups or the league facing him a 2nd time, he might already be the best pitcher in baseball, and isn't about to dropoff anytime soon. Revisiting my list, with or without contracts, I can only come up with the same list as that from Fangraphs, so have only moved Strasburg up one spot past Hanley Ramirez; I still have to rank Longoria and Heyward ahead of Pitching Jesus.

(Image courtesy of examiner.com)

John Wall: Will You Marry Me?

I'll try not to get too carried away, but John Wall is off and running after carrying the Wizards to a 4-0 record in summer league (he sat for the 5th game that we lost) and being named the Most Outstanding Player in the Vegas Summer League Tournament. Wall got it done statistically, with his 23.5 ppg and 7.8 apg leading the league, in the W column with a perfect record, and most importantly in the leadership and maturity category. While a lot of you might be excited that he won an ESPY for best male collegiate athlete (despite not even being the best in his own sport......sorry, Evan Turner was better), you may not know that Wall skipped the ESPYs to practice. In Wall's words,

"Basically I don't want to miss practice or anything like that, feel like I'm bigger than anybody," Wall said Wednesday afternoon. "The ESPYs were a great chance, I would love to be there, but there's more time down the future to get there. Right now I'm a rookie, so I need to be with my teammates, trying to get better every chance that I can. If I would have left, then they maybe would have looked where I was or I asked where I was. It wouldn't have been the right place and the right situation. So I told the ESPN people thanks for the nominations, and thank God, but I had this and this is more important. This is my job. That comes secondary to what I'm trying to do."

Wall clearly knows his role as a leader and his #1 priority is becoming the most valuable player he can be. I am not sure man-crush goes far enough to describe how I feel about this. Marry my sister? Marry me? I mean seriously, it's summer league practice! What 19-year old passes up parties, beautiful women, and fun for a morning summer league practice?!? The last face of Reebok clearly would have made the ESPYs.

Seriously! Not a game, we talkin' about practice. Maybe you can blame the scheduling, but Wall's maturity was echoed throughout the games; he just isn't wired the same way as other guys. As Bullets Forever noticed, in the 2nd game of the summer league, Wall scolded Javale McGee after a nice fadeaway jump hook because the Veil of Cashmere didn't throw down a dunk on Wall's initial lob, and later gave Young Sushi no love for hitting dumb 3-pointer. You would think that 3 years in the league would give McGee and Young Sushi a huge maturity edge over the 19-year old, but Wall is the one who 'gets it'. He is already the best player in the Vegas Summer League, but knows he has a lot to learn, recognizing that he expects more from himself. Not only does he continue to emphasize a need to improve and learn in every interview, but he is showing a high basketball IQ, and strong leadership qualities.

I know, he had a lot of turnovers, a 4-19 game, and Marco Bellinelli torched summer league, but Wall is going to be great. I never had concerns about his upside, but seeing and hearing how he is wired is something special. Kobe and MJ have a competitive drive and view towards basketball that is different from other players and that is why they are both so great. I am not sure that Wall has the competitive at all costs mentality of those two, but he clearly is wired in a way that makes him more likely to reach his potential than almost any other player in the NBA. I knew we had something special on our hands when we won the lottery, but didn't realize how special.

(Image courtesy of 3.bp.blogspot.com)

Charles Barkley Joins Redskins Nation

Legitimate fanship or just Charles being Charles? Who cares; anything to piss off Eagles fans.



(H/T Hogs Haven)

Capitals Development Camp Fights

Posted this on SBNation DC, but good things come in pairs, right? Right. Or, I'm just lazy.

Okay, so neither are Stephen Davis v. Brian Westbrook or even Tracy Murray vs. Rod Strickland. It's hockey. Fights are (relatively) commonplace, even during development camp.

But let's take two quick looks at what's "okay" and what's "Not okay. At all. EVER."

Okay: two tough guys dropping the gloves, getting their squads fired up, and proving their worth to the coaching staff:



Not okay. At all. EVER: Braden Holtby allowing a goal and then slashing 2010 first round pick Evgeny Kuznetsov in the back of the ankle.



Frequent Japers' Rink commenter Fehr & Balanced put it best:

Whatever Kuznetsov said it was totally inappropriate for Holtby to react like that. He’s one of the guys that knows exactly where he will be playing next year no matter how this week goes. The contact before that wasn’t bad and it looked like he was just frustrated. Not cool.

(HT: Japers for both videos).

Spilling Snyder's Kool-Aid - Skins Worst Young Team in NFL

I have been in a state of confusion since Matt Capps was the winning pitcher in an All-Star game, and the NL won the midsummer classic despite their horribly chosen roster (just wait 2 years from now when you'll see that and say 'Matt Capps was an All-Star?'). Then Football Outsiders came and threw a nice glass of ice water in my my face with their article on ESPN.com ranking all NFL teams in terms of their under-25 year old talent. For those of you without Insider Access, well firstly you should get it, but I probably don't have to tell you that the Redskins finished dead last at #32.....shocker.... In Bill Barnwell's words,

"Bruce Allen and Mike Shanahan have inherited a wasteland from Vinny Cerrato, who used his draft picks to acquire "has-beens" and "never-weres." As a result, the Redskins only have four "young" starters, and two of them (wideout Devin Thomas and safety LaRon Landry) have been professional flops. Outside linebacker Brian Orakpo was extremely effective last year, and rookie tackle Trent Williams should start on the left side from Day One. The only notable young players behind them are tight end Fred Davis and backup linebacker H.B. Blades."

But we got Orakpo still right? The good news is that FO also released their list of top-25 prospects, which only ranks players that meet the following criteria:
• Be in the second, third or fourth year of their pro career
• Have been drafted in Rounds 3 to 7 or signed as an undrafted free agent
• Have started fewer than five career games in the NFL
• Still on their rookie contract

Sure enough, Justin Tryon is #5, as in the 5th best 'prospect', wow. In FO's words,

"...While DeAngelo Hall allows countless completions and LaRon Landry overruns play after play, the team unearthed a bona fide starting corner in the fourth round of the 2008 draft. Tryon only started two games during his second year in the league, but he played like he belonged in the Millionaires' Club. According to the Football Outsiders game charting project, Tryon allowed 5.8 adjusted yards per attempt, nearly a half-yard better than any other Redskins corner. Despite spending time in the slot, Tryon didn't allow receivers to get open deep; passes at him were only thrown an average of 7.8 yards away from the line of scrimmage, the lowest figure -- by far -- among Redskins corners. He took Fred Smoot's job away during the year, and while he has to beat out Phillip Buchanon for the nickel job in camp (spoiler: he will), he may have Carlos Rogers' starting job in his back pocket by the end of the season."

Too bad Tryon is 26 and doesn't count in FO's team rankings....That said, I am not sure how much stock to put into current under-25 talent as a predictor of future success. The clearest example is the San Diego Chargers, who are considered to have an extremely desirable roster (particularly by FO's metrics), but come in at #31 in this list thanks to trading away a few recent draft picks. I think the problem is that we are drawing an arbitrary line at age 25, and overlooking the roster turnover in the NFL. The NY Jets are another team that seems to be building for sustained success, but they only came in at #23, partly because Nick Mangold and D'Brickashaw Ferguson just miss the age cutoff in this relatively absurd exercise. The article is simply titled 'Organizational Rankings', which makes this list appear to be something much more significant than it is, and another reason to hate the piece despite my love of FO.

The bottom line is that I don't need some metrics to tell me that the Skins suck, I know we suck and need to do some serious building (not rebuilding, because Snyderrato never built anything). Having the Redskins at the bottom of the 'Organizational Rankings' is no surprise and I know our lack of young talent is a major issue, but showing me that the Skins suck is easy, there are millions of ways to do that.

(Image courtesy of realredskins.com)