Posted on November 5th, 2012
By DERON SNYDER
The early-season excitement, the euphoria surrounding Robert Griffin III is gone. The Washington Redskins‘ fast start and unexpected promise has evaporated. Hope that a change was at hand in Mike Shanahan’s third season at the helm has disappeared.
Slowly but slowly, it has dissipated, like air escaping from a tire’s slow leak.
Or like a wideout working free against Washington’s leaky secondary.
There actually was good news Sunday in the Redskins‘ latest defeat, 21-13 against the visiting Carolina Panthers. Quarterback Cam Newton passed for just 201 yards, the lowest total that Washington has relinquished all season. It also marked the second consecutive week — and just the second week, period — in which the opponents gained fewer than 290 yards through the air.
However, the Redskins continued their trend of being gouged for long pass plays, this time early in the fourth quarter (as opposed to late in the fourth quarter, like the 77-yarder a couple of weeks ago against the New York Giants).
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Posted on November 2nd, 2012
By DERON SNYDER
The NCAA is patting itself on the back after passing a series of sweeping changes that will make cheating costlier for coaches and athletic programs. The threat of season-long suspensions, lengthier postseason bans and heftier fines is supposed to cleanse the underbelly of big-time college sports.
But all this latest reform does is ignore the driving force behind the sordid issues — money. In the process, the NCAA has lost a longtime supporter of its quaint amateurism.
I give up. Count me among the growing chorus of voices who call for demolishing the current structure, not tweaking it.
“As hard as the NCAA tries to push holdouts like me into the ‘pay-for-play’ camp, I’m still not there,” read words in this space last year. ” I still disagree with the notion that student-athletes should be paid.
“Clarification: I continue to believe they’re paid enough, in the form of tuition, room, board, travel, training, gear and health care.”
That was before The Six Major Conferences continued to act like The Six Major Crime Families, engaging in another round of turf battles. That was before Alabama football coach Nick Saban received a raise and extension, taking his average salary to $5.6 million annually through 2019. And that was before Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Taylor Branch’s 14,000-word report in The Atlantic, detailing the NCAA’s despicable nature.
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