House of Snyder continues to go up in flames

Landover, Md.

One good thing about the Washington Redskins burning down to cinders. It has exposed for good the incompetence as an NFL franchise owner of Daniel Snyder, if somewhere there remained a sliver of doubt.

A nation of football fans Monday night saw for themselves, in stupefied degrees, the smoking heap that was further trashed, 27-17, by the Philadelphia Eagles at FedEx Field.

Incongruously, financial reports constantly tell us Snyder's burgundy and gold jalopy remains on the balance sheets one of the most valuable franchises in sports.

By that measure, this unwatchable, meagerly talented team - the children of Snyder's decade of bad drafting, excessively expensive, poorly constructed rosters and rudderless leadership - deliver a staggeringly lean return to those emotionally invested.

That is simply on Snyder, every smoldering ash.

Not Vinny Cerrato, Snyder's yammering yes-man in player personnel.

Not emasculated head coach Jim Zorn, Snyder's inexplicable surprise hire nearly two years ago, whose authority Snyder has recently removed slash by public slash.

And especially not Sherman Lewis, lured from a five-year NFL retirement first to "consult" on Zorn's offense, but who Monday made every call from a playbook he saw for the first time three weeks ago.

Seriously, who runs a sports team this way? Who lets the chaos escalate, right under his nose, to where pity or disgust is the reflexive reaction? Who besides Oakland's Al Davis and maybe one or two others can't keep from repeatedly mismanaging their organizations into a punch line?

This stink-out-loud, 2-5 season - which at this point holds one, maybe two, more wins tops - has made it obvious Snyder deserves every barb and brick-bat hurled his way.

It was a convenient joke this week to have fun with Lewis' recent history as a Bingo caller in Michigan, but that's unfair to a guy who was trusted by among others the late coaching legend Bill Walsh.

All Lewis did was take a job that was offered by Snyder in his barely veiled effort to humiliate Zorn into quitting.

Monday's natural emphasis, then, was on Lewis' debut as the voice on high while Zorn stood relatively mute on the sidelines. Zorn said, "I stuck my nose in at times. It was difficult for me to stand and watch. The hard part is to keep your mouth shut."

It wasn't long, however, before Lewis' play-calling was the side story to the repeated blunderings of Snyder's players.

That is, the names and numbers haven't changed. It's why you, me or any of those Hog-boys who can't give up the housedresses and pig snouts could've called Monday's plays to similar comical results.

Just in the first half alone, which ended with the Eagles ahead 27-10, quarterback Jason Campbell dropped a snap on third down of Washington's first series. He overthrew and under-threw Chris Cooley on consecutive passes on the second series.

On the third, blitzing safety Quintin Mikell batted Campbell's pass to linebacker Will Witherspoon, who took it nine yards for a touchdown, the first of Washington's four turnovers.

Again, though, Campbell's protection was typically laughable; he was sacked six times and hit on countless other attempts.

Elsewhere, Antwaan Randle El lost a punt that doinked off his facemask. Nobody could catch Philly's DeSean Jackson when he took the game's fourth play 67 yards for a score on an end around. And near the end, with the Redskins at 4th and goal, center Casey Rabach actually snapped the ball off of his own leg.

You can't get these misadventures just anywhere in the NFL, people.

After Monday, a nation of fans knows beyond question where there's a limitless supply. Dan Snyder's Place, at the corner of Failure and Folly.

Tom Robinson (757) 446-22518, tom.robinson@pilotonline.com