Weekly Rundown: Campbell, Vitale, Zaun

Weekly Rundown is a combination of links and brief comments on stories and topics that I couldn't get to during the week. If there's something important that I missed, don't hesitate to send an email or leave a comment.

• The Redskins improved their defense by adding Albert Haynesworth and Brian Orakpo, but the offensive line is a legitimate concern. [Shutdown Corner]


• Jason Campbell is working hard and trying to be a team leader. [Pro Football Talk]


• According to John Feinstein, Tony Kornheiser is a diva when it comes to parking:
  

  
  Last February on a Saturday morning I’d just finished working out when my phone rang. It was my pal Sally Jenkins. She was in town and she and Tony wanted to go to that day’s Maryland game to, “show Gary support.” No doubt the two of them walking in would mean the end of any further controversy involving Coach Gary Williams.
  
  “Why don’t you go with us?” she said.
  
  “I’m going to another game,” I said.
  
  There was a pause. “Can we have your parking pass?”
  
  The real reason for the call. “Sure you can,” I said. “But it isn’t on the loading dock (right next to the back door) where Tony likes to park. You’ll have to walk about 50 yards.” (Since I rarely go to Maryland games these days the only time I’d ask Gary for a spot on the loading dock would be if I HAD to go and it was snowing or freezing cold).
  
  Sally called back soon after to say they didn’t need the pass. Tony had called Gary a few hours before tipoff and Gary had gotten him onto the loading dock. [Feinstein on the Brink]
  



• T.O.'s reality show isn't really doing that well. [FanHouse]


• Delonte West almost makes JaVale McGee look normal. [Ball Don't Lie]


• The Nets are expecting Jarvis Hayes to take on a larger role next season. Good luck with that. [Nets Daily]


• Although I do agree with Gene Wojciechowski, the best way to leave Bartman alone is to stop writing about him. [ESPN]


• Maryland fails to make Dick Vitale's preseason top 40, but Duke, of course, is in his top five. [ESPN]


• Chris Mortensen offers this interesting nugget on some Minnesota Vikings players:
  

  
  As for the lovable and crazy Jared Allen, he has formed a Yahtzee league with linebackers Chad Greenway and Heath Farwell, among others. "You gotta kill some time," Allen said. "We thought about all the old games like Clue and Monopoly, but Yahtzee won out."
  

  
  As long as they're not playing on a boat, I think that's just fine. [ESPN]


• The Mottrams take down the Cooleys in a throw-off. [Mr. Irrelevant]


• Melvin Mora, Aubrey Huff, and Danys Baez have all cleared waivers. Still, I'd be surprised if they went anywhere. [Baltimore Sun]


• Jason Whitlock wrote about Jeff George -- again. [Jason Whitlock]


• Finally, Tampa Bay Rays catchers have been so bad that even Gregg Zaun offers a significant improvement at the position. [FanGraphs]

Weekly Rundown: Zorn, Marbury, Corso

Weekly Rundown is a combination of links and brief comments on stories and topics that I couldn't get to during the week. If there's something important that I missed, don't hesitate to send an email or leave a comment.

(Quick note: This post is a day late, so I'm going to include some links from today. Anyway, I should have mentioned this before, but I've been pretty busy lately, and I probably won't be able to post as often in the next few weeks. But I'll still try to get as many posts up as I can. To those of you who do so, thanks for reading.)

• It's pretty funny to mention this now, especially after what happened yesterday, but Melvin Mora, last week, said that he wanted "to be an Oriole forever." [Baltimore Sun]


• Tony Kornheiser is planning a return to radio. [D.C. Sports Bog]


• Apparently the Redskins offensive line is one of the worst in the league. [FanHouse]


• Howard Bryant wrote a long, interesting piece about Billy Beane and Moneyball, but I'm still not sure exactly what point he was trying to make. Is Beane a bad GM? Is he too concerned with things outside of baseball? I don't think either of those things is true. [ESPN]


• Jim Zorn being Jim Zorn at Redskins training camp:
  

  
  "Here's what I did, I wanted to kind of cut down on all of the colors. We had an excellent color scheme last year, ok? I wanted to become more boring, and use our burgundy as the featured color. Because we had light gray, dark gray, black, smokey gray. We had dark burgundy, we had red. We had all kinds of colors. And then we had bellbottom sweats, where guys were taping around [their ankles]. You guys remember that? White tape around everybody's ankles? We looked like bike riders trying to keep their pants from getting greasy.
  
  So what I did is I got together with Brad Berlin, our equipment manager, and we kind of created just a cutdown on colors and styles of what we wanted the team to look like."
  

  
  Don't ever change, Zorn. [D.C. Sports Bog]


• J.A. Adande weighs in on the confusing and odd Stephon Marbury situation. [ESPN]


• Posnanski on advanced fielding statistics: "They’re not as good as they could be or will be ... I think everyone would agree about that. But they try (and often succeed) and taking an objective look at how effective a player performs defensively. Those numbers say [Yuniesky Betancourt] is a disaster at shortstop. Flawed numbers or not, I would tend to believe those over my lyin’ eyes." [Joe Posnanski]


• Brendan Haywood is better than you think he is. [Truth About It]


• Check out this crazy catch by the Pirates' Delwyn Young last week that the umpires (understandably) missed. [FanHouse]


• Rob Neyer is a fan of the George Sherrill trade:
  

  
  I'm not going to criticize the Dodgers for trading Josh Bell. Who knows? Maybe Casey Blake will live forever.
  What I will do is send up a big hip-hip-hooray for the Orioles, because the single best thing any rebuilding manager can do, ever, is trade a relief pitcher in late July for a couple of solid prospects.
  
  Let me repeat for anyone not paying attention: a relief pitcher.
  
  Relief pitchers are, well, I would say that they're "fungible" except that word always makes me think of a massively fun and rigid airship. Instead I'll say that a relief pitcher, purely in terms of value, is not worth two solid prospects.
  
  Bell and Johnson are solid. Bell opened the season as the Dodgers' eighth-best prospect, and has done nothing this season to damage his credentials -- he's got mid-range power and a .364 career on-base percentage. Johnson is 21, almost 22, certainly throws hard enough (90-93) and has struck out nearly a batter per inning in his five minor-league seasons.
  
  If I were an Orioles fan, I would be organizing a party right now.
  

  
  Oh, and I'm also a fan of the trade. [SweetSpot]


• Mike Williams has lost more than 100 pounds in eight months. Next step: Play better in training camp. [Redskins Insider]


• Speaking of losing weight, Ralph Friedgen has lost 95 pounds. [FanHouse]


• Could a quarterback controversy be coming for the Redskins? [Hogs Haven]


• Is PFT's Mike Florio at it again? [Mr. Irrelevant]


• Lee Corso is on the comeback trail, and I wish him the best of luck. [Awful Announcing]

Weekly Rundown: Kornheiser, Brandon Snyder, John Wall

Weekly Rundown is a combination of links and brief comments on stories and topics that I couldn't get to during the week. If there's something important that I missed, don't hesitate to send an email or leave a comment.

• Jon Gruden is taking Tony Kornheiser's spot on Monday Night Football, which is probably a good thing. Funny guys don't really work in the booth, especially if they don't know that much about football to begin with. Though, to be honest, it's really not surprising that once ESPN stopped bringing in random celebrities to interview during the game and had the announcing trio focus, for the most part, on the game, that the product improved immensely. Anyway, if you think the decision to leave was solely Kornheiser's, you're crazy. The Washington Post's Leonard Sharpiro offers his thoughts on the whole thing. [ESPN]


• If Brandon Snyder keeps hitting like he is, the Orioles won't have a problem finding room for him. [Baltimore Sun]


• World Series and ALCS games will start about 40 minutes earlier this year, so, hey, that's cool. [ESPN]


• Consensus No. 1 prospect John Wall has decided to play for John Calipari at Kentucky. Though Wall will only stay for one season, it's official: Kentucky is loaded. [Rivals]


• Think the Washington Redskins should change their team name? Michael Silver agrees with you. [Yahoo! Sports]


• The Orioles aren't the only team that makes horrible baserunning mistakes; the Mets do it too. [Big League Stew]


• Send Phil Hughes to the bullpen? Not a bad idea. [SweetSpot]


• The Nationals have had a strange season both on and off the field, and now there's this: exploding hot dog buns:
  

  
  "It's just funny to watch hot dog rolls explode and come down on people," agreed James Timmermeyer, one of several fans to comment in this space about the malfunction of Nick's Sausage Shooter during Saturday's matinee, just a few hours before the tarp failed to deploy. "I would actually like to see that again. I'd want it to go awry every time."
  
  The Nats declined to comment on any sausage failure, so I'll go by some first-person accounts. Screech came out on a Segway, as he always does for this promotion, and set up shop down the right-field line. (The sausage shooter is used irregularly, but is a season-long promotion that has occurred before and is scheduled to occur again.) This time, though, hot dogs (wrapped in bun, foil and t-shirt, along with a flyer) weren't soaring into the stands with the majesty of a Roethlisberger bomb. This was the Danny Wuerffel version.
  
  "Every time you would see one fire, you would almost see shotgun pellets of stuff come out of it, stuff would explode everywhere," said Alex Zeese, who was sitting in 222. "You would see bits of hot dog bun lying in the field. A guy in front of me caught one, he opens it up, the whole thing was just crushed, and the sausage casing was pretty much the only thing left. It had been torn down the center, all you saw was little bits of meat stuck to the casing. It was basically gutted. I don't think anyone would eat that. I'm just glad there was no mustard in that stuff."
  
  There was at least one report of a sausage flying into the Phillies bullpen, to great amusement of the residents. One commenter said the grounds crew had to retrieve pieces of bun from the field, and that Garrett Mock was showered with the stuff. That's unconfirmed, but it would certainly fit in with the other reports.
  

  
  Long quote, I know, but it's hilarious nonetheless. What's next, Nationals? Spelling a former president's name wrong on a bobblehead? Apparently, yes. [D.C. Sports Bog]


• This just in: Nick Markakis is really good -- and humble, too. [Washington Post]

Quick NFL notes

- Redskins DE Jason Taylor will miss next Sunday's game against the Cowboys. His streak of 133 consecutive games played will come to an end.

- Eagles RB Brian Westbrook is day-to-day with a right ankle strain. He will probably be questionable for the team's Sunday night game against the Bears.

- The Browns plan to give backup QB Brady Quinn more reps in practice this week. As the Browns continue to struggle, don't be surprised if he takes over for starter Derek Anderson at some point in the near future.

- Ravens safety Dawan Landry appears to be doing well after being carted off the field yesterday against the Browns.

- Lions QB Jon Kitna sprained his knee against the 49ers. Lions fans don't appear to care too much.

- The Detroit Lions, St. Louis Rams, Cincinnati Bengals, Cleveland Browns, and Kansas City Chiefs are all 0-3. The Houston Texans are 0-2, and if the San Diego Chargers lose tonight against the New York Jets, they would also be 0-3. Very interesting start to the season.

- If the Patriots play anymore games like they did against the Miami Dolphins, pay attention to how Randy Moss acts as the season rolls along and frustration mounts.

- Finally, this isn't any NFL news, but here is a gem from DJ Gallo's Week 3 article for ESPN.

9. There's an NFLshop.com commercial that shows someone's den decked out in Pittsburgh Steelers paraphernalia from floor to ceiling. The camera pans the room, then finally pauses on a traditional lamp with the text: "What's with the lamp?" The commercial is a bit of a cheap shot. Do you want to know what happened to the lamp, NFL Shop? Do you? The Steelers' offensive line was house-sitting for a fan and was asked to protect that lamp. Despite their best efforts, a whole wave of burglars broke in and stole it the second the owner left. But I'm glad you find robbery and home invasion so funny, NFL.

Good stuff there. Enjoy Monday Night Football and Tony Kornheiser hyperventilating over the presence of Brett Favre.