deangelo hall

Week 1 Memories: Reviewing the last five Redskins season openers

Posted on by Peter Hailey

Holy [expletive]. Holy [expletive, expletive]. The Redskins’ season opener is just actually, seriously, truly almost here.

Few things in the NFL are better than Week 1, and for Washington, that is especially so: Optimism hangs in the air like a Tress Way punt, and the devastating locker room leaks are still a few months away from leaking.

So to honor what feels like should be a national holiday, let me review for you the Redskins’ last five debuts. This recap will bring back memories both good and bad, but in the end, I want it to give you something you probably don’t need much more of: some excitement.

Because kickoff is now roughly 72 hours away. Read More

Glass completely empty: Imagining the four-worst case scenarios for the 2015 Redskins

Posted on by Peter Hailey

The start of training camp is inching closer with each day, and with each day comes more optimism about the 2015 Redskins’ chances. But while I normally love being optimistic instead of being negative, today I’m going to be pessimistic…like, really pessimistic.

This post will rank what I think are the four worst-case scenarios for the 2015 Washington Redskins. Yes, it’s fun to look at the future with rose-colored glasses and imagine what storylines would be the most fulfilling were they to play out, but in this post here, I’m instead going to ask the question, “What would be the four worst things to happen to the Redskins this season?”

I just turned my laptop on to “glass half empty mode,” so let’s get this pessimistic countdown started. Read More

12 obnoxiously pro-Redskins things you can say on Super Bowl Sunday

Posted on by Peter Hailey

Since the Patriots and the Seahawks will be the center of attention this weekend, and the Redskins haven’t played a game in over a month, you would think that Redskins fans have no right to talk about their team for the next 48 hours or so. Well, I say you’re wrong.

One of the keys to being an obnoxious football fan is knowing where your team has an edge over another team, and while at first glance it doesn’t seem like 4-12 Washington stacks up with the two stellar organizations from New England and Seattle, there are SOME areas where the burgundy and gold actually come out ahead. That’s why I’m here: to tell you where those areas are, so on Super Bowl Sunday you can exploit them. Read More

Reliving the most surreal experience I’ve ever had: The day I got to cover the Washington Redskins

Posted on by Peter Hailey

I usually spend my summers playing pick up basketball with my friends against old men way past their prime, eating copious amounts of fast food late at night, and lying on the couch watching SportsCenter. But last spring, after having my three older siblings preach to me the importance of gaining experience and planning for a career, I realized my days of Xboxing and not contributing much to society would have to come to an end, and I would have to begin looking for internships for the summer. And Comcast SportsNet seemed like a good place to start.

CSN, for those of you who aren’t from the DMV, is the region’s go to network for coverage of all things Skins, Wiz, Nats, Ravens, O’s, and Caps. In other words, CSN was handcrafted by God and could not be a better fit for a kid like me trying to begin a career in sports journalism.

So I turned in my application, exchanged some emails and phone calls, and boom, about a month after applying, I was offered a chance to intern with the CSN Digital Department. Read More

Handing out hardware at the halfway point: 11 Midseason awards being passed out to 11 Redskins players

Posted on by Peter Hailey

The Redskins season is halfway through, and a season’s worth of stuff has already gone down.

The team has been through three QB’s, won a game by 31 and lost a game by 31, lost a bunch of key players to injury, seen a bunch of new faces play a lot of snaps, and overall been ridiculous, even by Redskins standards.

With eight games down and eight to go, it’s time to take a quick timeout (this is a well used timeout, not one used of out panic or confusion like Skins fans are used to) to hand out a bunch of midseason award to various players. Congrats to the winners (well most of them…as you’ll see, not EVERY award is a good one!) Read More

Top 5/Bottom 5: Redskins who I want, and really don’t want, on my side during a zombie apocalypse

Posted on by Peter Hailey

Almost everything I do in life involves sports in some ways. I play them everyday, watch them constantly, and am always thinking about them. When professors assign essays, my first thought is always, “Is there anyway I can involve sports?” I’m not a very well rounded person, I guess…pretty one dimensional. If I were a running back, I’d be like Redskins draft pick Lache Seastrunk: a speedy guy who can do literally nothing else.

Damn it! I used a sports analogy to convey just how much my life revolves around sports. I gotta branch out. Fine. If I were a cake, I’d be a chocolate cake, with gallons of chocolate syrup poured on top.

Man, that cake analogy was right on the money, like a Peyton Manning pass.

Crap. Gotta work on that.

The reason I begin with this information is because, this Sunday, one of the few things that I enjoy that DOESN’T involve sports is starting up again: The Walking Dead. Read More

I think I’m seeing double: Some of DC’s biggest athletes matched up with their uncanny look-a-likes

Posted on by Peter Hailey

As odd as this may sound, I believe that I was born with an innate, god given ability to identify people who look like other people.

Some people are born with extreme athleticism that allows them to dunk in seventh grade. Others are given a brain that can calculate ridiculous equations in no time at all. I got the magical ability to say “that that guy looks kinda like that other guy.” Sure, it’s not great, but today, it comes in handy.

I present to you a DC Lookalike Gallery, featuring some of the area’s biggest names and who they share an uncanny resemblance with. It was a lot of fun to put together.

In the end, I hope that I can use my spectacular abilities to help enrich your knowledge, so one day, when you’re watching the game, you can say, “Hey, don’t ya think that DeAngelo Hall looks a lot like pre-beard James Harden?” And when people are like, “Oh my God you are right,” you’ll feel good. Enjoy and share! Read More

Breaking it down: The Redskins top four signature celebrations and the players who do them

Posted on by Peter Hailey

Aside from the catastrophic, franchise changing injuries, last Sunday against Jacksonville was a lot of fun. It seemed like every play was a good play for the boys in Burgundy and Gold, and it seemed like every good play was followed by an equally good (in some cases, stunning) celebration.

Which got me thinking: what players on this team have the best signature celebrations?  Read More