Joe Theismann, after appearing to know too much, now says he knows nothing.
The former star quarterback for Washington — and current Ring of Honor member of the NFL franchise — sounded awfully confident in a radio interview Monday that the new name of the team would be the Washington Commanders.
A few hours later, when his inadvertent announcement was going viral, he stated he did not know what the name would be.
It is unclear whether Theismann was confirming a tweet that suggested the Washington Football Team would be named the Commanders or whether he was assuming the viral tweet was correct.
Last week, Twitter user @LarryLegendBTW discovered that domain of “Commanders.com” had been transferred to MarkMonitor, a company that protects corporate brands from hackers. Some NFL teams use the company, and so Larry Legend made the leap that WFT could have settled on the Commanders. An announcement about the team name is expected Wednesday.
Joe Theismann appeared to spill the beans about the Washington Football Team’s new name.Diamond Images/Getty Images
In an interview with CBS Sports Radio, Theismann made it sound as if the name change was finalized.
“I think the Commanders is a name that is going to be one that hopefully people like going forward,” Theismann told Damon Amendolara. “There were so many different options, but once again it’s trademark infringement — it’s getting approval from different people. If you choose a name, is there a group out there that isn’t going to like it?
“… A lot of commanders in Washington D.C. and the Pentagon, and a lot of different branches of the service. So to me, that’s the way I’m looking at it, as positions of leadership when it comes to the new name.”
As the internet picked up upon Theismann’s comments, he reached out to the Washington Times.
“Not completely sure what the new name [is],” wrote the former quarterback, who has worked with WFT as an analyst. “No one has told me. Like you I’ll find out on Wednesday.”
Tragedy has struck near the Washington Football Team for the second time in a week.
Anthony Sweat, the older brother of defensive end Montez Sweat, was shot and killed at an apartment complex in Henrico, Virginia, a suburb of Richmond, police confirmed. He was 27 years old.
A witness told CBS6 that he saw two men fleeing the scene. The witness, who was anonymous, said he tried to grip Anthony Sweat’s hand in wake of the shooting, but it was already too late.
The Sweats’ mother died earlier this year.
The brother of Washington Football Team star Montez Sweat was killed.Getty Images
Last week, defensive back and special teams player Deshazor Everett was the driver in a single-car collision in which his passenger, 29-year-old Olivia Peters, died as a result of her injuries. An investigation into the crash is ongoing.
“It is rough and our thoughts and prayers are with the families,” Washington coach Ron Rivera said Wednesday, according to ESPN. “When we’re here in the facility, we try to make sure the players understand that we’re here for them.”
Terry McLaurin, a wide receiver on the team, also spoke about the franchise’s difficult season.
“It’s definitely been challenging for us all,” McLaurin said. “You don’t know what people are going through on a personal level outside this building. We’re all human and we’re all going through things much bigger than football.”
Emotions got the best of two WFT players that came to blows during Sunday night’s 56-14 blowout loss to the Cowboys.
Defensive linemen Jonathan Allen and Daron Payne had to be separated by fellow teammates after Allen threw at punch Payne on the bench during the second quarter.
The two, who were also college teammates at Alabama, were captured on NBC cameras in a heated exchange before Payne appeared to poke his finger at Allen’s head.
“I don’t think it takes a rocket scientist,” said Allen, a team captain, about what sparked the scuffle.
“If you look at how that game went, emotions are high, things are high, things happen.”
The sideline altercation took place after a 75-yard touchdown drive by Dallas, early in the second quarter. It was Dallas’ third consecutive touchdown drive.
Things did not escalate after Allen and Payne were separated. Both players continued the game on the next series.
After the loss, Payne said the drama was “just a little brotherly disagreement; maybe the wrong place, wrong time, but it happened… S–t happens.”
Jonathan Allen and Daron Payne have a sideline altercation.Twitter
Allen also downplayed the incident, telling reporters, “Brothers fight.”
“When something happens on the field, you never let it carry into the locker room,” he said. “Things get heated, we fix them, we sit down as grown men and we move on.”
Washington head coach Ron Rivera said he didn’t hear about the drama until after the game.
Jonathan Allen and Daron Payne have a sideline altercation.Twitter
“I’ve talked to both of them,” Rivera said, adding that those conversations are “nobody’s business.”
Allen had expressed his frustration over the team’s poor play in a loss to the Eagles just last week.
The Cowboys celebrate one of their eight touchdowns.Getty Images
“We got our ass kicked… I don’t think we did anything well when you give up however many yards we did on the ground. They were just the better team,” Allen said after the loss to Philadelphia on Tuesday night. “In the NFL, you get paid to handle adversity. It is what it is. We can bitch and moan about COVID. Nobody cares. It really doesn’t matter. If we do our job, we win the game today. We didn’t do our job and we got embarrassed.”
And they did so again against another NFC East rival in Dallas. Washington (6-9) has now lost three straight games and will play host to the Eagles next Sunday.
PHILADELPHIA (WPVI) — Philadelphia Eagles head coach Nick Sirianni has tested positive for COVID-19, the team announced Wednesday.
According to the Eagles, Sirianni was feeling symptomatic and tested positive earlier in the day.
“Coach Sirianni will conduct his responsibilities remotely and remains hopeful to return by Sunday,” the team said.
This news comes one day after the Eagles beat Washington at the Linc, in a game that had been postponed several days because of a COVID outbreak on the Washington Football Team.
“I wasn’t feeling great this morning when I woke up and just got tested, and obviously we are where we are right now,” Sirianni said at a news conference. “The rest of the week I’ll be in every meeting, obviously virtually.”
Washington took the field with a quarterback who signed four days earlier and was missing a handful of starters because of the coronavirus outbreak.
But now the question is: if Sirianni has COVID, will others within the organization test positive for it as well?
Dr. Delana Wardlaw with Temple Health says that wouldn’t be a surprise.
“There’s a good likelihood that the other players have been exposed, particularly if they weren’t wearing masks, depending on vaccination status,” said Wardlaw.
She also says outbreaks in the NFL and any contact sport are inevitable.
“It’s almost impossible to protect everyone from contacting COVID. So, the best defense here is we do want to mask. We do want to make sure we’re testing so we can identify those who have a positive test. But again, the most effective thing that we can do is vaccination,” added Wardlaw.
It is still unclear what players will be available on Sunday for the Eagles’ next game against the New York Giants.
Jon Gruden’s inflammatory emails, in which he used derogatory and racially insensitive language that led to him resigning as head coach from the Raiders, were part of an investigation of the Washington Football Team by the NFL. The league seized over 650,000 emails, according to several reports.
It’s possible that there are damaging things for a lot of people in those emails, but one interesting tidbit was revealed in a June court filing that led to the revelation of Gruden’s words. In July 2011 during the NFL lockout, ESPN insider Adam Schefter sent an email of an unpublished story to then-Washington GM Bruce Allen, asking for feedback.
“Please let me know if you see anything that should be added, changed, tweaked,” Schefter wrote to Allen, according to the Los Angeles Times. “Thanks, Mr. Editor, for that and the trust. Plan to file this to espn about 6 am ….”
Per the LA Times, the court filing was part of Washington owner Dan Snyder’s defamation lawsuit in India, in which he was trying to compel Allen to produce information.
ESPN shared a statement in response to the discovery.
Adam Schefter and Jon GrudenGetty Images
“Without sharing all the specifics of the reporter’s process for a story from 10 years ago during the NFL lockout, we believe that nothing is more important to Adam and ESPN than providing fans the most accurate, fair and complete story,” the statement read.
Schefter is arguably the top insider in all of NFL media, and consistently breaks the top stories in the league. It’s not particularly surprising to hear he has a relationship with important league figures – but the extent of that relationship may come as a surprise, especially with a league figure who has been under immense fire.
Allen was the person Gruden shared his derogatory remarks with, in which he used the words “p–sy,” “fa—t” and “queers” to describe league figures and shared topless photos of Washington cheerleaders, among other offenses.
It is a fundamental line of the team’s secular scripture, the “John 3:16” or “Luke 6:31” of all things written and believed about the very nature of the New York Football Giants: A season does not end at 0-2. It matters not how awful you look at 0-2, either. There is lots of football beyond 0-2. The proof is in the good book.
In this case, that would be the record book. In this case, as ever, it is about the 2007 season, which began about as dreadfully as a season can begin: a 45-35 schooling by the Cowboys in Dallas in Week 1, followed by a grisly 35-13 slaughter administered by the Packers in the home opener in Week 2.
And ended with a parade.
That, forever — or at least for 14 years — has been the Golden Rule, one of the basic pillars of Giants patience. Another is the fact that in three of the four years when the Giants won the Super Bowl, they began the season 0-1. It is a safeguard against panic, against the Overlords of Overreaction. See? We have evidence that a season isn’t over at 0-1.
Or even at 0-2.
We have proof. It is a quartet of beautiful silver footballs, named after a former Giants offensive coordinator. So keep your panicky ways in a closet, Mister, as that fabled OC might’ve put it.
It is a smart, prudent, mature approach to modern sports, especially the modern NFL. It is the right way to think, the proper way to believe. No one will argue that.
Giants quarterback Daniel Jones (8) looks on in the fourth quarter of Sunday’s loss to the Broncos. Bill Kostroun
OK.
That said …
That said, the Giants really need to avoid going 0-2 this year. Sunday’s season-opening buzzkill loss to the Broncos was bad enough. But you can live with losing a non-conference game to a team with a quarterback trying to shove all the lost seasons of his career into however many good Sundays his knee will allow. Losing to the Broncos is denting but it is not damaging, and doesn’t have to be damning.
But backing that up with a loss Thursday night against Washington (a division foe), which will be starting its backup quarterback (Taylor Heinicke, a 28-year-old fourth-year journeyman out of noted football factory Old Dominion) and itself coming off a dispiriting 20-16 loss at home to the L.A. Chargers …
Well, look. The season wouldn’t be over. The NFC East may well be a place, again, where a team can start a year 1-7 (as the 2020 Giants did) and find itself screaming that it was robbed of a division title at 6-10 (as the 2020 Giants did, watching the Eagles lay down to the WFT in Week 17 last year). The Eagles looked good in Week 1. The Cowboys looked better. But it is a fickle sport and a fussy league. These things can change. Quick.
Still, it’s best not to rely on another edition of the NFC Least.
So the Giants need to find their legs sometime between now and 8:20 Thursday night at FedEx Field. The Giants swept the WFT last year, and both times they played they looked like the better team. Daniel Jones was terrific both times: 35-for-53, 437 yards, two touchdowns, one pick and zero fumbles lost (and rushed for 74 yards in the first game).
Knowing how much better they looked than the eventual division champs was one of the discomfiting things about 2020 when you looked at it from 30,000 feet. But it also ought to bring the Giants a modicum of comfort. And a straight reality that 1-1 really does look, and feel, in so many ways, so much better than 0-2.
“We’re looking at it as an opportunity,” defensive end Leonard Williams said. “Good teams look at the short turnaround as an opportunity to get the bad taste out of our mouths.”
There is no better mouthwash than winning, especially when you’d rather not have another helping of humble pie — and especially with 0-2 looming. No matter how early in the season it really is.
The wife of Dwayne Haskins has been charged with domestic battery after allegedly knocking out the backup Steelers quarterback’s tooth earlier this month while the couple was in Las Vegas renewing their wedding vows, according to multiple reports.
Kalabrya Gondrezick-Haskins faces a felony charge of battery and domestic violence resulting in bodily harm stemming from the alleged altercation at The Cosmopolitan, according to KTNV.
Gondrezick-Haskins reportedly punched Haskins after they got into an argument over their plans for the evening. Haskins and his friends apparently went to a nightclub without waiting for Gondrezick-Haskins and her friends, who had attended a show earlier in the night.
Haskins, 24, was treated for facial injuries at a local hospital, and officers on the scene reportedly found the missing tooth in the hotel room.
“I want her out of my room,” Haskins told a security officer at The Cosmopolitan following the incident, according to KLAS. “She hit me and cut my lip open.”
Dwayne Haskins with Washington.Getty Images
Haskins-Gondrezick, a former Michigan State basketball player, told police that the couple married in March and were in the area to renew their vows and celebrate with friends.
Although Haskins-Gondrezick is due in court Aug. 3, the pair seems to have made up.
On Sunday, Haskins shared a photo on Instagram of the couple flashing her apparent wedding ring with the caption, “Couldn’t make you wait forever, for forever. This is forever.”
The incident marks the latest off-field drama for Haskins. A 2019 first-round draft pick by Washington, Haskins was released by organization after two tulmultous seasons, in which he lost the starting job and was fined $40,000 after violating COVID-19 protocols by partying without a mask.
The former Ohio State star earned a guaranteed $14 million with Washington.
Haskins signed a one-year, $850,000 deal with the Steelers in January.
