A loyal Extreme Mortman reader — and fellow Redskins fan — sends the below photo along with this note:

Here’s a hot tip: the Redskins picked up an All-Pro lineman for their playoff run, and from the unlikeliest of places — the U.S. Senate.

Looks like a photo from training camp.  Kennedy really can navigate those cones.

Earlier this week, the New York Times’ John Harwood exclusively observed this to Extreme Mortman …

The Washington Redskins are the Mike Huckabee of the NFL.

Judging by the results of both the latest Iowa polls and today’s Dallas Cowboys game, however, it looks like Huckabee and the ‘Skins now are headed in opposite directions.

So rather than cite what Mike Huckabee had to say today on “Meet the Press” or on the campaign trail, it’s a better use of our time to quote Washington’s newest rising star, Redskins quarterback Todd Collins.

Here he is in USA Today:

Todd Collins earned a degree in political science from the University of Michigan, and is intrigued by the presidential political process this time of the year.

“I know it’s still early,” the Washington Redskins quarterback says, “but the Iowa caucuses are in just a few days, right? And then New Hampshire?”

Right.

“So we’ll just have to see what shakes out. It’s going to be real interesting, though. I’m just kind of enjoying it as a spectator right now.”

Being that Collins loves almost all things Massachusetts, what does he think about the chances of his state’s former governor, Republican Mitt Romney?

“Well, he did OK in Massachusetts, but I’m still waiting to see what happens in the caucuses,” Collins says.

On the Democratic side, Collins agrees with the idea that a woman (Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton) or a black man (Sen. Barack Obama) might win the nomination for president and have a credible shot at the White House is a welcome chance to watch history.

Clinton’s chances? “I guess she’s still leading in the national polls, but it’s so early,” he says. “Could she do it? Sure.”

Could Obama do it? “I don’t see why not. It seems like he has a lot of growing support out there right now.”

That works for us.  With Collins leading the Redskins into the playoffs, we’ll take anything he says about the presidential campaign as gospel.  He certainly bests the last Redskin quarterback who ventured into politics, Heath Shuler.  And as burgundy-and-gold fervor sweeps the nation, perhaps Hillary Clinton might even consider changing her name to Hillary Clinton Portis.

This morning we spotted John Harwood — newly minted with the New York Times — on CNBC talking about the presidential campaign.  John also worked in several plugs for this Sunday’s Washington Redskins game against the evil doing Dallas Cowboys.  Intrigued, we asked John for more insights and predictions.  John kindly obliged and sent us the following brilliance (Kornheiser, eat your heart out):

The Washington Redskins are the Mike Huckabee of the NFL. For a long time they appeared to be going nowhere. Now, undermanned but charming, they are on fire.
Part of the charm is their amazing quarterback Todd Collins, who has performed brilliantly for injured starter Jason Campbell despite sitting on the bench for 10 years.  He would be hands down the NFL comeback player of the year if not for the fact that he isn’t coming back to anything. Rather, he’s essentially starting his career at age 36.
Another part is the resilience of a team that has survived the murder of Pro Bowl safety Sean Taylor. Major factors have been strong performances by two of Taylor’s University of Miami teammates, Santana Moss and Clinton Portis.
All of this has raised the odds that the Redskins may defeat a demonstrably better team, their hated rival the Dallas Cowboys, in an emotional home-field finale. Also helping: the fact that the Cowboys may rest a few injured stars.
And don’t forget the impact this could have on the Iowa caucuses. Speaking for every red-blooded Washington-based political reporter who will be in Iowa this Sunday, I can say that no one should expect me to cover any campaign event during the three hours this Sunday when this football epic will play out.

We’ve spent some time here at Extreme Mortman chronicling Congress’ involvement in sports (here and here)
We contend that Congress legislating professional sports is ridiculous.  Congress, apparently, disagrees.

So imagine our continued incredulity to learn this:

The NFL avoided a potential backlash by fans unable to watch the New England Patriots’ attempt to complete a perfect regular season, announcing yesterday that the NFL Network’s telecast of Saturday night’s game between the Patriots and New York Giants also will be carried by NBC and CBS.

Why did the NFL cave?  Largely due to pressure from Congress. Some examples:

New York Times:

The league’s decision to simulcast the game came amid mounting Congressional pressure to make the potentially historic game more broadly available.

The Connecticut delegation wrote to Commissioner Roger Goodell that the league’s definition of home markets was “unduly narrow,” leaving fans in cities around the state where loyalties are divided between their Giants and Patriots, without the same local broadcast option afforded the New York and Boston markets.

The Rhode Island delegation also protested the league’s market designations that would have deprived Patriots’ fans in Providence and throughout the state of seeing their team go undefeated unless they subscribed to DirecTV or the Dish Network, or got the NFL Netword from their local cable operators.

The league was also warned by Senator Patrick Leahy, Democrat of Vermont and the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, and Arlen Specter, Republican of Pennsylvania and the ranking member of the committee, that it was “exercising its substantial market power to the detriment of consumers.”

Washington Post:

Previously, Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) wrote a letter to Goodell and a cable executive urging a settlement.

Chicago Tribune:

“As a Bostonian, I couldn’t be more pleased that in just five days, the New England Patriots will attempt to become the first NFL team in 35 years to finish the regular season with an undefeated record,” Kerry wrote. “But as someone who represents all of Massachusetts and not just those in the Boston media market, I remain deeply troubled that today as many as 250,000 Massachusetts households, and millions of Patriots fans nationwide, may be denied access to this historic sporting event.”

With this kind of meddling going on, I’m now resigned to joining the bandwagon.  Ny new position: I hope that Congress demand the Washington Redskins beat the Dallas Cowboys on Sunday.  I’d settle for a sense of the Congress resolution, but if they want to withhold funds from the Iraq war effort until the Redskins win the Super Bowl, I’m fine with that.

The Washington Redskins season has been pretty much a disaster — to go along with the Sean Taylor tragedy.
Who could have imagined at the beginning of the season that, by week 14, coach Joe Gibbs would be quoted in a USA Today story headlined, “Athletes at risk: Leagues, players scramble to stay safe.”

But there he is, today:

Redskins coach Joe Gibbs says gun safety is “addressed non-stop” from the start of training camp.

Gun rights advocates should be pleased that gun safety is such a big topic.  Now if only Gibbs would likewise spend adequate time on game clock management.

We noted yesterday that Virginia Attorney General Bob McDonnell’s wife Maureen was a Washington Redskins cheerleader in 1974.

We asked if anyone has a photo to share.

A loyal reader meticulously sent us this picture:

Clearly those were the glory days of the Redskins and the Redskinettes.  Judging by the below photo, it was all downhill after this joint appearance with Pat Robertson and Mr. T.

After a week of sadness surrounding the Washington Redskins, this item in Sunday’s Washington Post made us smile again:

[Bill] Bolling and Attorney General Robert F. McDonnell, both possible candidates for governor, hosted hospitality suites Friday night. McDonnell’s was particularly well attended because he brought in two Washington Redskins cheerleaders to sign pictures of the squad in their game-day outfits. McDonnell’s wife, Maureen, was a Redskins cheerleader from 1974 to 1976.

Anyone have a photo of Maureen McDonnell as a Redskinette, a “First Lady of Football,” they could share?

We’ll watch closely to see if conversation about the tragic murder of Redskin Sean Taylor enters the political arena over the next few days.

Along with the immense sorrow we feel for Taylor and his family, we remember the equally devastating (if self-inflicted) cocaine death of Maryland Terrapins basketball superstar Len Bias in 1986.  That horrible incident led Congress to pass drug war legislation.
Here’s what Eric Sterling, counsel to the U.S. House Committee on the Judiciary from 1979 to 1989, once told PBS’ “Frontline”:

In 1986, the Democrats in Congress saw a political opportunity to outflank Republicans by “getting tough on drugs” after basketball star Len Bias died of a cocaine overdose. In the 1984 election the Republicans had successfully accused Democrats of being soft on crime. The most important Democratic political leader, House Speaker “Tip” O’Neill, was from Boston, MA. The Boston Celtics had signed Bias. During the July 4 congressional recess, O’Neill’s constituents were so consumed with anger and dismay about Bias’ death, O’Neill realized how powerful an anti-drug campaign would be.

O’Neill knew that for Democrats to take credit for an anti-drug program in November elections, the bill had to get out of both Houses of Congress by early October. That required action on the House floor by early September, which meant that committees had to finish their work before the August recess. Since the idea was born in early July, the law-writing committees had less than a month to develop the ideas, to write the bills to carry out those ideas, and to get comments from the relevant government agencies and the public at large.

One idea was considered for the first time by the House Judiciary Committee four days before the recess began. It had tremendous political appeal as “tough on drugs.” This was the creation of mandatory minimum sentences in drug cases. It was a type of penalty that had been removed from federal law in 1970 after extensive and careful consideration. But in 1986, no hearings were held on this idea. No experts on the relevant issues, no judges, no one from the Bureau of Prisons, or from any other office in the government, provided advice on the idea before it was rushed through the committee and into law. Only a few comments were received on an informal basis. After bouncing back and forth between the Democratic controlled House and the Republican controlled Senate as each party jockeyed for poitical advantage, The Anti Drug Abuse Act of 1986 finally passed both houses a few weeks before the November elections.

The Washington Redskins were a laughingstock yesterday in getting yesterday by the New England Patriots.

Even funnier, though, is this quote:

Left guard Pete Kendall joked that after spending the week studying New England on video, “they move a lot slower in slow motion” than in real time.

Even the hardest-core football and/or Washington Redskins fans might never have thought they’d hear the name Dave Butz again.  A good player, a solid defensive lineman, but from a bygone era.

That is, until this letter in today’s Washington Post:

If it’s October, then it’s time again for the annual spectacle of the Washington Redskins Charitable Foundation cozying up to the organization leading the charge to overturn the District of Columbia’s gun laws: the National Rifle Association. On Oct. 16, the Redskins’ foundation will hold its third annual Redskins Sporting Clays Challenge sponsored by NRA Sports. Since 2005, the Redskins have held the event — despite organized protests by D.C. youth, negative media coverage and the event’s obvious conflict with the stated goal of the foundation to “make a positive and measurable impact on youth in the greater Washington, D.C. region,” including their “health and wellness.”

   … Right now the District is fighting the latest and most serious assault yet on its gun laws; Mayor Adrian M. Fenty has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to reverse a lower court decision overturning the District’s handgun ban. While D.C. officials fight to retain this decades-old law, the Redskins’ Web site urges fans to join former Redskin (and current NRA board member and paid consultant) Dave Butz, as well as former and current Redskins players and coaches, at this event.

The letter is signed by Josh Sugarmann, “executive director of the Violence Policy Center, a gun-control advocacy group based in Washington.”

We long-suffering fans of professional sports in Washington have been through an abundance of socially-conscious advocacy causes over the years.  Examples include outrage over the names Redskins and the old Washington Bullets, now the Wizards.  But getting in a dander over shooting clay pigeons?

Clearly the gun control crowd has too much time on its hands.  The only harm Dave Butz has ever done was to opposing quarterbacks.