Smoke Signals: Pro v. Joes

Watch Donovan McNabb team up with Terrell Owens on Pros v. Joes to play three former NBA players [including the sublime Akeem Olajuwon] in a game of hoops. Watch it!

Earlier today I wrote about Mike Shanahan‘s interview on WFAN Radio in NYC. He spoke about Albert Haynesworth & Dan Snyder. Go read it.

RB Larry Johnson is in trouble with a Kansas City judge [as he should be] for not fulfilling the duties assigned to him when sentenced to community service after pleading guilty to disturbing the peace after fights with women in night clubs. Johnson is serving 2 years probation due to those guilty pleas and he had his probation reinstated last Friday.

Johnson, 30, was ordered to work with children at the Kansas City Police Athletic League for 40 hours. Johnson refused to play sports with the children and told police officials he wanted to start an art program. But the program ended after it didn’t draw enough students. Johnson received credit for nine hours of service.

“If I knew you didn’t want to do sports with kids, I would have assigned you to pick up trash on the highway,” Locascio told Johnson during a 20-minute hearing, according to The Kansas City Star. “That’s what we typically have defendants do.”

“The idea that you would draw pictures with kids who want to participate in athletics is absurd,” the judge said.

Locascio told Johnson he could complete his remaining community service hours with any nonprofit organization in Washington, D.C.. If Johnson successfully completes probation by March, the convictions will be removed from his record. If not, he would have to appear before Locascio again.

WR Devin Thomas wants to win the starting wideout job opposite Santana Moss. Good for him. Less talk, more do. Also, it’d be nice if someone won that job by something other than default — because the competition was so terrible. Read it.

If you live in the DC area you have probably noticed ads to sell Redskins luxury suites.

Once the hottest ticket in town, demand to see the Washington Redskins may have cooled a bit, thanks to several mediocre seasons, dashed playoff hopes and a wheezing economy.

Still, according to Redskins spokesman Tony Wyllie, the team has sold all but 14 of its 250 suites, which start at $90,000 a year.

The team’s poor performance in recent years isn’t helping sales, though perhaps touting head coach Mike Shanahan in the ads, as the team is doing, will help. The recent economic downturn has made it difficult for almost all pro sports teams to sell luxury suites right now.

Quick, someone tell Donovan McNabb that the betting community gives him less of a chance [40 to 1] to win the NFL passing title this year than his Philadelphia replacement Kevin Kolb [22 to 1]. If that doesn’t motivate McNabb to a great season and two ferocious thrashings of his old team, nothing will. In other news for compulsive gamblers, the Redskins are 4-point underdogs to Dallas in week 1, Clinton Portis has 75 to 1 odds to win the NFL rushing title and Washington’s over/under for wins in 2010 is 7.5. Big Stein has the rest of the story.

Chris Samuels, one of my all-time favorite Redskins [he should go into the NFL Hall of Fame] gets on with life after football. Read it.

Yahoo Fantasy thinks the Redskins have put together a fantastic offense — if this was 2005. Go read the insults.