Shotgun Wedding

Never a dull moment when you are living under the rule of the Dan Snyder Redskins.

Never.

Witness today's McNabb Contract Extension bombshell, which really, we all should have seen coming down the pike like a plot line to any episode of Three's Company.

Did you really think Snyder was going to allow the ESPN crew to pore over, regurgitate, and/or opine on the whole McNabb/Shanny/Cardio/Playbook benching from two weeks ago?

For three hours on national TV, with the football world watching?

With the ugly, and stupid, racial element lobbed in like a molotov cocktail by guys like Feinstein?

Of course not.

This deal - regardless of your personal feeling on its merits, and more on that in a minute - was driven directly by the Redskins Marketing Department.

So why do it, then?

Well, it makes sense for all involved. Here's why.

For McNabb, he gets more money "safely in the barn" so to speak, before anything gets worse in his world. Like before he gets really injured, and teams start to back off of him this winter. Or if he keeps playing like crap. Or, if a prime landing spot like Minnesota, watches Tavaris Jackson start lighting it up down the stretch (laugh all you want, I never thought Vince Young was redeemable as a starter).

The only INCREASED leverage McNabb would have is if he suddenly started playing GREAT down the stretch. Which was unlikely.

For the Redskins, you douse the "controversy" with a firehose of wet benjamins. That is worth quite a bit, if you know how dicey Snyder's hold on the local fan base is becoming. Snyder can't afford to let his prized coach, openly diss a classy starting black quarterback, without a genuine risk of doing damage to a huge chuck of his stadium ticket base.

For everyone unfamiliar with the Redskins history, here's the thumbnail sketch. Former owner George Preston Marshall was a screaming fucking racist, who resisted integration until he was the last NFL team standing with an all-white team.

And we sucked doing it. Yeah, whitey!

When most NFL teams started mixing in black players in 1945, Marshall thought he could stay all white and make it all the way until the year, oh, 2073.

He made it to 1962.

By then, every other pro basketball, baseball or football team had at least one black player. Hell, even HOCKEY had broken the color barrier before the Redskins!

It was this backdrop, that allowed the Washington D.C. area to incubate a significant Dallas Cowboys fanbase, born purely of black fathers who would much rather raise their sons to be fans of "America's Team" than root for the Redskins.

To which my generation and many others say, "thanks, George. You dick."

So when Shanahan even swerved inadvertently into the POSSIBLE connotation that McNabb was too stupid or lazy to run his offense when he tried to explain that idiotic benching, it really was a DEFCON 2 or 3 level of fan angst here in DC.

But apparently, the Lil' General knew NOTHING of this franchise history, according to one source I know who spoke directly with Shanahan in the days afterward.

Still, I found it absurd that somebody smart like John Feinstein would advocate firing Shanny because of intentional "racial coding" intended to embarass McNabb.

It was as if Shanahan was driving home and had a neighborhood dog run in front of his car, and killed it. It doesn't mean he hates dogs!

Besides, as I said on my radio show. Shanny is a man of color too.

Red.

Ba-dum-bump!

So McNabb is now under contract for a REPORTED $40 mil guaranteed. The total number is pointless, so let's call his deal 5 years/$1.73 TRILLION, with $40 mil guaranteed.

I saw Mort tonite pooh pooh whether it is REALLY $40 mil, and he may be right.

But even if it is that much, it doesn't mean anything about whether McNabb is a Redskin come September of 2011.

Depending on how the labor fight shakes out, we may not have a sudden re-installment of a hard cap. In fact, let's just say there is no more hard cap. Well then, the Redskins could just pioneer the new NFL era of "sign and trades" like the NBA has been doing for a while.

With no cap "hit" to worry about, the Redskins can trade McNabb to Minnesota/Arizona this winter for (pick your appropriate compensation) and eat whatever portion of his deal that the Vikings/Cardinals are unwilling to pay for.

It's like McNabb becomes the moveable $40 million man, unlike Haynesworth who is seen (properly) as a cancer, just currently in remission. Plus, hey, it's just money. Snyder is selling beers for $8 a pop out there in Raljon, so what's it to him?

The fun part is going to be watching how Shanny tries to spin this afterward. A QB who is getting $8 million a year now, can't be trusted to run a 2-min drill against the Lions!

Wha.. whaaaa?

Unless Shanny just comes out and says, "hey, I don't write the contracts around here, talk to Bruce the alumni director" it's pretty damn hard to square the last 1:53 in Detroit with a deal this big.

Like any shotgun wedding, the bride smiles and the groom looks around nervous. We'll have to check back in the trailer park in about 8 months to see if our happy couple is still together.