http://www.yardbarker.com/content/player/3486 Recent articles about Fred Smoot en-us As you may or may not follow, SI.com has dispatched "10 writers to report on the 32 NFL training camps across the country" and is featuring their reports throughout August in their Training Camp Postcard segment. Here at HHR, we prefer to look at actual postcards sent by players to their loved ones, as opposed to Peter King drivel. Today, we take a look at what's going on in , WI (Packers), Mankato, MN (Vikings), Bourbonnais, IL (Bears) and Allen Park, MI (Lions) from a player's perspective. Wed, 06 Aug 2008 09:58:35 -0500 http://www.yardbarker.com/author/article/301804 http://www.yardbarker.com/author/article/301804   As we mentioned in our previous post, Redskins Rides is coming up on Sunday, August 10th at Redskins Park. Come see the cars that Redskins players drive or show off your ride.  There will be tons of great cars old and new as well as live music and a DJ.  The Redskins cheerleaders will be there in the…ahem…flesh.  And some Redskins players will be on hand to sign autographs, too. Come see their bruises from the night before as we beat the Buffalo Bills! The Rag has been working with Redskins Rides to bring you a contest.  We've got two tickets to the festivities that not only will get you in the door but they'll be raffle tickets for some footballs, GPS units and free autodetailing. To enter, go to the Redskins Rides site.  You will see a picture of Fred Smoot leaning on a car on the main page.  Just send me an email at davidwagner15@yahoo.com and tell me what car Smoot is leaning on.  I'll randomly select a winner from the entries by Wednesday afternoon. Even if you don't win, you should pony up for your own tickets.  Redskins Rides is a benefit for Easterns Charitable Foundation, DC Central Kitchen, and the Redskins Charities. Again, just send me an email and tell me what car Smoot is leaning on and the tickets are yours.  Hail Skins! -DW Tue, 05 Aug 2008 01:55:26 -0500 http://www.yardbarker.com/author/article/301042 http://www.yardbarker.com/author/article/301042 New Lions safety Dwight Smith is being altogether too circumspect in his public comments about his former team the Vikings.  You know the guy is full of beefs after the way things ended up in Minnesota, but for some reason he is restricting himself to remarks like this: The last two teams basically cut me. I feel like I have something to prove in that sense. And I'm also playing back home. There's more pressure on you playing in front of your hometown fans and family. Smith wasn't really cut by the Vikings for performance reasons though…he ran afoul of Brad Childress's culture of accountability schtick, and wasn't a big enough name to be spared.  If he'd managed to avoid getting caught having sex in stairwells and smoking pot at intersections, he'd probably still be here. Either way, I expect more from Dwight on the vitriol front.  He needs to take his cues from Fred Smoot and other guys who've left…he needs to take shots at the organization and act like he was wronged.  He needs to call Chilly a hypocrite, and point out how guys like Bryant McKinnie are protected when they do bad things.  Plus he's a Lion now - he needs to start making outrageous statements a la Jon Kitna.  "We expect to go 16-0 while outscoring our opponents by 40 points a game," and stuff like that.  We like it when Lions say things like that…it makes us laugh. Wed, 16 Jul 2008 15:45:55 -0500 http://www.yardbarker.com/author/article/291266 http://www.yardbarker.com/author/article/291266 How to Spot A Fantasy Football Sleeper is a knack that could make or break your fantasy team. Daniel Kalles gives all you fantasy owners a "How To" locate and find fantasy sleepers and plenty of time to exam the players you feel could be sleepers this season. Best of luck this season. As Daniel Kalles, The first thing you need to know about finding a "sleeper" is figuring out what a sleeper is. Many people will have many different explanations as to what a sleeper really is, where to find them and how important they are, but they will pretty much agree that a sleeper is someone who doesn't have a big name, probably doesn't start, hasn't put up big numbers in the past, who now might have a chance to have a breakout season and be a difference maker on your team. Sleepers are usually either late round draft picks or waiver-wire pick-ups who went undrafted. Now how to spot sleepers, when to draft them, and how long you wait until you believe they are actually worth putting in your lineup are all a little different. Having one of the few sleepers who pan out and be a worthy starter can make the difference in winning your league or not winning. No one starts off the season knowing which sleeper will for sure breakout; all you can do is try and draft one or two and hope that a couple of things fall your way and your sleeper goes from nobody to somebody just like that. It's very hard to go into the draft focused on the guys who will be drafted in the later rounds, but the truth is many drafts are won in the later rounds. If you can have a good draft from top to bottom, it will help you down the line; having a deep team will help you in the event of an injury or to make trades. It's not very difficult to draft players in the first bunch of rounds, guys like Alexander, Tomlinson, Owens, Moss, these players have a history, they have done it before, we can look at their numbers and see where they should be drafted, but a sleeper is different. Most sleepers haven't played enough to accumulate enough stats to make decisions on, so you have to take a small sample (if one exists) to figure out who might be the sleepers of this year's draft. There are many different places and ways to find sleepers. One way is to look for 2nd or 3rd year players who had a chance to play near the end of the year before. At the end of most seasons, the teams out of the playoff hunt will look at some young players, giving them starts and letting veterans sit out. Watching these players can sometimes give you a hint into who might be a good sleeper the next season, if they play a good game or two. Look at Willie Parker who was undrafted out of college and was sitting on the bench in 2004 when the Steelers went 15-1. In the last game of the season, once they had already clinched home field advantage, they decided to rest veteran running back Jerome Bettis, and see what Parker could do. He went into Buffalo, on a cold January Sunday, to face the hottest team in football. The Bills were looking to get a victory and a spot in the playoffs. Well, Parker gained 102 yards on only 19 carries, to help the Steelers win the game, and give anyone who was actually paying attention to this Steelers backup a 1200 yards rusher out of nowhere in 2005. Now this doesn't mean things will always work out for you, but it's a good way of finding a sleeper. Another way of finding a sleeper is to watch the player and coach movement in the off-season, and see which players have been put in situations where they might be able to break out, with the help of certain coaches and their philosophies. A player who might have been going downhill in his career, or hasn't been able to find his way yet might be able to change that by being on a team whose system better suits their abilities. Koren Robinson is a good example. He's a former 1st round pick of the Seahawks, and while he had a couple of solid seasons with them (78 for 1240 yards and 5 TD's in 2002), he was let go at the end of 2004 because of off-field and poor behavior issues. He latched on to the Vikings as their top return man and part time WR. During the off-season they hired new head coach Brad Childress, who brings with him his West Coast offense, and they traded Nate Burleson, leaving the spot of #1 WR open. With those and many other changes the Vikings made on offense, they go into the season looking for players to step up and be leaders. Robinson has a good chance of doing that because he is a step ahead of most of the other WR's because he played in the West Coast offense while in Seattle. He could be in for a very big season. While all this looks good and could very well happen, many times it doesn't, and guys like Robinson will always be picked up for his potential, but might never realize it, because he can't control his other issues. These are just a couple of the many ways to find a sleeper. So, make sure to always pay attention to injury situations, and follow closely what players are doing at training camp. Doing this can help you find many sleepers. Lastly, don't forget that you can still find sleepers after the draft in the first couple of weeks of the season. If you see a player break out and do better then expected, don't sit on the sidelines and watch - make an effort to pick them up and see if they can sustain that output. Or if you know that a starting player has any injury at all, make sure you're the one to get anyone who might back that player up, because once a player goes down, whoever takes over can be a real steal. Mon, 14 Jul 2008 07:24:12 -0500 http://www.yardbarker.com/author/article/290094 http://www.yardbarker.com/author/article/290094 PhinPhanatic remembers a pair of frustrating Dolphins losses.  The Vikings have had a few (hundred) of those too. Brad Johnson's back-up job with the Cowboys may be in trouble. Cat Crave is counting down the top 10 moments in Panthers history.  Where does "Steve Smith makes Fred Smoot his bitch for all-time" rank? Arrowhead Addict considers the Matt Jones situation.  Anything to avoid writing about the hideous Chiefs, I guess. FSB is getting a Seahawks blog. Niner Noise wants Brett Favre to stay retired. Brandon Marshall struggles to obey authority.  And he's not so great at keeping his arms out of TVs either.  (That said, I'd still take him in a heartbeat). The Ebony Bird says goodbye to Trent Dilfer, aka the original Tarvaris Jackson. Fri, 11 Jul 2008 13:47:59 -0500 http://www.yardbarker.com/author/article/289176 http://www.yardbarker.com/author/article/289176 The Washington Redskins signed cornerback Justin Tryon, a fourth round pick, to a four year contract. Tryon has good speed and cover abilities but he's a little short and may have problems covering some of the larger NFL wide receivers.  We've had some success with undersized cornerbacks before, so let's hope it works out. Like his teammate Fred Smoot, he's known to have a mouth and enjoys trash talking.  We may end up needing him, since Carlos Rogers is coming off major reconstructive surgery to repair torn ligaments late last season. There's a decent chance he could start off the season on the Physically-Unable-to-Perform list.  Rogers never quite lived up to expectations, but has been a part of some top-ranked Gregg Williams defenses and his absence could pose a problem for us.  In other injury news, Rocky McIntosh is also coming off of season-ending knee surgery but the Washington post reports that he is scheduled to be medically cleared to play on June 19th.  This is, of course, great news since Rocky was really having a breakout year before his injury.  Finally, the Redskins signed their seventh round pick, safety Chris Horton.  With Horton and Tryon signed, we still have eight players left to sign.  Washington's front office is going to start negotiations with their three second-round picks next week. Sat, 14 Jun 2008 21:12:38 -0500 http://www.yardbarker.com/author/article/278050 http://www.yardbarker.com/author/article/278050 I once saw Fred Smoot driving around in an Escalade. This is better. The pic comes from Littles' blog (click to enlarge), where he also quotes Smoot as saying he'll start blogging "in about a month." I count the days. Thu, 12 Jun 2008 13:58:22 -0500 http://www.yardbarker.com/author/article/277291 http://www.yardbarker.com/author/article/277291 I once saw Fred Smoot driving around in an Escalade. This is better. The pic comes from Littles' blog (click to enlarge), where he also quotes Smoot as saying he'll start blogging "in about a month." I count the days. Thu, 12 Jun 2008 13:58:22 -0500 http://www.yardbarker.com/author/article/277291 http://www.yardbarker.com/author/article/277291 You may be the head coach but you never question the Sex Boat. You think he didn't know what he was doing when he demanded the ball? When the Vikings wanted some ass on a boat, did they go to Mike Tice? No. Did they go to Fran Tarkenton or party animal Carl Eller? I don't think so. They went to Fred Smoot. If there are two things he knows, they're high pro hoes and laterals, so slow your roll Zorn. Never address Fred "I could be the prettiest guy in the NFL" Smoot in that manner again. Mon, 05 May 2008 02:54:07 -0500 http://www.yardbarker.com/author/article/263480 http://www.yardbarker.com/author/article/263480 Dan Steinberg of The Washington Post and Jamie Mottram of Yahoo! Sports give you a weekly round up of the biggest stories, strangest blogs, and most-watched viral videos in the world of sports. See the blogosphere's best articles, clips, and videos. Some Redskins react to Fred Smoot's new energy Smack Bar, the latest energy drink Slump Buster, and Cowboys fans fight each other over Jessica Simpson Thu, 10 Jan 2008 17:11:29 -0500 http://www.yardbarker.com/author/article/67239 http://www.yardbarker.com/author/article/67239 The Redskins think that they are being guided by ghosts. They might be just insane enough to make a long run in the playoffs. Fri, 04 Jan 2008 15:01:41 -0500 http://www.yardbarker.com/author/article/59866 http://www.yardbarker.com/author/article/59866 Man this is lame, who gets Fred Smoot to endorse your product ""SMACK" is a brand new energy snack bar that is about to revolutionize the great art of snackin'. It has come into the game to bump aside every other snack bar, chocolate bar, energy bar, protein bar or even candy. Our biggest weapon, YES!! Star Washington Redskins player Fred Smoot himself has officially endorsed this product." Wed, 12 Dec 2007 12:11:36 -0500 http://www.yardbarker.com/author/article/42870 http://www.yardbarker.com/author/article/42870 All the news and notes you need to know going into the Washington Redskins' week 5 match-up with the upstart 3-1 Detroit Lions. Fri, 05 Oct 2007 15:30:07 -0500 http://www.yardbarker.com/author/article/29829 http://www.yardbarker.com/author/article/29829 Shaun Suisham made a clutch kick in overtime that capped an ugly win by the Washington Redskins over the Miami Dolphins on Sunday. Ugly or not, however, the Redskins sit at 1–0, and if they continue to put away winnable games like they did yesterday, no one will complain – even if it isn't pretty. On to the Fifth Quarter rankings, which are based on a scale of 1 to 5 Quarters: For the rest, visit the link below... Mon, 10 Sep 2007 18:07:03 -0500 http://www.yardbarker.com/author/article/26613 http://www.yardbarker.com/author/article/26613 Well it's the start of the 2007 NFL season, so THN thought what better way to kick it off than with one of our cartoons? In the past, we've done lots and lots of cartoons, but they just take so long to make. We hope to bring you more than the ONE that we were able to do last year, but at least we can say that we matched last year's output already with this cartoon. In fact, this Redskins cartoon is by far the longest one that THN has ever done. Before this, none had ever gone over two and a half minutes; this one is just a hair under five minutes and might actually qualify as a full-length film (At least it did to the guy making it). The cartoon is a spoof on "CSI: Miami" and is called "CSO: Miami". It features several of the characters from CSI, er CSO, as well as Fred Smoot, but you'll have to watch it to find out anything more. Check it out, and remember, no animals are harmed in the making of any of our cartoons. http://www.thehogs.net/Flash/Cartoons Be sure to send it out to all of your friends in the Redskin community, and send it to some Dolphins fans too!! Fri, 07 Sep 2007 22:12:16 -0500 http://www.yardbarker.com/author/article/26325 http://www.yardbarker.com/author/article/26325