I look at football players, all pro athletes really, and just shake my heads. Didn't these guys go to college, or attend classes? Has no one told them that U.S. Savings Bonds are better for their money than some of the investments that impoverished them?

The talents behind AccountingDegree.com tells the story of five famous, well-paid NFL stars who could not handle their success. Our old friends Lawrence Taylor, Terrell Owens and Michael Vick are on this list. Take a look.

Please Include Attribution to AccountingDegree.com With This Graphic

Smart investing is boring – real boring. Maybe too slow for a mindset geared for aggression and quick results. I wonder if that's why I never read these stories about baseball players. Just sayin'.

I take issue with one of the conclusions. The graphic advises athletes to be sure their advisor is someone they  trust. OF COURSE they trusted their advisors. You think they dumped a shirtload of money on a guy on the corner?

The better advice is to trust advisors who've proven they've invested with success before. You know the type – an advisor who has trained as hard in their field as the player does in his (or hers). That, and don't put every cent in some dream scheme. That's what savings bonds are for. 

I could say – purely as a joke – that the Washington Redskins couldn't even get the Redskins Rule right. Voters reelected Barack Obama to the U.S. presidency. That was supposed to happen only if the Redskins won their home game against the Carolina Panthers. And they should have beaten a one-win team at home, but I digress.

Time to add a Massachusetts Corollary to the Redskins Rule. It does not apply when the challenger is from the Bay State. Hat/tip to my friends at DC Pro Sports Report for pointing that out to me.

@dcprosportsrep If that happens, I'm gonna add a Massachusetts Corollary to Wikipedia. #Redskins #Elections

— Anthony Brown (@SkinsHogHeaven) November 5, 2012

Hog Heaven is mildly surprised by the outcome, given the Redskins Rule, but very surprised by how quickly the results were known. I was prepared for an all-nighter. The networks called the election before Midnight Eastern Time.

The election wasn't nearly as close as the media suggested. It was pretty much an Electoral College landslide – Obama 332, Romney 206. The Obama/Biden ticket won 278 Electoral College votes in 2008. 

News people cover these things like sporting events. 

Presidential elections -- greatest sports events evah. Who would cover it best? ESPN or NFL Network?

— Anthony Brown (@SkinsHogHeaven) November 7, 2012

The consensus of responses to my tweet is that the NFL Network would do the better job covering politics as a sporting event. I don't know. We are speaking of Deion Sanders and Michael Irvin whose thoughts go no deeper than the most recent play.

God blesses America. May He continue to do so. This is a good time to remind everyone – voters, Republicans, Democrats, and especially Redskins players – that we set our own destinies. Now, go do it.

Can we all just get along?" ~ Rodney King
 

3 things kill a Redskins blog. 1) Redskins losing. 2) Writing about Redskins losing. 3) Not writing at all.

— Anthony Brown (@SkinsHogHeaven) November 4, 2012

Truth is, Hog Heaven needs recovery time after the Redskins pulled that stinker against the Panthers yesterday. So do you. So does head coach Mike Shanahan who, for the past three weeks, looked as if his every orifice were tightly clinched.

Mitt Romney welcomed Washington's 21-13 loss. According to urban legend and Wikipedia, Republicans, the borrow and spend crowd, will sweep their way into the White House. (Hey, tax cuts aren't free, people.) It's as if the 'Skins were trying to lose. 

Congratulations President-elect Mitt Romney, by Redskins Rule en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redskins_…

— Anthony Brown (@SkinsHogHeaven) November 4, 2012

I know that's not true. Football games don't actually influence elections any more than voters influence football games. Go vote tomorrow. Voters, like the Redskins, must create their own destinies.  

Skins have great chance to finish season strong with lots of NFC east games, bye week and Pierre coming back....Dont jump off the wagon yet

— Byron Westbrook (@BWestbrook34) November 4, 2012

Kory Lichtensteiger quote: When you get down, you find out who's in it to fight, and who's just in it for the pay check. #Redskins

— Grant Paulsen (@granthpaulsen) November 4, 2012

Another typical Redskins November when a player says now is the time we find out who is serious about winning and who is here just for the money. Cliche's aside, adversity teaches something about ourselves.

You never know how strong you are, until being strong is the only choice you have.

— Adam Carriker (@AdamCarriker94) November 5, 2012

I am worried. The Redskins are universally favored to beat the Panthers today. When, in the Snyder-Cerrato era, have the Redskins beaten a beatable team?

Sportsbook Bovada.lv set Washington as 3½-point favorites over Carolina.

To say the Redskins will win today is to predict an election day win for Barack Obama, by the Redskins Rule. 

"If the Redskins win their last home game before the election, the party that won the previous election wins the next election. If the Redskins lose, the challenging party's candidate wins." ~ Wikipedia (You can always trust Wikipedia.)

The Redskins Rule is a trend, not a prediction. The outcome of Washington's last home game before a presidential election has foreshadowed the outcome in 17 of the last 18 national elections. Correlation is not necessarily causative as my old statistics professor would say.

Voters have made up their minds by this point. To judge by the number of new cars I've seen on the streets since Spring, I believe the outcome has already been decided – until the president whiffed that field goal in the first debate, anyhow. The game itself has no more influence on the election than voters have on the game. The gods of football may be trying to tell us something today.

This would be a good time to quote the late Washington Post columnist Mary McGrory –

"Baseball is what we were. Football is what we have become." 

ESPN's Accuscore Countdown projects the Redskins as 58 percent favorites based, oddly, on which quarterback has the best day running.

Predictionmachine.com had Washington winning 58 percent of the simulations it ran preseason when everyone was healthy.

What are the odds Redskins receivers hang on to the ball? Barack Obama, Mitt Romney and a legion of Redskins fans want to know. 
 

Aldrick Robinson will start over Leonard Hankerson today for the #Redskins.

— Grant Paulsen (@granthpaulsen) November 4, 2012

Hog Heaven will be rocking his throwback Redskins knit cap for Washington's Homecoming Game.

The Pittsburgh Steelers and Philadelphia Eagles showed us hot not to do throwback uniforms – convincing evidence that Pennsylvanians are color blind. Those uniforms are invariably called ugly by everyone but homers.

Watching Redskins game. Have to think the were distracted, all day, thinking, "AHHHHH!!!! BEES!!!!!!! GIANT BEES!!!!"

— Dan Graziano (@espn_nfceast) October 29, 2012

The Washington Redskins uniforms are improvements on two counts. It does not recall a uniform that should never be seen again. It commemorates a period when the team actually won something.

The Steelers were a stinker 2-10-0 franchise in 1934, the year they unveiled those colors. The Redskins won it's first NFL championship in 1937. It's 80th-Anniversary unis are based on that period – sorta. 

The new throwbacks are not replicas of the 1930's colors. They are a blend of  the 1930s through 1960s colors should pop better on HDTV than the originals. 

@skinshogheaven They're similar to the late 1950s, but they're supposed to be from the 1930s. More of a traditional hodgepodge look. No matter. The Steelers proved that nobody needs to see authentic throwbacks anyway. 

— Zac Boyer (@ZacBoyer) October 30, 2012

I went to my first live Redskins game in 1962 (please ... don't do the math), before Sonny Jurgensen joined the team. Those old wine-colored jerseys were the flashiest in the NFL that has yet to be accurately captured in any of the throwbacks. Those colors were acceptable on black & white TV, in days when fortunate families had a TV set, and only one at that. They were drab after Disney and Bonanza drove demand for color television.

(Actual quote: "No, son. The TV isn't broken. That movie is supposed to be black & white.

"Well, who wants to see a movie that's not in color." Goes back to video game.)

Washington went to the Spearhead logo in 1965. Younger readers have an impression that the Redskins copied the design from the Florida State Seminoles rather than the accurate other way around. 

Vince Lombardi's effort (as I recall, don't quote me) to restore a winning mindset to the moribund franchise led to brightening the jersey from wine to red and the pants from gold to yellow. Lombardi called it Championship Gold. No photograph i've seen did justice to those legacy wine-colored jerseys.

A season later, Lombardi changed that scheme imitation Packers with yellow helmets and a Circle-R logo. Lombardi did not live to see that uniform in a live game. Fortunately, it was short-lived.

Washington moved to its familiar uniform with the Buffalo Nickel helmet logo in the 1972 season.

Washington will wear its homecoming, 80th Anniversary throwbacks this Sunday, November 4, at home against the Carolina Panthers. Redskins tickets are still available.

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It's not the offense.

It's not the defense.

It's not special teams.

It's not the coaches.

It's not the back office.

It certainly isn't the medical staff and trainers.

The most talented people on the Redskins are the player's agents that continue to extort ridiculous sums of money for worthless, arrogant players like DeAngelo Hall.  You would think after Albert Haynesworth and Jammal Brown, the Redskins would have learned their lessons - nope - up to $45 million for Garcon for one quarter of one game of football!  Will he ever be up to his full speed again?  Maybe, maybe not.  

But we have to hand it to his agent.  That's one talented Redskins affiliated person.  Maybe we could put him in the secondary.  Give credit where credit is due.

Maybe it's time to start becoming a Ravens fan instead.  But yuck, Baltimore?  I would like them better if the name was "Maryland ...."   And the team name Ravens?  What is this, a collection of Edgar Allen Poe stories or a football team?  Terrible name.  I prefer a name like the "Neanderthals" or just "Beasts."  Lastly, the purple uniforms have got to go.  Purple uniforms belong to a team called the "Cookie Monsters" or "Fat Albert and the Gang." (I'm thinking Russell and Mush Mouth for those that remember).  Lastly, the AFC seems so lame after years of being inside the NFC.  Maybe they can change that too.

Alternatively, the Redskins can start collecting #1 draft picks one year in the distant future and start winning again.  Hmmm, maybe the "Maryland Beasts" are more likely to happen....

p.s.  A special kudos to the Redskins for realizing after half the season and after dozens of futile attempts that TE Niles Paul has a big size and separation disadvantage on passes under 12 yards and every speed advantage they wanted for passes over 20 yards.  Let's make it simple for Kyle - Niles can't block and can't catch under 10 yards from the line of scrimmage, ever.  After that distance, he can be a great weapon for both.

p.p.s.  Does anyone else notice how the referees blatantly favor teams that help the Giants' standing?

Editor's note: Pierre Garcon is represented by Terra Firma Sports Management. Drew Rosenhaus, America's most recognizable NFL agent, is pictured with this story. Image: August 18, 2011, Mike Ehrmann/Getty Images North America via zimbio.com.

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