The Cooley Shorts

I'm excited to be through with the first practice of what will prove to be a terrifically terrible month in my life. I honestly don't think I'm going out on a limb here by saying guys hate two-a-days, but it's nice to have a small outlet to gripe. I think I share the same feelings as all the players when I'm standing on the sideline sweating my balls off, daydreaming about the "Click" remote to skip me through time. With that said, I will try to play media friendly guy and focus on some of the positive events of the opening hours.

- The fans were great at practice today, as always, but it makes coming to work much more enjoyable when 10,000 people are cheering for you. On a normal day of work I may catch a ball and get a high-five or two, but today I heard hundreds of Cooooooley chants, you just cant beat that. I don't see why every practice can't be open to the public during camp - it's not like we're giving away our game plan for the first couple preseason games.

- Jason Campbell is on top of his game. No questions asked he is the leader in our huddle. I spent five days in the last two weeks throwing with him at Redskin's Park and he is in outstanding shape. Obviously, he dealt with tons of crap, but the media needs to find something better to talk about. Jason is over it and ready to win games. Enough said.

- The highlight of my day was the Cooley shorts. Last night the team held the opening meeting which is the basic introduction to work talk. Trainers come and discuss hydration, personal conduct is always a mention, we even covered how a conversation should go with a police officer when a player gets pulled over. You know, the really tough things in life. From there the meeting went on to cover our dealings with the media, which is where Z gave what I considered the quote of the night.

"You know what they say about the media, just use the five B's. Be brief brother, be brief."

Who doesn't know about the five B's, that's an old stand by. He even asked me about the possible public humiliation of running a blog. All I could do was mention that we now have proper editing procedures.

Zorn then delved into the rules. First rule involving dress code and guys having to wear team colors to practice, as well as proper cuts of the rules. As he was saying this he was wearing his new fashioned Redskin practice pants. He took them off revealing that no one would be cutting off their own sweats, but we would have a seamstress. As Z stood proudly, in his perfectly trimmed sweat shorts, he turned to me and says that we will even have an option for a shorter cut. Z then removed the shorts 99 percent of the team would be wearing and showed off the Cooley cut to a room full of cheers and laughter. Now, everyone thinks this is funny, but I was ecstatic to know that not only was I going to be allowed to wear my shorts, but it was encouraged by the main man.As for how they worked out - I liked them, but I'm pretty sure when I crouch down my junk is hanging out the side. I mean, I have spandex shorts underneath, but I will be fairly conscious when the Washington Post camera people get up close and personal.

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