'Tis the Season ...

With your turkey carcass now simmering in the soup pot and the Black Friday shopping frenzy mercifully out of the way, we're officially into the Christmas season. What better time than to offer some cheery merry-merry broadcasting best wishes and a few cheerless lump-a-coal bad thoughts, as well.

Merry-Merry: For a change, let's give Redskins owner Daniel Snyder credit for allowing legitimate freedom of expression among the local sports talk show hosts he employs at ESPN980, the flagship station in his Red Zebra radio operation.

So far, there have been no signs of any sort of the ham-handed censorship on all things pertaining to the Redskins many of us anticipated when Snyder purchased the old WTEM from Clear Channel last summer. To the contrary, there have been plenty of heavy shots aimed at the Redskins weekdays from noon to 7 p.m. on the three locally produced shows, and many more on mornings following gamedays, particularly after a Redskins loss.

Afternoon drive-time hosts Andy Pollin and Steve Czaban were particularly critical of the decision to give VP/GM Vinny Cerrato his own two-hour show on the station twice a week and recently lit into the club for shamelessly trying to manipulate Pro Bowl voting, among many other strong opinions voiced on their Sports Reporters show. Former Redskins and current show hosts Doc Walker and Brian Mitchell also have pulled few punches, and we're told that none of the above has ever been warned to tone it down.

Of course the true test will come at contract time over the next year or two, but for now, if you want straight radio talk on the Redskins (everywhere but on Cerrato's worthless show, at least), ESPN980 is not a bad place to start.

Lump-a-coal: For Fox's coverage of Sunday's Redskins-Giants game. While broadcasters Kenny Albert and Daryl Johnston were delivering their standard pre-game analysis, a ceremony honoring late Redskins safety Sean Taylor on the anniversary of his murder in a South Florida home invasion armed robbery was taking place in the background.

Fox easily could have deviated from its typically routine opening and shown a few live minutes of that tribute to Taylor. At the very least, they might have interviewed Taylor's best friend, Clinton Portis, during the week and aired his comments during the telecast. Instead, there were a few taped snippets of the Ring of Honor ceremony during the broadcast, including Portis running out of the tunnel carrying a flag with Taylor's No. 21, but Fox clearly dropped the ball on what would have been some riveting must-see live TV.

Merry-Merry: Good for ABC/ESPN assigning Pam Ward, our favorite female college football play-by-play broadcaster, to the Maryland-Boston College game on Saturday. Aired in a split national window on ABC in a prime, late afternoon viewing spot, BC-Maryland went to 16 percent of the country on ABC while the other 84 percent could view the same game on ESPN2. The Florida State-Florida game was seen on ABC by 84 percent of the country, with 16 percent watching on ESPN2.

Still, Ward made some history on Saturday. An ESPN spokesman said she had become the first woman to do a national college football game on ABC, though she had handled national WNBA games for the network.

A Maryland graduate, Ward paid her broadcasting dues locally doing sports updates on the old WTEM sports talk station back in the '90s. She's now the only woman on television currently doing big-time football play-by-play, handling Big 10 games for ESPN all season. She's very good, and surely there are other women out there also deserving a chance to follow her classy and yes, pioneering act.

Lump-a-Coal: Why does Fox continue to use Tony Siragusa as a so-called sideline reporter/analyst during game telecasts teamed with Albert and Johnston. The former Ravens defensive tackle adds almost nothing to the broadcast. On Sunday, he offered brilliant observations such as "great job by the defensive line of pushing" or "that's a little chess game going on in the middle of the game."

Unlike Pam Oliver, the savvy, solid sideline reporter on Fox's A-Team of Joe Buck and Troy Aikman, Siragusa hardly does any reporting at all on key injuries or other in-game developments he should be observing. Like any 300-pound-plus defensive tackle, he takes up a lot of space on the field, but his on-air performance is more worthy of Fox's waiver wire than the network's starting lineup.