#Fail To The Redskins: The New York Giants won the Super Bowl Sunday night, but most of the D.C. Council seemed to be thinking about a different football team, one that wasn’t eligible for the sort of playoff run the Giants made this postseason even though two of their five victories in 2011 came against the new champs. Ward 8’s Marion Barry kicked the party off:

You know, the Redskins suck. I’m tired of watching everyone else in the Superbowl. Aint been right since they left DC. #dciswhereskinsbelong

— Marion S. Barry, Jr. (@marionbarryjr) February 6, 2012

But Yvette Alexander weighed in from Ward 7, as did Mayor Vince Gray. Barry, meanwhile, spent the rest of the evening using his new hashtag. And the parody account @DCCouncil (the real council account is @CouncilofDC) pretended various D.C. elected officials were in Indianapolis at the game, which at least one follower didn’t realize was a joke. When the home team stopped playing football a month before the Super Bowl, alas, this is the sort of stuff that people spend their time on. Wait ’til next year? -2

United In D.C.: Along the same lines that Barry was tweeting on, since the Redskins left and the Nationals got their own digs, there’s only one fulltime tenant at RFK Stadium these days (unless you count the fauna that also call the stadium home). And now D.C. United looks likely to stay in the lease until they can get a less ramshackle home of their own. The only major local pro team to win a title in the last 20 years is close to a deal with the District to reduce its rent so it doesn’t lose money just in time for next month’s season opening match. +2

Unemployed, Employed, Same Thing: Some D.C. government workers have figured out an ingenious “make money quick!” scheme: Pretend they’re not working. According to authorities, the District has paid out more than $800,000 in unemployment benefits to people on the city’s payroll since 2009. The workers have been fired, but if the checks on fraud are so lax that the city didn’t notice it was paying unemployment to people it employed, we might try to put a claim in ourselves, too. -4

Virginia Is For Gun Dealers: If you’re the type who likes to buy a new weapon every day, you may soon find yourself heading over the Potomac more often. Virginia is on the verge of repealing a long-standing one-gun-per-month purchase limit, presumably because the deer population is exploding so quickly that hunters need to be very heavily armed. Chances are this will mean more guns sold in Virginia wind up in places like D.C., of course, but hey—what do rural Virginia lawmakers care about that? -2

Friday’s Needle rating: 45 Today’s score: -6 Today’s Needle rating: 39