LaVar Arrington and Clinton Portis are Playing the Feud!

And Cheap Seats Daily has just the mediator for these warriors — Johnny Parker, the “Redskins Life Coach.”

But more on Parker life-coaching them down later. First, back to the roots of the entertaining-out-the-wazoo squabble. Portis got things rolling on the NFL Network during Super Bowl Week when he said that LaVar wasn’t a leader because he was too cooncerned with how much money he and everybody else was making. From the Great Dan Steinberg‘s Steinography:

“LaVar Arrington was the man in D.C. when I arrived, and all of the sudden LaVar felt like it was competition, and he left D.C. He didn’t want to be in D.C. any more. He gave back $15, 20 million to leave D.C., because he felt like he wasn’t the main money guy, because everybody was getting [paid]. Laveranues, myself, Deion was still getting paid, so he even had input. So I think it was just the wrong attitude, and I think for some of the beliefs that was funneled through, it was like whoever gets the money was the captain.”

Ouchie wouchie! We had to wait over the weekend for LaVar to strike back. But yesterday at WJFK, when the red light went on, LaVar went off. He went after Clinton’s wallet — “[After Portis came to Washington] I was still the highest paid Redskin on this team,” he said.

And then he went after Clinton’s manhood.

Here’s LaVar, courtesy of more Steinography:

For the same injury that a man stayed out four weeks for, how short our memories are, I had the same injury. Knocked unconscious in a game. Went in the locker room, got myself together, and oh yeah, I came back out and intercepted a ball against the Carolina Panthers and got a touchdown that some would say helped turn that season around, where we won eight games straight. A concussion. That’s what I was diagnosed with, a concussion. “I came out and I strapped up and I played. I played.

Well, you only won five games straight after your Carolina comeback, LaVar. So maybe our memories are short because of that concussion.

(AFTER THE JUMP: Concussions are for pussies? Is there a cure for LaVar’s long-term memory loss? For LaVar’s wallet-envy? Ted Leonsis reacts to GW bar’s Caps’ apathy? More about Dan Steinberg? Really?)

But, still. Who cares if after retiring Portis can still count to eight and LaVar can’t? LaVar lets Clinton know that real football players don’t let a little bell-ringing keep them out for a series, let alone several games!

Good, ugly stuff. But before this goes too far, they really need to take in Johnny Parker’s next seminar. The agenda of the Life Coach’s March 26 public pow-wow in Alexandria includes a segment entitled “I Make More Than Him, and He Can’t Take It.”

If that doesn’t nail this beef, what does?

Sure, Parker’s meetings are designed for a different sort of mediation-challenged pair than Portis/Arrington — his series is entitled “Married Couples Tell All” meetings. But, money envy is money envy. We’ll pay the $15 sign-up fee, guys.

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Ted Leonsis acts fast.

Last week in this space, I related a tale of sitting in Lindy’s Red Lion, a bar in Foggy Bottom, and noticing that all the TVs were turned to the Indiana/Purdue game from Bloomington, even though the super-streaking Washington Capitals were playing New York Rangers at the same time.

And even when the Lindy’s bartender switched over to the hockey broadcast at my request, nobody else in the place paid attention to that game. I wrote, “At the least: Leonsis hasn’t captured the city’s college kids!”

Leonsis got word of the Lindy’s tale, and posted about it on his blog:

“I always believed that the last race to embrace technology — television — the NHL lost. We lost,” Leonsis said.

Geez, Ted. Just because a few boozers in a G.W. bar weren’t watching? But wait! He tells the Post he hasn’t given up hope on getting the kids’ business. It’s just that his strategy to reel in the barely legal relies on non-TV media.

More from the piece:

“Where we should be advantaged is our customers are younger, more educated, Web-savvy than the NFL audience, which is older, less wired,” said Leonsis. “So let’s pick a fight we have a shot at winning, and if our consumers are younger, and they love video games, and they have shorter attention spans, and they love interactivity, and they love social media, and everyone blogs, and everyone’s on Facebook, why wouldn’t we put ourselves right in the middle of that?”…

There’s also scads of mentions about Twitter.

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Back to The Great Dan Steinberg. He’s gotta be Ted Leonsis and the Caps’ best friend in the world. He acted wounded while we appeared together for nearly a half-hour on cable TV* recently, when I told both our viewers that Steinberg kills himself trying to put the Caps on a par with the Redskins in the D.C. sports hierarchy.

I was kinda joking, but the guy hasn’t missed any Rock the Red-ness during the team’s Dimaggio-like streak. He’s promoting mythical media biases and fictional player feuds! He even makes a hero out of the GM for riding a train.

The result of all this hype: I can’t wait for the next Caps game! And there’s no Twitter or Facebook component to my anticipation. It’s all from reading Steinberg!

But where was he in 1974-75?

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*Full Disclosure: I appeared with Dan Steinberg for nearly a half-hour on cable TV recently

Story tips? Wanna Play the Feud? Tube amps for sale? Send to: cheapseats@washingtoncitypaper.com