"Uncle Dan, who's Joe Theismann?" Bryce asked Snyder later. Snyder told Bryce, as he had dozens of times before, that he was not to be called "Uncle Dan" or "Uncle Daniel" or anything, but "Mr. Snyder." The owner sighed; there were fees to extract, and he was here talking to the snot-nosed tyke in the size kids' medium Chris Cooley jersey. Finally he told him: Theismann was a legendary Redskins quarterback. Played at Notre Dame. Terrible communicator, amateur chiropractor, surprisingly decent singer of old-style, crooner-y vocals. "I found this," Bryce said proudly, holding up the contract. "It has his name on it."
And the old contract was indeed Joe Theismann's, dated 1985 and fully authentic, right down to the contract clause that required John Riggins not to dry any of "his pelts" within 100 feet of Theismann's locker. (There had been some unpleasantness.) Daniel's brother-in-law and Bryce's father Gary, who had just returned from shooting clay pigeons—Snyder paid Rex Grossman $400 per pigeon to heave skeet for VIPs, on the caveat that he "throw the shit out of them, not lollygag it"—begged Snyder for a copy of it to hang on the wall of his garage workshop.
Gary had grown up not being much of a football fan, but it had long been his dream to "own" another human being; he'd been bugging Snyder to "give him" John Beck for weeks. This paperwork was the closest he figured he'd get. As they went to the color copier, the two looked over some of the fine print of the contract. Snyder stopped and whistled to himself. "Well, holy shit," the owner said. Gary hoped that whatever Snyder was so fired up about wouldn't impact the John Beck thing; he had some plans. "Gary," Snyder said, "says here that Joe Theismann, even though he's retired because of a near-crippling injury, actually owes the Redskins another year."
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