The Washington Redskins are great at making news in March. Thankfully for the rest of the league, they have not yet figured out a way to make any news at all in the playoffs.

Owner Daniel Snyder, who laid off 20 employees in January, signed Titans defensive tackle Albert Haynesworth to a reported seven-year, $100 million deal Friday with $41 million of that guaranteed.

Redskins fans have to love Snyder in the spring. It's the fall where they turn on him. Snyder bought the team 10 years ago. They made the playoffs that first season (1999), winning one playoff game. They've won one playoff game since. The Redskins had two winning seasons in the nine played in this century -- they were 10-6 in 2005 and 9-7 in 2007.

At least when George Steinbrenner threw money at players, they won.

Football, though, is not baseball. You can take a left fielder from the Pirates and plug him into left field at Fenway Park without worrying too much about chemistry or whether he fits into a certain type of offense or defense. That's not necessarily the case in football.

Mr. March has not yet figured out that what he owns -- a football team -- won't necessarily get better just because you throw money at it.

It's amazing how quickly the Redskins and some other teams reached megamillion contracts within moments after the NFL free-agency period began at 12:01 a.m. Friday.

It's as if they were discussing contracts for days leading up to the start of free agency. But that could not happen, because the NFL has a rule against that. It's called tampering. So, when Washington's Snyder had lunch with the agent for Haynesworth at the NFL combine the week before, they were not permitted to discuss the player or terms of an impending deal.

Roger Goodell has acquired the reputation as the law-and-order commissioner. But owners such as Snyder continue to rub it in the NFL's face when it comes to tampering before free agency begins, and nothing is done about it.

It's time to either put some teeth behind the rule or remove it entirely and allow teams to negotiate with agents before the official start of free agency as they do now anyway.

NFL Films has done a great job for many years and gets credit for helping increase the popularity of the game. It does not need to follow the low path it did when it dishonestly made a cut in the Steelers' recent highlights from the Super Bowl.

As shown in the abridged version of the Super Bowl on the NFL Network and on the DVD released this week from that game and the season, NFL Films spliced in a comment from Steelers tackle Max Starks as his offense was about to start a series with 2:30 left and trailing Arizona.

Starks is seen saying, on the sideline, "We got this. We are built for this. We are built for this."

Trouble is, that's not when Starks made that comment. As noted by several sharp readers, the game clock in the background as Starks was talking read 5:28. That is the time when Arizona's offense began a series that ended when the Cardinals punted, forcing the Steelers to take over on their own 1-yard line.

Surely, NFL Films did not need that Starks comment to enhance the drama that was unfolding. It makes you wonder how many other times, in how many other highlights films from seasons and Super Bowls, they have done this.

People in Pittsburgh have long noted that there was such a spliced clip in the Immaculate Reception replay that has been shown probably more than any other by NFL Films. Before the start of the play that's been judged the most memorable in league history, NFL Films shows the Steelers breaking the huddle. There's one problem; the center breaking the huddle is clearly Ray Mansfield. The center who snapped the ball to Terry Bradshaw on the most famous play in NFL history was Jim Clack, and you can see that in the next clip as Bradshaw drops back and Clack protects for him.

Again, was there not enough drama taking place at the moment of the Immaculate Reception that NFL Films had to be dishonest about it and use a film clip that was not true to the event?

Or, change the name to NFL Creative Films.