There remains a feeling from some at Redskins Park that the national NFL audience doesn’t understand exactly how terrifying last Sunday’s bus accident was. Here’s Coach Jay Gruden, describing the incident to Comcast SportsNet’s Chick Hernandez.  “It was hairy,” Gruden said. “It wasn’t just a fender-bender. It was, maybe, for the bus behind us, but they had a good jolt on us. And after we got hit, our bus driver lost the brakes. And we were coasting down this cliff which would have taken us to another freeway — our bus would have flipped a couple of times and we would have landed on another freeway. We were about four tire revolutions from going over. Luckily the bus driver looked up at the last second and yanked it and then we went over the barricades. It was pretty scary there for a minute.”  With catastrophe narrowly averted, it goes without saying that the Minneapolis Police Department is trying to figure out what went wrong with its police escort on Sunday. And as part of that effort, the MPD is temporarily halting its NFL escort program. Via a statement provided to local station KSTP:  “An escort program was reexamined a few years ago and a specific policy was established to escort NFL teams. This policy detailed recognized best practices and a process for safely escorting buses and players. There is an internal investigation regarding Sunday’s incident that prohibits us from commenting on it specifically. We can tell you that we are currently reevaluating the process and will not be providing any escorts until that reevaluation has been completed.”  According to a Minnesota State Patrol accident report, the MPD officer involved was Yolanda Wilks. According to that report, she was at the rear of the motorcade, and told police that “she was ordered to pass the motorcade and re-position in front of the first bus.” But she “used the grass median to pass,” and “she started to lose control of her vehicle as she crossed the grass median.” She told police she then “spun out of control and crashed into the guardrail.” The first team bus braked, but the second rear-ended the first.  The station reported that the officer suffered “very minor injuries.”  Dan Steinberg writes about all things D.C. sports at the D.C. Sports Bog.
Until an internal review is completed, there will be no more police escorts for NFL teams visiting the Vikings.