Earning the No. 3 quarterback job for the Redskins would be no small feat for former Mizzou star Chase Daniel. The incumbent, Colt Brennan, appears to have plenty of upside.

But Daniel is taking his best shot. In his first preseason appearance, Daniel completed 6 of 8 passes for 58 yards and two touchdowns. He also scrambled for a 22-yard gain.

“Chase had a wonderful night,” Redskins coach Jim Zorn told the Washington Post. “I was excited for a guy not getting a lot of reps to perform with some poise. Just like every second group out there, they want to do well, and they certainly did.”

Daniel and Brennan are competing for the spot behind Jason Campbell and Todd Collins. He looked like a rookie when he lost his mouthpiece right before taking his first NFL preseason snap.

“Mid-cadence, I’m saying ‘Green 80,’ my mouthpiece falls out, and I catch it, right above the center’s butt,” Daniel told the Post. “I’m going, ‘Oh my God, I can’t stop with it,’ so I throw it behind me about 10 feet. And ‘Green 80′, get the snap, get the handoff. So I don’t have a mouthpiece for those three series. Pretty bad.”

Afterward, Brennan and Brennan chatted it up.

OCHOCINCO, MAN OF ALL SPORTS

When Bengals receiver Chad Ochocinco filled in capably as the emergency placekicker, he talked up his love for soccer. And because he using boxing as one of his off-season training tools, he also fancies himself a fighter.

In fact, he talked some smack about WBC welterweight champion Andre Berto.

“So when I get in the ring and knock out Berto, and people are like, ‘I didn’t know Chad could fight,’” he told The Sporting News. “I just told you.”

Berto had this response for BoxingTalk.com: “Chad Johnson, Ochocinco, or whatever his name is, the two of us have been going back and forth for a while behind the scenes. But now that he’s gone public, I’m giving Boxingtalk the exclusive first response and I’m here to say that when his season is over, which should be before the playoffs start, I’ll give him the beating of his life and show him the difference between kicking footballs and getting your ass kicked. By the time I’m done with him, he’ll want to change his last name to No Mas! If he’s serious, I’ll give him the business, but if you ask me he should worry about making sure he scores more points this season as a wide receiver than an extra point kicker!”

Here is what Berto of capable of.

Ochocinco needs to take a look at that clip before he gets any more serious about boxing.

MYSTERIES OF THE UNIVERSE

Questions to ponder while wondering if the Red Sox have anybody they want to give the Cardinals for the stretch run:

• Did Will Venable really want to tick off Albert Pujols? Is there much future in that?
• Can Todd Wellemeyer learn something by watching John Smoltz reclaim his lost season?
• Now that Tim Lincecum has stopped winning games, is Chris Carpenter the man to beat in the Cy Young Award race?
• Say, was that really Michelle Wie helping the U.S. win the Solheim Cup? Is she finally living up to the hype?
• Isn’t it nice to so many hopefuls eager to play for Jim Haslett?
• Don’t you just hate it when your cellphone is mistake for a gun?
• Cubs manager Lou Piniella wants to come back in 2010, but is that really a good idea?

WHEN YOU’RE BAD, YOU’RE BAD.

And the Mets are bad. So is anybody surprised their ninth-inning rally against the Phillies Sunday afternoon ended abruptly with an unassisted triple play?

That has only happened one other time in baseball history, back in 1927.

Mets outfielder Jeff Francouer hit into the triple play, crushing a line drive up the middle with the runners on the move. Phillies second baseman Eric Bruntlett broke to cover second base, snagged the line drive, stepped on second base for the second out and tagged in the incoming runner for the third out.

“It’s crazy,” Francoeur said. “That’s all I have to say. It’s so disappointing.”

QUIPS ‘R US

Here is what some of America’s leading sports pundits have been writing:

Greg Cote, Miami Herald: “Memphis must vacate all 38 victories from the 2007-08 Final Four season for using an ineligible player thought to be Derrick Rose, the news shaming coach John Calipari, now at Kentucky. Kentucky vs. Louisville will be an historic matchup this season as cheat-branded Calipari and sex-scandalized Rick Pitino set an NCAA record for most combined embarrassment.”

Norman Chad, syndicated columnist: “ESPN officially changes its call letters to EFPN (Entertainment & Favre Programming Network) on Sept. 1.”

Scott Ostler, San Francisco Chronicle: “If I’m Usain Bolt, I go out right now and hire a live-in chemist. The only thing that stands between this kid and acclaim as the fastest man in the history of the universe and a physical marvel is a positive test for some banned substance he ingested after borrowing a tube of toothpaste or woofing a bowl of tainted oatmeal.”

Mike Lupica, New York Daily News: “When the Jets traded for (Brett) Favre, they were desperate to be relevant again and desperate to sell some PSL’s. He helped them do both. Did Favre use them, on this weird route to Minnesota? You bet he did. But the Jets used him, too. Jump ball.”

Mark Kriegel, FoxSports.com, on John Calipari dodging accountability for the Memphis violations: “Sounds as though the NCAA has vacated common sense along with Memphis’ record. Yes, I know Calipari wasn’t individually charged or investigated. But if the infractions were serious enough to expunge a school’s Final Four season, then the guy who runs the team for that university . . . should bear some real responsibility. So, too, should the university that hires a coach with an investigation still pending. Instead, Calipari was rewarded. He may not be a cheater, but he had almost 32 million reasons to look the other way. Now the NCAA wants me to imagine that Memphis’ 2007-08 season never happened. It’s much easier to imagine Calipari being introduced as the next coach of UCLA, just weeks before Kentucky vacates its next appearance in the Final Four.”

MEGAPHONE

“Once I got hit, I felt great. I like getting hit, I like getting dirty, and after that first hit that I had–I don’t know what it was on, I think I threw the ball away–I was ready to go. So it was fun out there, it was a blast.”

Daniel, on his NFL preseason debut.